Don’t Overload The system

 I had a professor in my MIS program who was quite the character. In addition to praising “the GOOGLE” at least twice a week sending students on extra-credit mission that involved photographing  Cabbage Patch kids in weird locations- Like Intel’s chip manufacturing Facility – He’d also end every class by saying

“Don’t overload the system”

The system he has referring to is your brain, but I’m going to take it a step further and define the system as your body.

This isn’t a huge stretch, actually; Elliot Hulse, a strong man/fitness personality with over 1million subscribers on Youtube, has a key philosophy that Your BODY is your MIND.

Your mind does all the work involved in earning awesome grades, and the performance of that mind is dependent on the state of your body. As Elliot’s Youtube intro video  eloquently puts it:

“The most important part of the game is your game piece”

I go to bookstore and look at the college prep section a lot ( it’s an upgraded version of a motivational technique called Visualization) since I want to see my work there someday . Almost every college success book I thumb through mentions health somewhere ….

… but it still bears repeating. Why?

The truth is that most of us are like the kid who goes to karate class and wants to learn flying tornado kick before mastering proper balance. We want little tricks, hacks, and tactics that promise to make our lives better.

However, all the little mind hacks and study tricks in the world won’t help you if

you’re constantly suffering from bad health due to poor nutrition, lack of sleep,

and inadequate exercise.

Picture two ninjas: One keeps his body in top form and practices every day, but

his master’s a hard-ass and only lets him fight with his bare hands.

The other actually isn’t a ninja at all - he’s just an unhealthy anime addict

yelling quotes from Naruto and holding a $5,000 katana bought for him by his

rich dad.

Who’s going to win that fight?

All this is an elaborate way of trying to convince you to make your health

priority #1. Be deliberate about:

1. Eating healthy 90% of the time

2. Working out regularly - this can be fun exercise; join an intramural sport

or get addicted to DDR like me!

3. Getting enough sleep - at least 6 hours a night

If you want to learn how to do these things properly, check out my friend Steve

Kamb’s site Nerd Fitness. There’s an article there called A College Guide to

Eating Healthy that might be a good place to start.