Our office is located less than 3 miles from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of working with students and staff from WWU.
Students come into the clinic with an interesting array of issues and factors that contribute to their problems.
Some examples include:
- Lower back pain from carrying heavy backpacks,
- Neck pain/strain from sitting for hours in classes or typing term papers,
- Headaches resulting from school stress, relationships, neck issues and college eating habits,
- Hip and shoulder issues from college sports and recreation,
- And more…
Although we take a holistic Chiropractic approach to these issues, we find specific lifestyle habits that can help people gain long terms results.
How To Get and Stay Healthy in College
The Huffington Post wrote a very appropriate article titled “10 Tips to Stay Healthy in College” that stresses the importance of developing healthy habits as students in order to pave the way for staying healthy throughout life. Although most of the habits in the article are valid, at Color Chiropractic we feel that these top three habits are most important for the health and well being of our college students. We’ve included highlights from the article along with bonus tips from our experience.
1) Drink lots of water:
- Staying hydrated can help your concentration and keep you from overeating
- Always choose water instead of soda, and bring water with you while you walk to class.
- Bonus: It’s best to work your way up to drinking half your weight in ounces. However, don’t
drink it all at once and if you’re working out, drink more.
2) Get enough sleep:
- Sleep deprivation can lead to reduced brain function, fatigue, headaches and weight loss or gain.
- College students need between seven and nine hours of sleep
- Consider napping to get refreshed and keep your room dark and quiet before bedtime.
- Bonus: Give yourself 30-60 minutes of non-study time before bed. Decompress and feel the
gratitude for the things that you accomplished that day instead of focusing on what you didn’t do
or what still needs to be done.
3) Eat Right:
- Eating a healthy diet can help boost students’ immune systems, help students to maintain a
healthy weight and can improve their overall health. - Always eat breakfast. This may be difficult when you’re rushing out the door to get to that 8 a.m.
classes, but grabbing a granola bar or banana goes a long way in keeping you from overeating throughout the day. - Bonus: The latest research on Intermittent Fasting (IF) sheds new light on “breakfast being the most important meal of the day”. Studies show that fasting can help increase your metabolism, help you lose weight and may be a consideration for the increasing number of diabetes.
Reducing the Stress of College Life
College can be a stressful experience for lots of students. Being away from home and family life presents an array of challenges and dealing with the social and academic pressures are a whole different animal from the stressors that middle-aged working adults have. Over the next 3 weeks, we will be helping our students to:
- Relieve back and neck pain while in class
- Decompress school stress
- Avoid the Freshman 15
If you’re a college student or have a child that will be attending soon, follow these next few articles and gain information and resources you/they will need to avoid years in pain succeed with successful health habits in college and beyond. You can also consult with us if you have specific problems you think we can help.
In service,