Photos by Anyusha on Pixabay
A photo that shows a stack of many papers pushed to the side. This symbolizes procrastination and the act of pushing one’s work to another day.
Dear rising high schoolers: Complete your assignments
Being a junior at Athens Drive High School, I have had my fair share of late assignments. Especially during the pandemic, due to my lack of motivation, I almost didn’t turn in any of my work and nearly failed. Due to this, my parents had a talk with me about the situation and it inspired me to take my education more seriously. The following year; sophomore year, most of my work was turned in on time. I had a few late assignments but all of my work was turned in. During this year; 2022-2023 I had 17 missing assignments in a singular class.
Throughout the semester at the start, I had an “I can do it later” attitude. I continued to procrastinate on all my assignments because I didn’t have the motivation to do so in class and thought: “I’d just do it when I got home for homework”. But then I’d go to work and by the time I got home, I was too exhausted to complete it. This had caused so much work to pile up that I was stressed at just the thought of sitting down and completing it all.
After going through this cycle of procrastination and stress you would think I would have learned my lesson by now. But no, this cycle of procrastination continued. This resulted in having to stay up all night finishing what would be about 30 missing assignments that would be due that same night. I got all I could get done but I came to realize that most of the assignments that were missing were physical paper assignments. I had searched for a long time for these copies of the assignments but it was no hope. I had lost them.
Before starting my missing work I found myself overwhelmed and stressed about what was to come. Yet when I sat down to finally get all my missing work done it was a fresh breath of air into my lungs. A wave of relief washed over me as all my stress eased. This response makes sense due to procrastination stemming from a person’s stress. McLean Hospital’s article “Why you put things off until last minute,” states that “procrastination is not laziness; it’s a behavior caused by stress in our lives or unfounded negative beliefs we have about ourselves.” This is why whenever you attempt to do assignments you procrastinate over a long period of time you encounter a feeling of immense stress.
Procrastination is not just pushing aside incomplete assignments; it is pushing aside your stress piling it together into one horrid creature holding you back. Collecting a large amount of stress to deal with all at once can negatively affect one’s mental health greatly. It is better for not only your grades but your mental health to do your assignments on time and not procrastinate them.
Still, it can be daunting having multiple assignments due on the same night and only limited time to complete them. So if you do decide to leave an assignment for the next day or have piled up missing work, the best thing to do is to take it one step at a time. Do each assignment one at a time and if you need to take a breather after one that is ok. It is ok to take breaks between your work if it helps relieve stress. Every assignment you complete is an achievement no matter how big or small.
If I had known that stress was causing my procrastination I wouldn’t have done it as much as I did. After all, it didn’t relieve my stress, it only pushed it aside for me to take in all at once. So next time you think about procrastinating just remember that the stress will only grow the more and more you do. So if I were you, I would go ahead and complete your assignments.
How to develop a healthy diet (and actually keep it)
Being brought up indulging in processed foods and eating out five of the seven days of the week can get tiring, physically and mentally. Lots of people struggle to find the time or money to eat a healthy, well balanced diet. While it may seem hard it’s surprisingly easy to find the right diet for yourself, Many are just uninformed of the secret to it all.
Taking it step by step and slowly adjusting is the best way to go. Step one is to do your research and find out what is best for you. Not what’s best for your favorite instagram model but specifically for you. We are all made differently and our bodily functions are also made differently. Furthermore what works for someone may not necessarily work the same for the next.
Realizing that some foods can end up harming you long term or that are already affecting you negatively, is probably going to be the biggest game changer in helping you with wanting to actually reform what you decide to put into your body. What you eat can end up giving you diabetes, heart problems and can lead to obesity. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but if you can prevent it from happening, it’s best to prevent it as soon as possible.
I witnessed my father go from a healthy person to someone with diabetes who can’t walk from one room to the next without having to catch his breath. This didn’t happen in one day. It was an accumulation of eating out and forgetting about fitness. It isn’t about the way he looks but merely about his health.
Some positive effects of improving your diet range from healthier hair, skin and nails, lengthens lifespan, decreases cholesterol and blood pressure along with lowering your chance at developing type two diabetes. There are many other great benefits that should be researched in this process.
You don’t have to immediately change your entire diet at once, but slowly taking out certain foods or replacing them with more beneficial foods little by little will help that new regime stick. Some people have a goal to stop eating by 6. If they normally stop eating at 9 they can reduce the time they eat by 30 minutes every week until they hit 6, and it usually sticks because their body becomes accustomed to that routine.
Some words on nutrition labels you should look out for when choosing what to buy are calories, cholesterol, fat, sodium, carbohydrates and protein. You should look for products that are low in sodium and cholesterol. Carbohydrates, calories, fat and protein are all nutrients that you should decide to choose from by finding out what macros are best for your body type.
If you know you’re going to be busy during the week, prep your meals beforehand. Prepping and planning will help immensely because it gives you that certainty of what you will be eating on a certain day at that certain time. Dedicating just three hours to prepping and planning will put you on the right track with managing your diet.
None of this has to be done in a matter of a day. Changing a habit and finding a new diet could take anywhere from 18 days up to a year. Keep it in the back of your mind that this will contribute to your long term health and trust the process that comes with it.