College is a lot of fun, it’s fast-paced, and there is always something going on. However, when you never stop moving, it can become kind of difficult to make smart, healthy choices.

Let’s start with food.

The dining commons has healthy options, but like why have a salad when you could have French fries? It is way too easy to indulge when the food is readily available and supplied in endless amounts. Not to mention, when you’re out with friends until all hours of the night, you’re likely to get hungry again and the options available to you in the middle of the night are hardly ever healthy ones. Don’t forget about when you can’t make it to meals, and your best option is some Easy-Mac or Ramen. The combination of all of these things can lead to some pretty unhealthy eating habits, but that’s not the only problem.

Exercise.

Boy is that difficult. It’s hard enough to get enough motivation to go to the gym, but when you’re at school there’s an endless supply of excuses not to go. “I have too much homework”, “I don’t have enough time today”, “I don’t want to miss out on what my friends are doing”, etc. You have to have a lot of willpower to pull yourself away from the ever-moving environment of college just to get some exercise in.

Sleep.

Well, I think this one can be pretty self-explanatory. You go out too late with friends the night before an 8:30am class, you stay up late doing homework, you work overnight shifts (okay, maybe that’s just me), but it’s easy to fall behind on sleep, especially when you don’t want to miss out on anything and you want to make sure that you keep up on all of your academics. Sleep often times becomes less of a priority.

Organization.

My room goes from being spotless to being a pig-sty in half a day. When you run in and out of your room and drop stuff on the floor, or you quickly eat food and don’t wash the dishes, or don’t have time to make your bed or put your laundry away, your 10ftX12ft dorm room gets very messy very quickly. I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but I cannot focus on ANYTHING if my room is cluttered, so I have to clean my room every 2 days if I plan on getting any homework done. But then the next day it’s messy again. It’s a frustrating cycle.

Balance.

Here’s what I mean by this; sometimes it gets very difficult to find a balance between your social life and your academics which is essential to living a healthy life in college. If you focus too much on academics, you’ll become a hermit who always stays in their room. If you focus too much on your social life, you’ll fall behind on your academics. This balance is one of the hardest adjustments you have to make in college.

All of these things put together will make it difficult for any college student to live a healthy lifestyle, and if you’ve found something that works for you that’s great, but don’t feel discouraged if you haven’t quite figured it out yet.