For the First Time Ever: I Can Feel my Deteriorating Health

On a typical weekday I get 4h sleep and I rarely feel noticeably tired. Here are some of the things I do without having to take caffeine unless necessary:

1- Get a 10,000+ lux light box and blast it at your face for 1h during the afternoon and half an hour at night. This will trick your body's circadian rhythm into thinking that it is daytime during those respective hours, slamming down your melatonin levels, significantly raising your energy levels and mood. The downside is that you'll likely have some trouble sleeping at night if your second instance of light exposure is less than five hours prior to your bedtime. If used methodically, you can also pull all nighters with little hassle.

2- Patrick nailed the diet bit. Stay off the garbage you're currently eating and have a protein rich diet instead and throw in some creatine and ginseng supplements.

3- Squeeze in at least 30min of cardio exercise everyday, preferably mornings. Despite being sleep deprived, you'll feel re-invigorated.

@StudentLoanBackedSecurities you definitely need to take care of your health. The pace you are going (in undergrad no less) is not sustainable. Especially not if you intend to work in banking afterward. Keep in mind that rough patches happen but that they pass. If you feel you have too many activities to juggle and your health is suffering, then it might be time to scale back a bit. Try to determine what your most pressing priority is. If the firm you are interning for will offer you a full time job, then make sure you do what you need to do to get an offer from them and it's ok if you don't absolutely nail all your midterms as long as you don't let your grades drop too significantly. If your middle market shop isn't going to offer you full time employment, then you should just work hard enough to keep up your reputation so that you can get great recommendations but don't kill yourself because it's not worth it.

Keep in mind that your health needs to last you the rest of your life and you have the rest of your life to make money, but if you ask most older folks, they would give anything to be able bodied and back in college again...

But what do I know anyway... I'm 19 haha....

Also, Skrillex is an innovator... Don't hate too hard!

I think you kinda answered your own question. Eat healthier. Salads and stuff like that. Run once in a while.

StudentLoanBackedSecurities:

Monkeys,

I also do not exercise, and have not even thought of going to the gym, nor have I been in about a year. I eat like shit, and think of eating as a liability because of the lost time. I usually just order the fastest and easiest thing I can get, which is usually some sort of crap chinese food or the equivalent. Most days, I skip a meal because I "forget" to get one.

U need to find some sort of exercise that you enjoy. Personally, when I find time, I will go find a game of pickup soccer. Also eating healthier can simply mean cutting out fast food. Try to incorporate some fresh fruits like bananas and apples as a snack. Also less fatty foods, and maybe even lower your carb intake. Also, avoid Chinese take out, it is a killer haha.

It's very difficult to find food that is healthy, convenient, and reasonably priced, and I think we can all identify with the conflict of working long hours while trying to stay healthy. Check out a food product coming out in December called Soylent:

https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body

I am not endorsing it (obviously, since it hasn't come out yet), but it is intended to provide quick, complete nutrition for times whenever you would otherwise eat unhealthily due to time constraints.

Drinking one bottle of water a day is extremely unhealthy and is probably your main problem. You should aim for a bare minimum of half a gallon of water a day, more preferably around a gallon of water a day. Also, eating healthy is not hard. Buy some chicken and cook 6-8 breasts at a time in the oven (no work needed), buy some rice and invest in a rice cooker which takes 20 minutes to cook with no work needed, and buy some microwavable bags of broccoli from any grocery store. Your body and more importantly your brain are not performing near its potential because of your lack of water, diet, exercise, and sleep.

You are in undergrad, take your foot off the pedal a little bit before shit gets out of hand at an age where you should be in the best shape of your life.

Ketogenic diet, multivitamin, d3, fish oil, exercise when you can. HIIT is awesome for the time constrained. Best of HIIT is sprinting.

you are struggling with undergrad? GL on wall st!

Thanks for all the good tips. I am going to start easing in to all of this first thing tomorrow

Can multivitamin supplements reduce the effects of an unhealthy diet?

I'm a junior currently also, and I have a fairly busy schedule (balancing being an officer in 4+ orgs as well as upcoming summer recruiting) but have the luxury of not having a job.

These are the things I do to keep my health in shape:

1. Eat at least one solid, healthy meal a day. This will consist of chicken breast/pork chop/steak + brocoli/spinach + potatoes/rice.

It only takes about 15-20 minutes to make and it makes me feel invigorated afterwards. I'll have a protein shake, and other less healthy foods throughout the day.

2. Exercise/Team sports. I'll get a group of friends to go play racquetball, volleyball, or basketball. You need to stay at least semi-fit, and running around and playing sports with some friends keeps you in tune with your social side.

I'm currently in undergrad as well, agree with what the others said. I can sort of relate, not so much to the stress (though school can suck sometimes) but the need to make a change with my health. I've dropped about 45 pounds in less than two years and it wasn't that hard (IMO). Now I don't have a 6-pack or am in amazing shape but I look so much better now.

