Lifestyle, in short, refers to the manner in which a person leads his life. It includes the way of eating, studying, working, spending free time, being socially active, connecting online with others, taking care of self, etc.
Each one of us has a lifestyle that is different from the other as we all have distinct likes and interests.
Looking at our own lifestyle makes it relatively simpler for us to understand how our lifestyle has evolved over time
Right from the moment we wake up, the first thing we do is check our phone. Then, we attend class, study, work, connect to our friends, hang on to our studies, watch videos, spend time outside but also end up wasting hours on our mobile phones. Not only has our lifestyle evolved but our lifestyle today is hectic than what it used to be.
Today, we find our lifestyle having both positive and negative features. On the one hand, we have technology that is making our lives very easy but on the other hand, we are also extremely dependent on technology. We have greater options than ever but we also have greater expectations that come with added responsibility. Hence, a balanced lifestyle is something that is really important for us, especially, during these formative years of our lives.
Our Daily Lifestyle
Our lifestyle today is very different from the days of our parents. Their lifestyle was simpler as they were more focused on work. Our lifestyle today includes studying, attending class, doing projects, going out, meeting friends and so on. Apart from academics, we also like to spend our time with our mates, watching movies, listening to music, traveling or even chilling at times but it’s hard to manage all of this.
In fact,
we don’t always get the time to study or work if we decide to spend our free time going to a party. Sometimes, we make a plan for an effective and highly productive day but eventually, our plans go down the drain. We say that we will study for 2 hours but in the end, we watch reels for the whole day. And that’s how all of us lead our lives right now.
I wouldn’t say that there is something wrong with my lifestyle. The truth is that it’s important to have fun and relax. What I believe is that it is important that we get the balance right so that we can study and work hard, earn enough to support ourselves and still have time for fun and relaxation.
Social Media and Our Lifestyle
It is impossible to imagine our lives without social media now. Social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and other apps, are helping us connect and even discover new things.
To me, the pros of social media outweigh the cons. I find social media a great way of interacting and connecting for professional and other purposes. Social media helps us learn new skills, search for a mentor, study different subjects, search for job clues, and stay updated on the go. And as an aspiring student, social media provides the perfect platform to market my skills, talent, and other achievements.
Research by Naslund et al. also highlights that social media can provide opportunities for sharing personal experiences, seeking information, and offering peer-to-peer support, while also presenting potential risks and harms to mental health. The authors therefore emphasise the need to balance the opportunities provided by social media with appropriate safety precautions. [1]
On the other side of the coin,
social media has made us lazy. We can spend hours on our phones without realizing how much time we have wasted on trivial issues. We may find ourselves comparing our lives with what we see on our feeds. A person may look amazing, have a fantastic car, a great relationship or a fantastic career. All they show us is what they have and not what they don’t have.
That’s how social media can affect our mood. If that isn’t bad enough, social media can dictate our likes and dislikes too. The bottom line is that we must enjoy social media without letting it dictate what we think of ourselves.
Food and Our Lifestyle
Lifestyle is also defined by the kind of food we choose to eat. As a young person, the last thing I would want to do is forgo my burger, pizza, or any other fast food that I love. We also fancy cold drinks and snacks. In short, there is nothing wrong with the kinds of food we like as young people.
We also enjoy hanging with our friends. However, a major concern is that we are making unhealthy food choices in our everyday diet.
I am a firm believer that a healthy lifestyle does not call for total avoidance of the food we like. It only calls for moderation and making sure that we have a balanced diet. Having a healthy lifestyle simply means that in addition to the foods we love like junk food, fried foods, processed foods, etc., we should also include fruits, exercise, water, and other healthy meals that promote good health.
It could also mean that even if we are busy with work or studies, we should try to avoid buying fast food meals most of the time and try to cook healthier meals at home. Instead of drinking too much soda, we could drink more water throughout the day.
All of these small efforts could go a long way in contributing to our health and wellness.
Fitness and Physical Activity
A very big portion of our lifestyle is also defined by the amount of physical activity we participate in. With all the hustle and bustle of our modern lives, many of us are left with little or no time to work out in the gym regularly. That’s why we should not overlook the amount of time we spend sitting while studying, attending classes, working on laptops, or using our phones.
A study by Edelmann et al. involving 4,351 university students examined physical activity and sedentary behaviour among university students. The study highlights that students’ everyday lives are characterised by sedentary activities such as attending lectures, classes, seminars and studying. It also notes that previous research across 32 studies found that university students spend an average of 7.29 hours per day sitting. [2]
That doesn’t mean that we can’t exercise to enhance our health and well-being. There are also other relatively simple ways we can exercise such as riding, walking, dancing, playing football or any other sport in general, and so on. In fact, exercising could become a hobby if we make it a point to do it more.
