As a health-freak of some variety (as my family and friends know), I've been musing about the terrible effects that Easter term typically has on students' health. A brief summary...

Mental
Most obviously: a lot of stress! Exams are the most harrowing part of the year for most students, and 3 hour university exams seem to be the worst form. Add the extra workload of coursework, dissertations etc. and it is easy to become overwhelmed. The NHS has a good summary.

In addition, it is terribly easy to become mildly depressed, both because of the stress and because of the heavy atmosphere of fear that descends upon this place. With the exception of a few extremely social (less studious?) students, most rarely leave the confines of their study area and lecture halls (if they have lectures). Not forgetting the occasional visit to buy food (but even this can be avoided).

Premature Aging
The demands placed upon a student to study and learn such a vast quantity of material typically leads to mild drug abuse in the form of caffeine. Whilst I've always tried to avoid this, it has gradually become worse and worse with each successive year. Most adults understand the tolerance that the body develops to caffeine and cannot survive their daily life without it. Usually this starts during university.

Most people don't realise (or try to ignore the fact) that caffeine causes premature aging. Again this is linked to stress. So, stress (pressure to study) => caffeine => stress (caffeine caused), evident circularity.

And naturally with the increased uptake of caffeine comes difficulty sleeping (albeit highly dependent on the person). Difficulty sleeping => tiredness => caffeine consumption => difficulty sleeping. (And I'm sure the stress caused by the pressure of upcoming exams feeds in there somewhere!)

Liver
Naturally, having been stressed, sleep deprived and generally depressed, when exams are over there is some cause to celebrate a return to the less taxing routine of normal life. Most students celebrate in the only way they know how: binge drinking. This is generally accepted as a bad thing; most students are fine but some go far overboard.


I'm sure there's a state transition diagram to be extracted from the above. For the moment though, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader whilst I finish working on my dissertation, writing notes for Advanced Systems Topics and drinking a can of Red Bull.

Any other life shortening effects of exams?