As college students, finally being off on our own often means picking up new habits that we never had to think about before. Most of these habits, however, fall in the category of bad habits. From keeping a messy dorm room to relying a bit too much on alcohol, we all find ourselves on one part of the spectrum at some point during our college career.

 

Some of these “bad habits” really don’t affect our overall lifestyle on a serious level. Procrastination seems to be a huge issue for students, but usually only leads to high levels of stress and sometimes anxiety. However, some habits can have serious consequences. Texting and driving is often an outcome of being constantly tangled up in our social lives. Other habits fall somewhere in between.

 

Our eating habits are often determined by our lifestyle at the time. One common eating habit in college is stress eating. Being constantly overwhelmed with assignments and prioritizing can easily lead to picking up a bag of chips or a gallon of ice cream and going to town. Brady Thompson, senior Interdisciplinary Business in Engineering major states, “Taco bell is a horrible habit and I just went there today. Some days I just need Taco Bell in my life and today was one of them.” Another problem is skipping breakfast to gain that extra click of the snooze button or trying to cram in a last minute homework assignment before class. Rachel Bowden, senior Biology major, shares, “I skip breakfast just about every day.” These eating habits can become a norm and quickly affect our health on top of other factors that affect us on a daily basis.

 

Sleeping habits can quickly become poor once students get in the swing of staying up late doing homework just to wake up a few hours later to do it all over again. We try to make up for our lack of sleep with ample amounts of caffeine and self-affirmations, but crash and burn as soon as we come down from these highs. Bowden continues, “I also picked up really bad sleeping habits where I average 5 hours or less a night and try to ‘make up for it’ on the weekends I’ll set my alarm for an hour and a half before I actually wake up because I like hitting snooze.”

 

The common stereotype of college drinking is actually a reality to a large number of students. Bowden confesses, “I definitely drink as a reward like after a hard exam I’ll go out to the bar and have way too many drinks and I think that’s an awful habit.” Even when we see a problem with some of our habits, we often become stuck in our ways and allow them to continue. One anonymous student shares, “Drinking is a bad habit. It’s my favorite one though.”

 

With all of these bad habits in our lives, it’s normal to think that we can’t do anything to change our ways. However, with a little readjusting we might be able to fix a few things to change for the better.