Diary of college life II

Missed the part I? 

Every week a different problem, in the hope to find a sooo needed balance between all the things going on!

Today I'll write about balancing an exercise schedule with extremely demanding classes.

Exercising your wrist writing paper shouldn't be your only workout!

That's though, I know. Finding the time for working out while you have to go to classes until 6 p.m. and then you have a huge quantity of papers to write or assignments to make (and then you have a life, read: hanging out with friends) is not easy, at all. It's more easy to just let the working out slip at the end of the list of things you'd like to do in your spare time (if you're so lucky to have some!). But they told "Mens sana in corpore sano" and, at the end, no one want to become a bookworm.

So, I'd like to share some tips with you to find a balance; some of them are direct experience and well tested, others are still in the work in progress phase, but I know they are good for me (and you too!)

1. All Counts : If you live in a small city or in a campus where your classes are scattered all over, consider walking from one class to another as part of your workout. You're moving your legs, by the way. If you begin to consider this a section of the exercising of the day, you won't be too frustrated at the end of the day if you couldn't do nothing else!

2. The elliptical machine will be your new best friend : it's deadly boring, so why don't maximizing your time and studying or revising while ellipticating? The time really fly away and you could do 60 minutes  workout and be ready for the tomorrow test all at once!

3. Less is more : squeeze in mini workout through the day, do some yoga in the morning and before going to bed, lift some weight between commercials while watching TV, do chores... all counts, remember?

4. Walk! I don't usually do this, but my boyfriend walk while repeating aloud lessons all the time. Although he doesn't do this for exercising related reasons, this could be a great way for moving a little.

5. Take a pause. One week before finals I don't exercise at all (read I don't go to the gym or to run, I continue to walk however!). I know this could sound like a blasphemy to most, but in my opinion, lose a week of exercises is a lot better than fail an exam because you needed to go to the gym every day for one hour! Giving your body a rest from the gym or hard workouts while your mind is so busy for studying it doesn't sound a bad idea to me! 

And after the exam? 

Just go for a nice run, what a better thing to relieve all the accumulated stress? (except celebrate with friends, but that's another deal =)

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I'd really like to read your strategies and tips, pointing out that waking up at 5.45 a.m. (or even 7 a.m., for that matters) for a workout is not an option in my case =)