Establishing a healthier routine goes further than trying to achieve the perfect body. A healthy life can’t depend on going viral online. Regulating sleep, the food you eat and introducing physical exercises on a daily basis are beneficial not only to the body condition but also improving the performance on the rest of lives dynamic such as the academic. In a world ruled by velocity and the internet, the idea that self care doesn’t imply only aesthetics but also mentally gets lost.
People end up putting practicality over health when looking for high yield, and with students it’s not different. Choosing quick-to-prepare meals, not practicing exercises and sleeping less to “gain” time for studies end up being decisions that actually harm academic performances, entering a vicious and malefic cycle for your body and consequently to your studies.
Can food help a student’s performance in school?
Researchers from University of Alberta, in Canada, carried out a study with more than 4 500 students that revealed that the ones with a diet based on fruits and vegetables showed less probability of failing a test than those with a diet rich in fats and processed food. Fast-foods, fats and sugar interfere with memory and learning issues.
Furthermore, these foods lack nutrients such as iron, fundamental in cognitive development.That doesn’t mean that in order to achieve good academic results you need a restricted diet. A balanced diet, knowing to manage the amount of fat and sugar ingested and valuing proteins, carbohydrates and fibers on a daily basis provides an improvement in the individual’s disposition not only when it comes to studying, but also in emotional issues and other practices such as sleep.
Sleep is not only for when you feel tired
The Healthy People 2030 establishes objectives and goals of public health to upgrade the well-being of North Americans. In it, there are a lot of sleep-related objectives, showing that regulating this practice and paying attention to it, improves individual development in other areas of life, like academics.
In a society moved by productivity, sleeping became overrated. Going to bed only after finishing all tasks and spending the night studying have become students’ habits due to the high demand required by colleges. Putting sleep in the background has become normalized, even though it is during sleep that information is consolidated in memory.
With that, as explained by the psychologist Gabriela Azevedo, the lack of sleep interferes significantly with the concentration capacity and consequently in obtaining new information and remembering knowledge already learned, compromising the entire learning cycle.
Physical exercises are an ally to the academic life
Constantly, the practice of physical exercises is seen as just being a way of improving the appearance of the body. However, studies show that turning sports into a habit improves mental health and academic performance. A paper published in 2016 on the scientific magazine Current Biology evidences that exercising helps pin knowledge. They made tests that prove that doing exercises four hours after studying helps absorb what was learned.
As Azevedo points out, the fact that sports help develop the executive functions of individuals, which involve impulse control, the ability to seek less obvious solutions to solve a problem, the ability to manipulate information while performing a task and stimulate focus and discipline. Physical activity becomes an ally for academic life, since all these functions are also used in studies.
A good night of sleep, diet and exercises have to stop being neglected by society. They make it possible to combat mood problems, lack of energy, emotional instability and difficulty remembering new information. A healthy routine cannot be seen only as a way to improve body shape. Practicing it repeatedly in a way that makes it a habit allows its consequences to reach all areas of life.
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The article above was edited by Larissa Prais.
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