Seeing as September is slowly but surely approaching, I thought it would be best to reflect and share some healthy habits I’ve formed at university, which have helped me tremendously in all areas of my life.
Wake up as soon as your alarm rings
Ah yes, I understand it might be tempting to press the snooze button or lie in bed an extra 10 minutes to make up for spending all night on Netflix but hear me out. Hitting the snooze button has an effect on your neurology, typically when we sleep out brain goes through 3-4 sleep cycles that are about 75-90 minutes long. After those 3-4 sleep cycles your body begins to ready itself to wake up; so by hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep, you are initiating another sleep cycle which will be abruptly interrupted. This will affect your mood, making you feel lethargic, grouchy or tired. A good way to practice this habit would be to set your phone in an area where you would be forced to get out of bed or even counting from 5 when your alarm rings.
Get active outside of your academia
This is very important not only for your social skills and CV but it also helped you learn more skills and expanding your network. Employers want to know that you are flexible in different environments and you’re able to be proactive. An example of this would be to obviously join societies or even the Lincoln award. If you want to take it a step further you could sign up as a society course rep and other such activities.
Take advantage of learning FREE resources
The university has plenty of beneficial free learning resources utilise them because they’ll boost your CV as well as knowledge. A few great examples of this include the careers centre or even LinkedIn Learning which has a plethora of free videos on understanding LinkedIn, Adobe creative suite etc. Learning software like these, even if they are unrelated to your degree will boost your employability chances.
Develop tough skin
Okay, this isn’t a habit more so a personality trait but I sill think it’s worth going on the list. Learning not to take criticism or peoples behaviour personally will help you avoid a lot of stress and drama – not every action deserves a reaction.
Set some time for yourself
As busy as life at uni might get, it’s important for you to spend some time with your and feelings. I know self-care can be used as a buzzword nowadays but at its core, its a useful and healthy concept to adopt. Self-care could include eating healthy or going to the gym, it could also include meditating or reading. Changing your mindset on these issues will also help with motivation to do them, so for example instead of saying “I don’t like going to the gym” you could say to yourself “ I deserve to have a healthy body so I can spend as much time as I can with my loved ones”.
There are many more healthy habits you could pick up tailored to your needs but I wanted to share mine and make them as relatable as possible, I really hope if you do try one or more of these that they impact your life in a way as they have mine.
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