Importance of a Healthy MBA Lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle can benefit an MBA student in many ways. It’s advisable to maintain a health and fitness regimen while earning your MBA degree, so that you have the energy and willpower to work hard and succeed both in and out of the lecture theatre.

A healthy lifestyle must consist of more than just ascending up a particularly taxing flight of stairs when the underground elevator breaks down. It encompasses three regular factors: diet, exercise and sleep.

Sleep as part of a healthy lifestyle

Sleep can sometimes seem like a myth to people enrolled on an MBA degree. Between revision, lectures, networking and real-life business ventures, it’s small wonder that sleep can soon become hard to come by for business students – no matter how many sheep they count.

Yet, getting enough rest plays a critical role in thinking and learning. Lack of sleep hurts cognitive processes in many ways. It impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving – making learning efficiently increasingly difficult. If you don’t sleep well during the night, then you will also be less likely to consolidate memories. So, what’s the point of trying to give your full attention to a lecture if you don’t get enough sleep and forget most of the information the next day?

On a fast-paced and intensive MBA degree, functioning on fewer hours of sleep may become a badge of honor to some students. More and more people in today’s fast-paced society boast of only getting six hours a sleep and being able to function perfectly fine on so little. However, sleep specialists argue that this is not the case and that lack of sleep itself often impairs judgement.

Dr. Gehrman, a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, says: “Studies show that over time, people who are getting six hours of sleep, instead of seven or eight, begin to feel that they’ve adapted to that sleep deprivation – they’ve gotten used to it. But if you look at how they actually do on tests of mental alertness and performance, they continue to go downhill. So there’s a point in sleep deprivation when we lose touch with how impaired we are.”

While it may be tempting to stay up late into the night to enjoy your free time after a particularly grueling day of revision or meetings, it is advisable to hit the hay so you’re refreshed in the morning. If MBA study is causing you stress and leading to a few sleepless nights, then this could be remedied by another factor of a healthy lifestyle – regular exercise.

Exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle

Time is a valuable commodity for an MBA student. However, if you can cram in an hour’s workout before you start the day then you may find your overall performance improves throughout the day. If mornings are non-negotiable free times for you to stay in bed then transfer your workout to the evening.

It may seem overly taxing to schedule gym time into an already demanding MBA lifestyle, but if you’re serious about reaching your full potential (and we’d be hard pushed to find an MBA student who wasn’t) then making allowances for exercise time could drastically improve your career prospects.

One thing that people who exercise regularly comment on is how their outlook on life improves after they have taken time out for themselves at the gym. In some countries, including the United Kingdom, exercise is prescribed by GPs as a treatment for depression and is also used as a precautionary measure to stop people get depressed in the first place.

If you’re feeling in control of your body’s fitness, this can be the driving force behind you seeking success and control on other aspects of your life as well. People often exercise when they feel their professional or personal life is out of their control, so gaining control over how their body looks and feels instead is an incredible confidence booster. If an MBA degree is causing you stress and the grueling study schedule is ebbing away at your self confidence, invest some time into the gym two or three times a week and feel the difference.

If you cannot justify paying hefty gym fees every month when taking into account how often you’ll actually be using the facilities, then utilize the campus for your exercising instead. Cycling to your lectures or attending fitness clubs such as football and polo (Yale – we’re talking to you), incorporates exercise carefully around your study schedule and does not break the bank.

Nutrition as part of a healthy lifestyle

An unhealthy diet leads to fatigue, health problems and lower self confidence. Although indulging in a Big Mac and Galaxy Cookie Crumble McFlurry between lectures is considered a thing of beauty, too many will affect your health in negative ways.

Having five portions of fruit and vegetables every day will improve your concentration, energy levels and general disposition. If you’re struggling to incorporate this food into your diet, then why not try making a fruit smoothie for breakfast before going to university?

This is a cheat that many health nuts use in their day-to-day lives. Blending together a concoction of your favorite fruit with a few dollops of fat-free yoghurt results in a truly delicious and healthy breakfast that can be made in seconds – you can fit almost five portions of fruit into one sitting!

Cramming so much goodness into your diet of a morning will increase your brain power and have your MBA peers wondering just where you get all your energy from. If you’re not a morning person, making a simple berry burst smoothie when you make up will turn you into one. Try making your own lunch the night before work so you know just what ingredients you’re incorporating in your diet. This is a good habit to get into and can save you money as well as time. After all, the long walk over to a takeout on your lunch break hardly makes up for the junk food you’ll be consuming afterwards.

So, try to swap your fizzy drinks for plenty of water and your Big Macs for sweet potato veggie burgers. You will feel the benefits in no time. If you’re struggling for inspiration when creating your healthy recipes then simply consult your good friend Google for ideas. The internet is awash with healthy recipes for people who lead busy and active lifestyles – in fact, you often find that these types of people are the frontrunners in healthy living anyway, they simply have to be active and healthy to manage their busy lives competently and efficiently.

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