Jensen College Basic Training

Strengthen Your Mind and Body to Leap Any College Hurdle
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9905789-3-2
Verlag: Swan Fitness Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 132 Seiten

College Basic Training is a be-good-to-your-body guide for young women in college or going off to college. The colorfully whimsical and easy-to-read chapters offer life-changing wellness tips in a lighthearted, casual, and humorous narrative. Written by a personal trainer and health coach, College Basic Training gets straight to the point when it comes to exercise, nutrition, body image, media distraction, substance abuse, sex, mental health, safety, and more. Included are eye-opening personal stories of trial and tribulation, illustrating the tools needed to avoid or overcome adversity and pressures that come with college life. This book will guide you, your daughter, or your granddaughter toward a healthy lifestyle and a positive future. It might even save a life!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jensen, Susan

Leseproben

Chapter 1

Media Distraction and Time Management

How you manage your minutes and hours will make or break you—no joke.

When my neighbor’s son first moved into a college dorm a hundred miles from home, he could hardly contain himself. Freedom, independence, parties, cute girls, new friends, no parental nagging!

He forgot about all the times his mom had bailed him out when he was living at home. When he lost his keys, she had helped him get new ones, awakened him when his alarm didn’t go off, and edited his papers and fixed his printer minutes before his assignments were due.

He was surprised to see that clean, folded clothes don’t magically appear weekly and that access to food could often be a problem in his dorm. He had to be bummed when he realized he couldn’t skip a test he wasn’t ready for because his mom wasn’t there to bail him out with a note. When he became sleep deprived and sick from pulling all-nighters, he had no one to supply him with medicine or make his doctor appointments, either. Also, he learned that leaving his clothes all over the floor didn’t fly in a 10’x10’ dorm room he shared with someone else. Moms will usually forgive you, but a roommate may kill you or, at the very least, abandon you next semester!

Highs and lows during college are abundant for most students. Juggling challenging class work, friends, and work or group involvement can be overwhelming. If you couple that with sleep deprivation, drug or alcohol use, and poor eating habits, life can reach an all-time low.

Those who like structure and organization probably fare pretty well, but for many young people, being organized, managing time, and handling media distraction is a big challenge. Some of the tricks to managing stress might seem obvious, but until you actually try them, you won’t be convinced they can change your entire college experience for the better. In addition, your GPA will be lookin’ good!

My goal is for you to be healthy, happy and successful! Disorganization can lead to a really unhealthy life that may include sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. People who don’t develop decent study and time management skills usually struggle to fit in the components of life that add to our wellness, such as attention to healthy eating and exercise.

Although this topic is not very exciting and engaging, learning how to make an efficient plan is one of the first things you must do to be successful. If you’re tempted to skip this chapter, do it at your own risk because it contains information that could make or break you in college and beyond!

Media distraction or obsession

Girls, are you constantly looking for that next photo you can post on Instagram with your cute friends? Is that tray of sushi too irresistibly beautiful not to show your Facebook community immediately? What about that steaming, creamy Caribou latte? Who wouldn’t “like” that?

Does your boyfriend thrive on this unspoken competition between the bros on who can post the “sickest” photos or the funniest tweets? Oh, yeah, we all know the dudes love to get a reaction. Just remember, real men don’t have to post photos of liquor bottles! You tell ‘m girl!

Once the photo is up, are you obsessed with seeing how many “likes” you have? After it’s been up for a while, are you anxious about whether your roots look bad or your forehead is too big? When you are at a family dinner or a meeting where you know it’s not kosher to have your phone out, does feeling the “buzz” in your pocket make you anxious? Does it take all the willpower you have not to look at the phone screen? Or, when you don’t have your phone on you, do you feel a phantom buzz?

How often do you totally miss parts of conversation or even noteworthy material from a school lecture because you’re texting a friend about Thursday night’s plans or checking Facebook? You may even be guilty of shopping on eBay during class. Now that’s a distraction!

