There is nothing worse the the inevitable fear of getting sick that comes as the weather gets cooler.
If you manage not to get sick between now and December, kudos to you and please teach me your ways. But unfortunately, most everyone will get sick at some point.
I am currently writing this while wearing sweatshirt, laying under two blankets and waiting for my room mates to return to our apartment with chicken noodle soup for me because — you guessed it — I’m sick. Clearly I don’t sound like the best person to take health advice from, but I do know how I got to this point. So here are my tips on staying healthy this fall (AKA: everything I didn’t do).
1. First, and most importantly, SLEEP. I know it’s hard to find the time between homework, extracurriculars and trying to socializing, but it is so important that you get as many hours in a night as you need to be a functioning person the next day. I know it’s tempting to do literally anything but start your homework until after midnight the night before its due, but you will just hate yourself by the time 5:30 a.m. rolls around and you still need one more page to your eight-page paper due in your 11 a.m. class.
Oddly specific, but exactly what I did the past TWO Thursday nights. Because apparently I didn’t learn the first time.
Also, try to stay on as much as a sleeping schedule as possible. Having a schedule will make you feel better and perform better throughout the day. But sometimes, things are out of our control and we have to break our schedule. For example, I spend Sunday-Thursday nights in The Daily Free Press office, and I often don’t get home until about 12:30 a.m., sometimes later. So my sleep schedule is bound to be thrown off, especially if I have to finish some homework after I get home. However, other things, like watching two extra episodes of Gilmore Girls on Netflix can most definitely wait. Go to bed! You will be so happy you did.
2. Take your daily vitamins! My mom sent me all my vitamins via Amazon at the beginning of the school year. Have I been taking them? Only sporadically. Take your vitamins everyday and keep that immune system up!
3. Speaking of immune system, make sure to get your Vitamin C. As soon as I felt like I was getting sick, multiple friends told me to drink Emergence-C or orange juice. I can not stand the flavor of either, so I completely ignored that advice. Now I regret not toughing it out, plugging my nose and drinking it. So listen to the friends I didn’t listen to and make sure you are getting your Vitamin C.
4. Don’t spread yourself too thin. I tend do more things than I can usually handle, and usually thrive off of it. But there comes a point where you just need to step back and relax. Being wound so tight running from one thing to the next is exhausting and will take a toll on your psychical, and sometimes mental health.
Now that you know exactly how I got sick, I urge you not to make the same mistakes I did — please take care of yourself! There is nothing more wonderful than Boston in the fall, so don’t miss it by being stuck in bed.
