Say goodbye to the sun & the sand–or Netflix & that bowl of ice cream! However you spent your summer, it’s drawing to a close, and it’s time to break those bad habits you’ve developed!
Here are the 10 habits you’ve gotten into this summer and how to break them:
1) Binge Watching
With Netflix, hulu plus, and HBO Go, every episode of your favorite show is available to watch nonstop to your viewing pleasure! You have a ton of free time, so you can just watch one after the other, and not have to wait like the plebians during the normal school year. 11 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy? No problem. Breaking Bad super suspensful? No wait! But it’s time to close the laptop, and get out there in the real world.
In order to no longer constantly watch your favorite show, you’re going to have to follow in the footsteps of your favorite characters. Be a Parks & Rec Executive, start making meth for extra cash, get arrested and wear a new orange prison jumpsuit, all to avoid the Red Wedding. Or, set a schedule for yourself to watch one episode a week like everyone else.
2) All I do is eat, eat, eat no matter what
So you may have already had a bag of chips…and some cookies…and nutella, BUT WHAT’S A LITTLE MORE CHOCOLATE?? There’s no concept of time during summer so there are no designated eating times. So you just snack when you feel like it; nothin’ wrong with that! But it’s probably good to get back on a schedule. This is an easy fix. Every time you successfully pass up a snack, reward yourself with a gooey brownie! (Or, erm, think of some other incentive…)
3) Up All Night
The rules of the world don’t confine you! If you wanna stay up till 3am, that’s totally fine! You don’t have anywhere to be in the morning. To break this habit, just start singing hit songs such as “Up All Night” by One Direction and “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk until it’s no longer cool to do so. You’ll be so sick of late night talk, you’ll go right to bed. Of course, if this doesn’t work and you’re still staying up late, it’ll only encourage the next bad summer habit:
4) Sleeping the day away
You stayed up all night, but no worries. Not having to get up early is one of the greater parts of summer vacation. You could sleep till 2pm if you wanted. But then of course, you’ve wasted most of your day. It’s time to end this cycle. Force yourself to wake up at a normal time and go for a run to get some energy! This will give you plenty of time later in the day to take a nap. Or two. And if you find yourself still sleeping most of the day, you’ll have to learn to not stay up as late (see number 3).
5) Tanning
Winter is coming…and you’ll no longer be able to sit in the sun and become a bronze beauty. Instead of wasting money on fake tans, just make a full conversion to the vampire lifestyle. Let your paleness take over, start wearing lots of black, file your teeth until they look like fangs, and of course, drink lots of blood. Muahahaha!
6) Not doing any work
Your brain isn’t used to reading textbook chapters on binomial probability, or writing 12 page papers on Nietzsche. So to get back in the swing of things, start writing a 3-5 page response to the tweet of your choice every day. #SCHOLAR
7) Lack of communication with acquaintences
Let’s face it, you’ve spent more time making up excuses to not go out with friends of friends so you could stay in and watch Big Brother than Caleb spent obsessing over Amber. Start sending texts to those casual pals to remind them of your epic friendship (Like that one time you walked past each other & waved!) Here’s an example text: “Hey, ____! Hope your summer was good, can’t wait to see you again & pretend to care about what we both did all summer!”
8) Not wearing clothes
You spent the majority of summer in PJs, bikinis, and boxers. Pants are for squares. Unfortunately, society views this differently, so in order to respect their wishes, break out the parka. It’ll help for the shift in seasons anyway.
9) Forgetting to shower
“I’ll just shower after this episode…ok maybe one more…”
“Man, I just got back from a crazy day…it’s so late…I’m just gonna crash now & shower in the morning…”
“Aw, come on, mom! I was just about to go in there! Guess I’ll just wait a little longer…”
Do any of these sound familiar? It’s time to start gettin’ wet, folks. Just do it. Get in there. Clean yourself up, and get back out. You won’t regret it, and people will probably thank you for it.
10) Making your life seem 10 times more interesting on social media
You aren’t with your school friends 24/7, so the only way you know what’s going on with each other is through the likes of facebook, twitter, & instagram! But we all know that filters can make even a gloomy day look interesting…or a couple added adjectives on twitter make a lame evening sound hipster and cool. Now that you’ll be around your friends again, they’ll totally call you out on your bluffs, and it’s back to the day to day grind of instagramming that kid who falls asleep during class, and tweeting complaints about the school’s shitty food. Eh, who are we kidding, our lives rock! Favorite if you agree.