Keeping Off More Than The "Freshmen Fifteen"

As a freshman in college, some of our biggest fears are doing well in school, making friends and the dreaded freshmen fifteen. Working out and eating healthy are great ways to maintain a healthy weight but this is not the only reason you should be consistently working out. Working out is a natural endorphin releaser and when endorphins are secreted, your body begins to feel restored, naturally.

For most, living in a new environment with a rigorous class schedule and added social pressures can be extremely demanding, making you not feel yourself or work to your highest capability. Exercise is a great way to combat that stress by releasing additional pressures. Working out can make you sleep easier and ease anxiety created from day to day. It is a great idea for college students of any age to cut out a block of time for exercising, whether it's running on the treadmill, swimming or playing tennis, anything that can get your heart rate going will help you to minimalize stress. Not only does it reduce tension, working out boosts your attitude. In fact, this natural mood booster is so powerful that it works just as well as prescribed medicine.

Not only will exercising boost your mental health, it also has the potential to help learn more effectively. If you exercise before you want to sit down to do work, you will be more capable of concentrating, participating and retaining information. It is a great idea for students to work out after classes to release energy left over from the day, or boost energy that was drained earlier which will enable you to work more successfully.

Through keeping yourself fit, you will also simultaneously be decreasing your chances to become sick. Throughout college, sickness is very easy to develop and very difficult to cure due to the constant flow of students throughout campus. With a motivation of fitness and wellness, students are more likely to take less sick days and will be preventative of having to catch up with any work missed during the illness. Classes are hard to make up once you’ve missed a few, so the best way to avoid this is by focusing on your personal wellness to steer clear of any preventable sick days.

It is very easy to loose sight of your personal well-being in college due to late nights in Howie T, an unlimited buffet at Bruff or late night munchies at The Boot, but by adding just one hour of exercise into your daily routine, you too will soon see the maximal benefits for completing such a simple action.