Challenge Your Limits.

College is the time in your life when you need to make a choice. A choice between sleep, good grades and a social life. You are allowed to choose two.

For example, it is impossible to sleep eight hours every night if you strive for good grades and partake in a healthy dose of social interaction.

This is a dilemma, I, as do most other college students, have a difficult time coping with.

The week before finals, between Monday morning and Thursday night, I had compiled approximately five hours of sleep. I became delusional and started cramping up, it was rough.

When my parents picked me up from the airport in Iowa, the first thing I said to my mother was, “How long can you go without sleep before you die?” She just laughed and carried on with a previous conversation.

The fact is, it is possible to die from sleep deprivation, once you stop experiencing inevitable micro-naps your body will literally go into a coma. 

For teens and young adults, it is imperative they get enough sleep. Their minds and bodies are still growing, and for proper development- sleep is necessary.

Some sudents abuse prescription drugs to remain awake for days without sleep, others simply pull all-nighters with strength alone. Regardless, sleep deprivation is creating an unhealthy college environment and is rapidly endangering students eyerywhere.

Hey! Wherever you are, whatever you are doing- stop, and go take a nap.

“Hey fatty, you’re taking up too much room. You should probably eat less or you’re going to die soon.”

“Hey smokey, you’re polluting my air. You should probably stop smoking or you’re going to die soon.”

What’s the difference between these two accusations? Nothing. They are both factual to some degree.

Regardless, one is more socially acceptable. It’s ‘ok’ to call people out for smoking but it’s rude to comment on an individual’s weight. 

Both affect my life.

I am not a chain smoker but I have smoked, and I am no longer obese but I am overweight.

The other night I was lying in bed examining the similarities and differences between eating unhealthy and smoking tobacco based on the topical knowledge I already had, and a curiosity struck in me to research and find out, based solely on fact, which behavior is worse for a person.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body” whereas obesity affects more specific functions like your heart, breasts, colon, blood pressure, cholesterol, liver, gallbladder, respiratory system, bones, joints and for most women, gynecological processes like menstruation and pregnancy.

I think it’s safe to say obesity harms nearly every organ as well.

Though no positives exist in the world of obesity (unless you’re striving to win a sumo wrestling championship) a small perk can be found with tobacco use.

Smoking has been proven to increase your metabolic rate, or metabolism. “It turns out that the average smoker weighs four to 10 pounds less than the average non-smoker even if they have the same levels of exercise and food intake…Increased appetite is a common withdrawal symptom after quitting.”

So which is worse, experiencing a false-hunger craving and smoking a cigarette or hitting the Taco Bell drive-through and loading up on empty calories?

One in three Americans are obese.

“If obesity continues to rise, by the year 2020, 20 percent of all health care spending will be on obesity related diseases and conditions.”

Smoking is more addicting to adolescents because their bodies are more sensitive to nicotine, which explains why approximately 1,000 minors become daily smokers every day, according to the Surgeon General.

Unhealthy eating habits are more attainable for all ages because you don’t need an I.D. to order a Big Mac. Some minors do smoke and it is not very challenging to get cigarettes or other tobacco products underage but unhealthy eating can literally start at birth; smoking typically begins around pre-teen years or later.

“What’s really alarming is how rapidly healthy practices declined by the time the participants reached young adulthood” stated the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in a press release regarding growing minors and healthy lifestyles.

Well, which is worse?

Parents will feed their four-year-old French fries but would never allow him or her to smoke a cigarette.

Smokers, many models for example, would puff away on cigarettes before ever entering a Wendy’s restaurant.

Who’s right?

The cold hard facts show smoking to be the winner. As of right now, smoking is worse for a person than unhealthy eating habits and inactivity.

But wait! Slow and ‘heavy’ may win the race.

According to The Washington Post, “Tobacco still ranked No. 1, accounting for about 435,000 deaths, or 18.1 percent of the total. But poor diet and physical inactivity were close behind and rapidly increasing, causing 400,000 deaths, or 16.6 percent. That represented a dramatic change from 10 years earlier, when tobacco killed 400,000 Americans (19 percent) and poor diet and physical inactivity killed 300,000 (14 percent).” 

If anyone ever invents edible cigarettes- we’re fucked.

Life is a playlist. 

Every emotion has a lyrical companion to comfort more than any friend can. Music never abandons us and it has the ability to speak directly to a soul.

I often feel like a specific song was written for me.

Music allows us to relate to one another.

Music lets us know we are never alone.

Lady Antebellum’s lyrics from their song “Never Alone” provides us with words to evoke courage through bad times by singing, “As much as I want it, I’m not going to promise that the cold winds won’t blow. So when hard times have found you and your fears surround you, wrap my love around you, you’re never alone,” and unfailingly reminds us we’re never alone.

A song can warm the soul when the world is ice cold.

No artist can express heartbreak like Adele. When I feel played or used, I turn to her song “Best For Last” and belt out the lyrics, “But, despite the truth that I know, I find it hard to let go and give up on you. Seems I love the things you do. Like the meaner you treat me more eager I am to persist with this heartbreak, running around, and I will do until I find myself with you, and make you feel the way you’ve never felt before.”

Her words are relatable to 90 percent of the relationships I’ve had. When I find myself chasing the ‘bad boys’ who are completely wrong for me, I turn to Adele for advice. I can relate with her completely though she has no idea I exist.

When I feel I’ve hit rock bottom, I tend to turn to melodies equally as depressing. Knowing other people can, and do, feel as helpless as me gives hope for improvement. Simon and Garfunkel, a popular two-man band from the 60s, wrote a song that seems to describe my lonely days in their entirety. “I Am A Rock” tells a story where isolation from painful circumstances is the best way to avoid them. “I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried…I have my books and my poetry to protect me…and a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.”

In my opinion, no band has encompassed the entire spectrum of emotion like Rascal Flatts have. When I’m in pursuit of motivation, the lyrics to their song, “When The Sand Runs Out,” gives me a major boost every time. The words describe a man’s realization that he needs to stop wasting his life and instead choose to really live. They sing, “Because people do it everyday, promise themselves they’re going to change. I’ve been there, but I’m changing from the inside out. That was then and this is now, I’m a new man, yeah, I’m a brand new man. And when they carve my stone they’ll write these words ‘Here lies a man who lived life for all that its worth.’”

The rest of the lyrics to the song are so meaningful and completely relatable, at one point or another, to every single person alive. For a song to reach such a vast population, and perhaps even change lives, is an everyday miracle many overlook.

Life is a playlist.

Whether I am sad, lonely, excited, perplexed, relaxed, angry, in love or heartbroken, a song will be there for me to empathize with.

Whenever and wherever, melodies will always be there see me through.

Music lets me know I am never alone.

(Source: azlyrics.com)