By Charles Kleinman
Ever feel like you’re running on empty no matter how much you sleep, how little you exhaust yourself or how hard you try to recharge? Like your body’s at school, but your mind checked out weeks ago? If your daily routine feels more like survival mode than student life, you’re not the only one. Studies show that 50% of all college students report daytime sleepiness compared to 36% of adolescents and adults. Moreover, 60% of college students report feeling tired and physically fatigued at least three days a week. Anyone who feels this way knows the toll it can take on a college student’s life.
Perhaps your grades are slipping due to an inability to study for exams, or your shortened attention span creates an immovable obstacle for retaining information discussed in class. Another factor that may be affected is your relationships, where you’re constantly feeling too drained to spend time with friends or family because you don’t have the emotional and physical energy. This can lead to depression or loneliness. Well, the good news is that these feelings are entirely normal, and if you make just a few lifestyle changes, you can erase them.
Like any other condition a patient may have, the symptoms must first be tackled. The first and most apparent factor that contributes to fatigue is a lack of sleep or poor sleep quality. The most accepted scientific belief is that a young adult must get eight hours of sleep nightly to function at their best; however, 70.6% of college students are considered sleep deprived, reporting less than the eight-hour requirement.
This ties into the next cause of burnout: stress. While stress and pressure can create diamonds, they can also affect a student’s sleep quality and daytime energy. Therefore, it makes sense that college students rank stress as the number one factor negatively impacting academic performance.
Another main contributing factor of a lowered immune system, sleep deprivation and overall lower energy is due to nutritional deficiencies in students’ dietary consumption. Due to students’ sparing finances and time restrictions, college students often opt for fast and cheap meals such as pizza and pasta or skip meals entirely, leading to nutrient deficiencies. According to a study of fifteen universities in the United States, only 40% presented healthy dishes, with convenience stores lacking any healthy items such as low-fat products, fruits or vegetables, instead providing salt-dense snacks and sugar-filled candies. Furthermore, research shows that higher consumption of soft drinks and trans fats among college students presents a clear correlation with a lower GPA and academic achievements compared to those with a balanced diet consisting of fruits and vegetables. When sleep, stress and nutrition are all out of balance, it’s no wonder college students feel like they’re running on fumes. But by addressing these root causes, we can begin to restore both our energy and our academic potential.
Now that you know the causes of your emotional and physical hardships, what can you do to fix them? The first lifestyle change you should try implementing is an earlier bedtime. We college students tend to leave studying and assignments for the last minute, causing us to sacrifice good sleep for our assignments. Instead, ask yourself if there is time during that day that you could be using to complete your studying and assignments so that you can mitigate the amount of work you’re doing at night. Also, though a few late nights out with friends is entirely normal and could actually be healthy for your mental well-being, like anything, it is good in moderation. I’m sure you’ve also heard countless times that screen time before bed could be detrimental to your sleep quality, and while there is not much research to support these claims yet, the practicality of getting extra sleep instead of the entertainment on your screens is much more beneficial physically and mentally in the long run.
The subsequent lifestyle choice all of us students should be considering is our diet. While the restaurants in our area do serve tasty options, it is essential to keep an eye on what we’re actually putting in our bodies. If you find that meals you’re eating throughout the week mainly consist of fried or carb-heavy foods, you may want to try and hold back on these options as frequently as possible. Instead, your diet should include balanced meals that promote your energy, immune system and academic capabilities, such as fruits, vegetables and lean proteins.
The last area of focus should be stress mitigation. As college students, we have no shortage of stress, but it’s important to participate in activities that you find emotionally rejuvenating occasionally, whether this means going to the gym, playing basketball, going out with friends or watching your favorite television shows. Nobody knows you better than yourself, and sometimes all it takes is a little push to achieve what you want to achieve and to feel how you’d like to feel.
Let this article be your push. Perhaps you’ve heard these ideas countless times, but if you have not tried to implement them, I urge you to try. Put these strategies into practice for just one week. If you notice even a small shift in your energy, focus or mood, you’ve already taken the first step on the path back to your best self.