Students must remember to take care of all facets of their health and wellness in order to succeed this semester and always.
Many of us don’t regularly exercise, eat nutritious foods, get seven to nine hours of sleep each night or take time to properly unwind after a long day or a long week.
“Without your health, what else do you have,” questioned Dr. Nicholson, a board-certified OB/GYN physician, last year during a meeting for the American Medical Women’s Association.
Early on as an OB/GYN, Nicholson was working most hours of the day and was sleeping about four hours a night. His health was left on the backburner while life was passing by. His declining health made him reevaluate his lifestyle choices, and he wanted to share his experiences so students could learn from them.
As stated by the World Health Organization, health is defined as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Wellness, on the other hand, is a constant push towards a healthier lifestyle. There are many dimensions of wellness — physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, environmental and occupational.
Without investing equally in all dimensions, it may become more difficult to find a balance. It can be difficult to balance all dimensions at once, but the ongoing process is a learning experience at the very least.
We should be making habits, learning from them and then making changes accordingly. Adolescence is the best time to build these healthy habits that we will carry on through adulthood.
Overcoming these barriers from day one is key to having a happy and healthy academic and overall experience at KSU. Our university is our community — it is what we make of it.
Students should take advantage of campus resources such as Counseling and Psychological Services, Health Promotion and Wellness and Student Recreation and Activities Center. We already pay for licensed psychologists and dieticians to help students with health concerns, so why not invest in it daily as we already monetarily do.
Join a group exercise class, go to a cooking demonstration and look out for other events around campus. We are all at different points in wellness and we can give and take from each other. If you have questions along the way, don’t be afraid to reach out. Your health is worth so much more than you may think.
