It's 7 a.m. and the alarm clock is blaring in Gordana Stojanovic's ear. Groggily, the electrical engineering graduate student drags her body out of bed and gets ready for class. She's a full time teaching assistant this semester and has a big day ahead of her. She prepares her breakfast -- cereal and green tea. Pretty healthy compared to the breakfasts of most college students, but Stojanovic says she started endorsing a clean lifestyle after the new year started. She says the mass amounts of heavy food, soda and sweets, combined with a lack of exercise left her feeling weak and exhausted after the holidays -- two things she doesn't have time to be.
"After all that eating of delicious, but heavy food, I started the detoxification of my body," she says.
Stojanovic fashioned her own detox regimen. She didn't eat meat and fried food for a week. Instead, she ate fruit, salad with light dressings, cooked vegetables and toasted multi-grain bread. She says she drank plenty of water and herbal teas. She says it was hard to eat so healthy at first, but she found ways to make the detox more bearable.
"It's good to add some lemon juice [to the teas], just for better flavor," she says.
According to Deanne Wilson, a registered dietitian at Campus Health, there are plenty of simple things students can do to get out of their sluggish post-holiday slump.
"Staying hydrated helps to increase energy and helps the body get rid of toxins and regulate temperature," says Wilson.
In terms of food, Wilson suggests eating consistently during the day and having a small snack such as fruit and cheese, fruit and nuts, or a granola bar and yogurt between each meal.
"This helps to increase energy, decrease vulnerability to overeat at any given meal and helps increase concentration," she says.
In addition to minding the food she put into her body, Stojanovic says she started taking better care of her outer appearance too. At the end of a long day, she says she relaxes with a long shower to help her sleep better. She runs the water very hot for a couple of minutes to warm up her muscles, and then runs cold water for 30 seconds.
"It seems very weird at first, but it works," she says. "After that, you sleep like a baby."
Adin Armey on the other hand, has more than heavy food to recover from. The political science freshman says he's in need of a technology detox after spending almost 40 hours a week on the computer during the winter break.
"Typically I hurt because of lack of movement during the day due to me being on a computer at work and at home," says Armey.
To start his computer detox, Armey decided to stay away from his "main vice" for a day.
Instead of using his computer, Adin went for a hike on Camelback Mountain for a couple of hours with his friends. Once at home, it wasn't easy for him not to glance at his computer and the messenger that was constantly popping up with friends requesting him to chat. As a substitute, he chose a book and found himself falling asleep at 11 p.m.
Adin was so happy with the way he felt the next day that he's decided to give his body a computer detox whenever he can.
"I noticed that it helped in a variety of ways, primarily how I felt each morning physically," he says. "My eyes weren't so heavy and I wasn't bogged down in the morning."
Reach the reporter at ljiljana.ciric@asu.edu.
