As the school season ends, one familiar feeling has returned for the Bradley student body: stress. And while every student may be feeling stressed right now, that doesn’t mean they show it in identical ways. When it comes to stress, there are many different forms. Acute stress, chronic stress, physical stress, physiological stress, environmental stress, social stress, financial stress, school-related stress, and work-related stress, just to name a few. These are all different forms of compounding stress, each with potentially different releases. One major cause of this is college finals: it is the infection taking over Bradley this week.
For the sake of this piece, we set out to explain how finals season at Bradley impacts the consumption habits of the sleep-deprived student body. The term “consumption habits” was left purposely vague, because consumption is multi-faceted.
Contrasting outlets
There are many different preferred stress-relieving outlets all around campus. Yet, unless you relieve stress solely by taking long walks in nature (which was not an answer either of us came across in our interviews), your way of de-stressing probably involves consumption, one way or another.
This certainly is the case for Lea Reid, a sophomore. While many students listen to music while studying, Reid has found another approach that works for her.
“I watch Dance Moms,” Reid admits, laughing. Reid’s ideal study setting is one of solitude, with a mindless layer of Jojo Siwa in the background. This setup isn’t unique: several other interviewees said they work better with a layer of TV on in the back. This reflexive, comfort-driven consumption of usually mindless and/or familiar media is seen all across campus, especially during finals season.
While some opt for music or a TV show in the background, others prefer a sporting event to be playing as background noise. This is the case for sophomore student, Alexandra Zahareas.
“I hate working in silence so usually I put on some quiet music in the background, I prefer to have baseball playing though,” Zahareas said. “I identify as a Cubs fan so I usually put on the game when they play, but I’m not that interested in baseball so I don’t get distracted either.”
For Zahareas, baseball is a relaxing relief during a stressful time. While she enjoys music, Zahareas admits she quickly finds herself enjoying the music too much taking focus away from studying.
“I get distracted by lyrics in music but I still prefer music to silence, because I hate working in silence, the reason I enjoy baseball as a background noise is that I understand the rules enough to watch along, but not enough to get distracted by the TV,” Zahareas said. “The game is always slow and at the same speed, it’s just really nice for me to follow without fully committing my brain to it.”
Consumption: literally
To this point, we have discussed consumption in the form of entertainment. We have found that some people prefer to consume entertainment in the form of music. Some prefer to watch a TV show, while others would rather have a sporting event playing in the background. All of these are forms of consumption of entertainment.
Yet of course, we also consume food and drink. We don’t really have a choice in the matter, in fact. Many people have different eating habits depending on their stress levels. Usually, when people are more stressed they resort to foods higher in sugar and fat, or what we call, “junk food”.
For sophomore Autumn Buckner, her vice is sweets. “I do find myself wanting to indulge in more sweet stuff, to keep me up to finish doing the work,” Buckner says. For her, the sugar rush she gets is worth the health risks in the short term.
The reason why this type of food becomes so popular with individuals who are stressed is because it is easy to get, doesn’t take much time, and feels rewarding when amid something stressful.
Nathalie Michels, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Ghent, agrees. In a study she led titled “Dietary changes and its psychosocial moderators during the university examination period”, her findings echoed our own.
Michels and the other researchers found that junk food consumption went up for college students during exam season, but also pinpointed some of the particularly at-risk groups:
“Based on significant time moderation, emotional eaters, external eaters, sweet/fat lovers, those with health as food choice motive, sensitive to reward or punishment, highly sedentary, non-first-year students and those with high stress reports were at higher risk for exam-induced diet deteriorations… (Michels et al, 2020).”
And while a quick bite from the Chick-fil-a in the Student Center won’t kill anyone in moderation, when it becomes a habit, it can become a real issue.This is also a concern Michels has.
“Our findings suggest that students have difficulties eating healthily and find themselves adopting bad eating habits, which over a few weeks can considerably affect your overall health and be difficult to change,” warns Michels. When finals season ends, fast food season should end with it, but for many students, that’s easier said than done.
Label Needed
Alcohol comes with labels saying to DRINK RESPONSIBLY. Legal Marijuana comes with the same warnings, mostly related to operating vehicles and/or machinery. Yet no such labels adorn Oreos, or french fry containers, for that matter.
Whether or not a label would stop students like Buckner from using these fast food sources as fuel is a whole other story. In Buckner’s case, as long as those habits don’t persist past finals, maybe the responsible thing to do is eat a few more sweets and power through.
Just consume responsibly.