Chapter 3- Stress

This topic is extremely important for all, but especially for our age range since 11.4% of college students reported tremendous amounts of stress. I would say 100% of college students have experienced some level of stress though. I experience stress of course with school, work, and social factors, but had not one clue about how the body responds. I found it quite interesting how there is a process for the body when it encounters stress. When in the first/alarm phase, The body enters the fight or flight response as your body begins to function differently. When you brain understands you are in a stressful event, it triggers an autonomic nervous system response that regulates body function including heart functions and breathing. Its interesting to know this happens because I always felt like it was me tweaking if my heart started racing and breathing gets difficult. Another interesting part in the chapter was the fact that you can lose hair from being stressed. It is commonly from chronic stress, but is crazy to me stress also has many physical effects. Lastly, I really appreciated all the techniques provided to manage stress since I was under the impression you just need to stop thinking about it and take deep breathes. I specifically liked the technique to moderate goals. If you are shooting for unrealistic goals, you will be stressed forever trying to reach somewhere you cant go. Good sleep is yet another technique that I need to utilize for many things as this is not the first chapter its mentioned to help.

Regarding my health aspect, Things are going decent. I am still happy with the amount of days I am getting to the gym and don’t see that changing, however I feel like I can improve my energy and stamina while there. I am considering taking pre-workout before all workouts, although there is one major problem with it. I often go to the gym at nights between 7 and 8, and know it would likely affect my sleep so I’ll have to pick my poison.

Regarding the nutrition side of my health aspect, I have been better. I ordered out a few times this week when I was lazy all day Sunday. I even found myself eating 3 bowls of cereal late last night. This is supposed to be open so I’ll admit, I have a hard time resisting the munchies. It actually is probably the number one reason why I am not as consistent as I’d like to with a healthy diet. Another reason why I am not where I want to be is due to my decisions on weekends. First off, Having drinks is not healthy to begin as they have lots of calories and carbs and build up quickly. Secondly, I tend to chose an easy option such as takeout or a frozen meal. Lastly, there are weekends I will be visiting a friend or family member and you don’t always have a choice what to eat. However, I am happy with a few things regarding my diet. I have been making healthy fruit smoothies more often at my apartment for a late night snack or for breakfast. I just bought a new package of frozen fruit for them and its my favorite yet (picture posted below). Lastly, I have been absolutely guzzling water. This week I have been drinking around 1.5 gallons a day. The reason being that I can stay hydrated since I get headaches if I’m not, and its tremendous for muscle recovery.