First Feature Article- Health Blogpost

Reflect on how your findings will affect your PERSONAL health practice

My findings on effectively managing time to get enough sleep will definitely affect my personal health practice because I now know what to do when I feel I have too much work to do. Instead of sacrificing precious sleep time to finish my work or vice-versa, I can apply my solutions and feel more calm about my schedule. I know that procrastinating is just going to make me more overwhelmed, so through my 2-minute rule, I can set myself in motion to complete my work more swiftly.

What will you do to influence/advocate your ideas to others?

I feel it is easier to reach out and help my peers or family members, so I will first advocate my findings and solutions to them, and then we all can spread this through other sources like other relatives, social media, presentations, or even posters on walls of common places (ex. MRT stations, condos, supermarkets, movie halls...). How I can advocate these solutions to my parents and peers might be through studying their habits and observing what impacts occur when they change their mindset about busy schedules and follow the solutions given.

Consider how your peers' findings relate to your personal health. List, reflect and explain 3 ideas you were influenced by when reviewing your peer's work:

Many of my peers found technology related to sleep. I unknowingly just use electronics or watch TV before going to bed, but my peers have found that melatonin is less when technology is used before bed, and also the brain can't recognize night or day because of the electronic's light. Not only this, sleep patterns are affected; we may assume sleeping at 12 am and waking up at 9 am would give the 9 hours we need, but when we sleep so late, our body can't adapt easily to the strict wake-up timings of school days. What my peers told me about body image was very shocking. Since I'm happy with my body, it is harder to understand how other teens who have anorexia or bulimia might be facing. It is crucial that in order for a teen to stay healthy, they must be surrounded by positive people who can encourage them about loving themselves. I was also drastically affected by the issue of teens cutting themselves. I learned that cutting is another way to express pain and surprisingly, feel better. This issue has made me realize how important it is to be happy with what life gives us, and if we are facing some sort of pressure (social, peer, academic), we should communicate with people we are comfortable with.