As the stress piles on and you're trying to keep yourself sane throughout those long and hard hours of dreadful homework and studying, you might start to see yourself losing momentum. You don't want to succumb to the feeling that you've lost and have failed to meet the expectations. But, you feel like you've hit that low point where the sleepy eyes and aching muscles have overpowered you and you fall asleep. Sadly, this may just be the beginning of a long week or so. Before you know it you realize that you've had a headache every day that week, no more than five hours of sleep, and exercise and constant hydration just aren't helping enough.

While life may have become a little harder to manage since you've started college and the daily stresses of life get in the way of completing important tasks, you have to remind yourself that your health is just as important as that eight-page paper due tomorrow. I remember having all of these feelings last semester like it was yesterday. Literally. Yes, while this still happens to me even now, what I experienced my first semester was nothing I ever asked for. But, the problem is, I didn't do enough to change anything about it. It is important to keep in mind that you will probably endure these challenges throughout the rest of your college career.

College students are much more susceptible to getting sick and feeling that way for weeks, depression, anxiety, and bad dietary habits only contribute more to make you feel worse. It can become super easy to distract yourself from these feelings and emotions, but that's why it is so important that you pay attention to what you need to be doing to help yourself. Having a decent sleep schedule is a major factor and affects all of these symptoms of the common ailments of college students. Eating a balanced diet and almost any form of physical activity can help, and so can maintaining good hygiene and study habits.

Last semester, I never had more than six hours of sleep on a weekday and I didn't drink enough water. I have always loved soda, but I had more than my fair share at school. I had awful eating habits, and even though I was on the treadmill seven days a week in the evening, I never paid attention to everything I was doing wrong. While I had a decent sized class load, along with a few tough classes, I would somehow manage to be in bed by 12:30 a.m. and stay on my phone until 1:30 a.m., and be up by 7 a.m. And to top it all off I had 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. classes too.

It is crucial that you keep up with your personal health in college. Once you start ignoring your body and how you are truly feeling, it will be even harder to feel better. Think of yourself as someone who wants to be happy when you accomplish those hard tasks. Chances are if you constantly aren't feeling your best, it probably won't get any better without you making some changes. College is a time where you will feel so independent and in charge of yourself. However, you cannot just settle with an attitude that you can do whatever you want and you'll be fine. Every adult has to learn at some point that paying attention to what's extremely important will be a major key to success at any time in your life, and personal health is one of them.