Sounds like we are similar in our attitudes on food, I really don't care what I eat now as long as it doesn't taste awful and doesn't take a huge effort to make. I try to stay away from junk food but I realize that can be impossible in college, so I just try to limit it. And I tend to go a little overboard when I am back home visiting and have mom's cooking at my disposal haha. But moderation is key.

What I do now is buy chicken, ground turkey and high lean beef (like 97%) at the store. I mix the beef and turkey together and grill them with the chicken. Add a little mustard to the turkey burgers and they are pretty decent. Prep and cook time take less than an hour and I just put them in the fridge. I usually have plenty of food to last me through the week this way (just zap it in the microwave).

I realize you are on the go a lot but you can go for grilled chicken/something turkey when you eat out.

When I was interning over the summer I would try to drink at least 3 nalgenes full of water (100oz +) during the work day alone (8ish hours). I was pissing like a racehorse half the day but I hardly did anything at that job.

I try to exercise 3-5 times a week. I'm focusing on strength now but cardio would probably be good for your energy levels (I'd still say try to mix some strength training in there somewhere). Try to fit something, anything really, into your schedule.

Good luck!

Heres a simple suggestion...stop taking so much adderall.

I didn't read your post because theres very little to know about the variables YOU can affect to secure good health. 1) Lift weights minimum 2-3 times per week and have a DECENT diet (High protein mostly whole foods, but not all) 2) Sleep 6-7 or however many hours you need minimum per night 3) Drink alcohol in moderation 4) Smoke (weed or cigs) in moderation. 5) PROFIT

If you are seriously messing up in any of the above they will ALL be negatively affected and you should get them all square before you spend time stressing about OTHER ways to improve your health. These truly are the only ways to consistently maintain health.

You sounds like an overclocked computer without enough energy. There is a reason why they cap our com and laps because of the energy stability.

1, The amount of energy: you are not getting enough of that calories man. A normal man needs 2500 cal and those working intensively need like 3000 / 3500. You eat like one or two fried rice box a day? Lol that like 1000 at best You also seem to have low metabolism so you will need to eat even more.

The worst part is that you body will not tell you that you are tired so but gradually try to adaptly space out the lack of power through underclocking your body. If you pay attention you will realize some drops in your concentration level over the period of the day. Is that a good working time? No. Right now you are working at 70% - 80% of your capped ability at best.

Solution: eat more

2, The speed at which energy is transferred: This is where exercising and good diet come in. First of all, good diet allows you to burn calories more consistently. Stuffs like Protein, complex carbs and fiber burn slower and give you more calories. On the other hand, simple carb burns quicker and turn into fat faster after the spike in your metabolism. Training is another thing. Don't think that training is a waste of time. Going to the gym will increase your metabolism, blood pressure and health rate. All will work to increase blood flow to your BRAIN and burn calories to gain energy.

Solution: eat right and start training asap

In the end, I don't think that IB or any other thing can be more important than health. IB can wait but your health can't. In your shoes before, just not worth it.

Yea I'm not a doctor but you gotta sleep dude. It makes all the other stuff easier.

You'll do more in less time if you sleep, eat and exercise properly. You should be sleeping AT LEAST 6 hours per night unless work completely necessitates doing otherwise and you should be doing a MINIMUM of 30 minutes of cardio 3-4 times per week. You can eat quickly and not THAT heathy as you're young but you really should not be eating junk/fast food all the time. You'll die young if you do that. It's literally worse than smoking - actually, it's worse.

Why is this website turning into Bodybuilding.com?

Yes, we should all move past dubstep. Let's just forget it ever happened.

Seriously sleep is actually really important - I'd cut out an EC or two, maybe drop a class you're not enjoying. Even just an extra 2 hours a night will go a long, long way. Drink more water (just say "no soda/pop for the next 5 days") and take a weekend off from partying.

Give that a shot and see how it goes.

Google Pareto principle... and maybe some nutrition 101, or you'll die before you even make it into the coveted sphere of "high finance".

Get a girlfriend (or slampiece, if you can't commit)--preferably one from the South. That will take care of the the diet problem... although make sure she doesn't cook like Paula Deen;that won't help your situation.

Lol at step 5 PROFIT

http://blog.bufferapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/brain.png

frgna:

Lol at step 5 PROFIT

TwoThrones:

Why is this website turning into Bodybuilding.com?

u aware?

I'd stop feeling gerunds and use the extra time to get some exercise in.

wish i can eat chinese everyday, all i have is dorm food

This is a ridiculous post. For such a self proclaimed hard worker it should not be difficult to spend some time researching proper ways to take care of your body regarding sleep, exercise, and diet....you don't know what eating healthy is...what does that even mean? Use your head. When would eating exclusively fast food, not drinking water, not sleeping, and not working out ever seem like a good idea? (it is one thing to knowingly subject yourself to this mode of operation, but you seem to claim that you are not even aware this type of activity is not conducive to good health!).