Have you ever bumped into someone while you were walking and texting? Or worse yet, walked into a moving vehicle? I’m sure this has happened somewhere. Do you hang out with your phone all night? Do you check it when you wake up at 4 a.m.? Or do you wake up at 4 a.m. because someone else is calling you with unnecessary drama they may or may not remember the next morning? Are your negative tweets not really messages to the world, but underlying communication to an X?

This is exhausting! I know not all students are deep into social media. However, if you are over-the-top interactive, such a preoccupation can have some serious, negative consequences. You may not even realize where you stand on the media-obsessed continuum. I strongly suggest you look at your habits closely and ask yourself these questions.

• How much time in a day do I spend messing with unproductive social media?

• Does it cause me anxiety?

• Do I miss segments of conversation because my phone distracts me?

• Is it causing me to be rude to my friends and family?

• When I’m trying to study or focus, is it getting in the way of my concentration?

• Is it feeding my procrastination?

• Am I using it for the wrong reasons?

• Is it affecting my sleep?

• When I am driving, am I compelled to look at my phone or constantly change the song from my play list?

Social media can be very stimulating, exciting and irresistible! Media addiction is not too dissimilar from drug and alcohol addiction. Some of us have a difficult time resisting things that make us feel good, no matter what the long-term consequences. For example, some people are able to have a couple of drinks or refrain from alcohol completely when it’s necessary, but others feel the need to continuously sip on something regardless of their responsibilities. Can you put your phone away for extended periods of time when you study, or are you compelled to have it on, and near you at all hours of the day and night?

Anthony Wagner, co-author of a study done at Stanford University, states, “Each time we get a message or text, our dopamine reward circuits probably get activated, since the desire for social connection is so wired into us.”1 Dopamine is the “feel good” chemical, so it’s no wonder some of us can’t get off Instagram!

I know you think you are a great multi-tasker, but I’m not sure there is such a thing as even a good multi-tasker! The truth is no matter how good you think you are at doing two things with the same part of your brain at the same time, some information will go missing! Scientific evidence shows that students who are interrupted by media technology while studying aren’t taking in the class material nearly as effectively as they could. The constant interruption causes the information received to become spotty or fragmented and not stored in the memory as deeply. Material recall is worse, and it is difficult to transfer the information to other contexts. Mistakes increase because the brain has to regroup and pick up where it left off before the interruption.2

I’ll never forget the compassion I felt when a student told me a story about missing a very important presentation due to a brief distraction:

After learning a life lesson about bad attendance last semester, I was finally diligent about attending my entrepreneur class all this semester. In this class our grade was to be based on one project, which we worked on for two months. It included a final oral presentation.

We concocted a business idea, and I helped pound out a detailed business plan. I personally put in long hours creating our website and Twitter account. We then carried out the duties of our creative service, which we were proud to share.

Our big day finally came; I had stayed up all night to finish the last details of this important presentation and was exhausted. Business leaders from all over the community were coming to hear our ideas and determine if we might be worthy employees for their internship programs or businesses.

I was going to nail this! I struggled to find the most appropriate business attire and even put the iron to the shirt on my own! I was ready, so I thought. I walked into the lecture hall and saw my group finishing up our presentation.

It turns out that I missed a minor detail in class: we were scheduled to present one hour before the class period usually started! I turned white as a ghost and felt faint. WTF! My heart sank. I had let my whole team down and embarrassed myself in front of the most influential business leaders in the city. My instructor just shook his head at me, making the situation more horrifying!

Needless to say, my grade sucked in a class that I had put the most time into. I tend to learn a lot of things the hard way. I now realize that when I am in class I need to be “present” both mentally and physically. This mistake will haunt me for the rest of my life!

—Taylor, age 20

Dr. Larry Rosen, author and researcher of media distraction in our culture, has written a book called iDisorder. He defines iDisorder as “changes to your brain´s ability to process information and your ability to relate to the world due to your daily use of media and technology resulting in signs and symptoms of psychological disorders—such as...