Unit 2 Reflection

I really liked what our group came up with in the very beginning when we were asked about the definition of health. It's quite simply, if you keep it simple. Health has many subcategories to be filled to be "sufficient" and "healthy," but I think if you can't find happiness in the things you do, in every aspect of your life, it's going to be really hard to be healthy, physically or mentally. In this retrospect, I'm super healthy. I'm quite the happy person. To me, there is really nothing to be sad about. Nothing can drag me down. Life is too short to care enough to get hurt. But I digress. Not only our school, but according to our psychology class, the majority of teenagers living in the United States aren't the healthiest. Whether it's diet, exercise, sleep, or all of the above, many adolescents aren't doing enough to maintain their health. There are many factors to this, one huge component being school, but in reality, it's procrastination that pulls us down in the dumps regarding our physical health. 

Themes from this unit include the pillars of health: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and social life. I learned a lot from every section, but what I found interesting as I looked back to my previous biology classes were how little they talked about sleep. Of course I knew about how bad it was to get little of it, but learning about the hormones that affected my weight and other detrimental effects of racking up a sleep debt was really eye opening. There was actually one period I missed because I had so little sleep that I overslept a little too much, which caused a huge ripple effect. I ended up missing a class in which we did labs that would fit together with the nutritional analysis, which I could only partially complete because of many difficulties. I really liked the sleep diary, and I actually think I will probably continue to use one to see if my averages per week can go up to seriously get more sleep and stay awake during the day. I don't have a link, but I watched a video in psychology that was called Inside the Teenager Brain or something similar. It talked about the different mood swings, but it also talked about sleep deprivation. Kids are really struggling with getting their work done in time to sleep earlier, and it is something that is definitely difficult to address, as kids really need to grow up themselves to get their work done and stay healthy at the same time. This time of our life has huge impact in our future years, and it's a shame how hard it is to stay healthy now.