More than a few drinks at the bar, only four hours of sleep, a greasy breakfast and a 20 oz. coffee to fix the hangover — it’s a scenario many University of Idaho students can relate to.
Kacy Pula, an assistant professor in the psychology and communications department, said romanticizing poor health habits like getting little sleep, drinking too much caffeine or alcohol and going long periods of time without food can have a social appeal.
“It is certainly not unique to college students, especially with the sleep issue,” Pula said. “We want to have commonalities with our peers, and if that’s what people are doing, it might be one of many ways that college students try to form connections with their peers.”
Pula said part of the idea behind students bonding over poor health habits is that the stress of being thrown into the adult world while also being in the bubble of an educational environment might increase a student’s tendency to not take care of themselves.
“Drinking alcohol or not getting enough sleep may be that those are partly influenced by peer pressure as social norms, but maybe they are also coping mechanisms for dealing with that stress,” she said.
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Another significant factor is the lack of knowledge about healthier adaptive behaviors. As freshmen, students learn how to act in college, and Pula said the behaviors they learn might not be the best for their health.
“Sometimes you know you are doing something that’s bad for you or not the most adaptive pattern of behavior, but in other cases, you might not really think about it,” Pula said.
Michelle Fish, a fourth-year psychology student at UI, said when people think of college, they think of drinking, staying up late and doing a lot of homework. She said the idea that students don’t take care of themselves is already engrained in students’ minds before they arrive at school.
“Everybody brags about how much they drink or how they haven’t slept,” Fish said. “It’s almost like casual conversation, especially after the weekend.”
Fish compared the way college students brag about these behaviors to the way comedians might joke about controversial issues but be struggling with some dark thoughts internally. In such cases, she said the comedy is used as a coping mechanism and as a way to relate to people.
“Connecting with people makes you feel better, and it’s a way of coping,” Fish said. “It’s a way for people to be like ‘Yeah, I relate to that, and it’s funny.’”
Beyond using poor health habits to bond socially and cope with the stressors of college, Fish said many students also operate under the perception that they’re invincible, or can go without taking care of themselves and walk away unharmed.
“People are always bragging about how high of an alcohol tolerance they have and why do people brag about that? Because that just means you’re really unhealthy,” Fish said.
It’s more difficult to sit down with someone and have deep conversations than it is to brag or joke about serious things, which makes those problems lighthearted and, in a way, socially acceptable, she said.
“Everybody has things about them that are unhealthy, but if you can relate to someone about that, for some reason it makes it OK,” Fish said.
In addition to the feeling of invincibility, Fish said college-aged individuals are at a difficult developmental stage, as many students are away from their homes for the first time.
“We aren’t really taught how to take care of ourselves,” Fish said. “It’s kind of left up to your friends, and that’s going to be a lot of unhealthy habits in most circumstances.”
This lack of education can affect students’ lives in and out of the classroom. Students consume unhealthy amounts of caffeine to make up for lack of sleep, poor diet and hangovers. Marissa Rudley, UI’s campus dietitian, said that many college students use coffee as an artificial energy source.
“It might feel really normalized to drink high amounts of caffeine,” Rudley said. “It might give you this feeling of energy, motivation and focus, but it is definitely short-term. It can leave you feeling more drained.”
Every person is different, which means healthy caffeine levels vary. Rudley said a 120-pound person would not need to consume more than two cups of coffee daily and 300 mg should be the maximum caffeine intake per day for everyone.
“When you get to a point where you are exceeding that, there really is diminished returns,” she said. “Instead of giving you that energy, maybe you start developing high tolerance levels, making it harder to focus and cause sleeping difficulties.”
Caffeine can affect the deep restorative REM cycle sleep that a person needs to feel rested. Rudley said to maximize sleep, people should stop drinking caffeine eight hours before they plan to go to bed.
“If you’re relying on caffeine for that boost for that late night study session, you might not be able to be rested the next day,” she said. “That starts another cycle of relying on that caffeine for that pick-me-up, and that goes hand-in-hand with other quick pick-me-up items like high-sugar foods.”
During a student’s college years, it’s important that they take small steps toward healthier eating habits, since it can also help them in school. Rudley said by eating well and getting natural energy from food, students won’t suffer caffeine crashes. She often hears from students in nutrition counseling that with time and scheduling constraints, finding fast and easy nutritious food can be challenging when trying to eat well.
“This stage of students’ lives in college is a really formative time for developing positive eating habits,” Rudley said. “All sorts of things like whether or not you eat breakfast, what type of snacks you eat, cooking skills, shopping skills — all of these little things can add up.”
Rudley said it might take a mental shift for students to put aside those 10 minutes a day to prepare snacks for school. The time is well spent, as getting natural energy and eating well can help students focus better and experience more restful sleep.
UI’s Alcohol and Other Drugs statistics from 2015 showed that 70 percent of students used alcohol at least once within a 30-day period. Sixty-seven percent said the last time they partied they had between zero and four drinks. These numbers are similar to most public universities, said Brian Dulin, UI’s Alcohol and Other Drugs program coordinator.
“As we are dealing with all the stress, sometimes we reach for alcohol and other substances to blow off some steam, and occasionally going out and having drinks can be a fun part of the college experience,” he said.
Dulin said there are many demands on college students. Many take a full credit load and have jobs, which gives them a tremendous amount of work to complete.
“Sometimes, people start reaching for stimulants whether it’s tobacco, caffeine or other substances to give them a boost,” Dulin said. “Then, once we develop that cycle it’s hard to break. Ideally if we are sleeping right, eating a good diet and exercising, we’ll have enough energy to get through the day.”