Fitness activities can be fun if we are able to engage in them with friends. For instance, we can make the gym our hangout spot or we can even play football, cricket, and other sports. It can also be a good way of getting some extra time to relax, unwind, and get active after spending a long time working or studying.
A balanced and healthy lifestyle also entails good sleep hygiene. In many cases, people, especially young people, do not value sleep. We stay up late at night and go to bed early and this negatively impacts our overall well-being. Some of us can also suffer from insomnia so we cannot have a peaceful night’s sleep. However, lack of enough sleep negatively affects the whole day as we do not get proper rest to help us face the next day.
A recent cross-sectional study of 175 medical and health sciences students found that 73.7% of the participants reported poor sleep quality. The study concluded that poor sleep quality was a common issue among the students and highlighted its relationship with academic success and overall well-being. [3]
The easiest way to ensure that we get enough sleep is to invest in a proper sleeping pattern. We could keep away our mobile phones from a certain number of hours once we go to bed. These little changes that we make to improve the quality of our lifestyle have to be simple and should be achievable.
Friends, Family and Relationships
When speaking of our lifestyle, we are bound to forget an important part of our life which consists of people that cross paths with us and have some impact on our lives. Friends are a crucial part of our life. They always come with good company; be it chatting, traveling, shopping, studying, or any other fun activity that we do in our free time. Our friend circles give us someone to lean on during times of need. College life also grants us the privilege of meeting so many new people on a daily basis with whom we can build long-term relationships that will last almost forever.
However, as much as our busy schedules leave us with very little time, it is important to always set aside sometime for family. We need to acknowledge the value of healthy relationships so that the bonds of love, togetherness, happiness, respect, and everything else that makes life worth living can flourish.
In fact,
even in the middle of a hectic schedule not getting time to communicate with family and see them physically can still be avoided. For example, we could still spend physical time with them while dining or even watching something together. Similarly, we don’t have to go out of our way to get time to do something special for the people we care about. Sometimes, a simple interaction with them is sometimes enough.
Taking Time for Ourselves
One of the biggest flaws we have as people is that not enough of us take a pause to relax and rejuvenate ourselves. In our quest to achieve everything under sun, we hardly get time to slow down and enjoy life.
Taking a break is also important because it allows us to get time to do something we like. Self-care is important because it enables us to create that perfect work-life balance. It can also be an important way of getting away from stress and other factors that may cause psychological problems.
Everybody must have personal time allocated because when they are not busy, they might get bored or even develop a low self-image. As an individual, it is also vital to be able to allocate time for leisure activities such as music, movies, reading, traveling, playing games both online and offline or even sitting quietly.
Doing something we enjoy can help us relax. Our lives can be amazing if we learn to take personal time as seriously as we take the other aspects of our life.
The Importance of Balance
As we come to an end, the main takeaway from this entire discourse on our lifestyle is that balance is key to having a good lifestyle. The idea is not to change everything about how we do things. Instead, we only need to look at the things we can change about our lifestyle and change them.
We only need to be a bit more conscious about what we normally do. For example, we can use our phones a bit less sometimes. We can also have healthy dishes instead of fast food although eating burgers sometimes isn’t the worst thing either. In addition, balance also means that we should work hard but at the same time get enough time to do what we like; relax, play with our friends, go out with family, and so on. Having a balanced lifestyle should mean that we are socially active within our circle of influence both with friends and our families.
The truth of the matter is that a good lifestyle varies from person to person and a balanced lifestyle is subjective so we should all learn what makes us comfortable and happy. After all, health, wellness, great relationships, doing what one loves among other personal and financial goals is the ultimate goal for everyone of us as we each navigate the life journey.
Conclusion
The way we function is reflected in our lifestyle choices. Starting from the time we rise from our beds up until right before we go to sleep, all of these minor activities we perform combine to define our lifestyles.
We find that as young people today, we are faced with numerous chances; to get an education, start a good career, go to places, meet some interesting people, study the stuff one loves and build good relationships, are just a few of them. Thus, as we navigate through these opportunities and we set realistic goals, it is absolutely essential that we take good care of ourselves. As much as our lifestyles today might appear to have gone awry, we have to find a way of having a good work-life balance so that we can achieve all of our dreams.
In the longer run, it is not material things that define people’s lifestyle.
As a matter of fact, all one has to do in order to have a good lifestyle is to maintain a healthy life without having to worry too much about what other people think. As long as we have good relationships, interact with good people, pursue our interests, have time to work towards achieving our goals and be generally happy with the life we are living, that’s all that is required to have a good lifestyle.
After all, it is up to us to decide what kind of lifestyle we want to choose as we traverse through our life.
By: Sandeep
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