Bad habits undo the best of intentions

Bad habits influence and shape our everyday lives.

Admit it; you’ve definitely done at least a few of these before.

We all know the feeling: sitting down to study for a test and hearing your phone go “ding!” After reading the notification and texting back, you spontaneously decide to check Instagram, only to realize you’ve been looking at your phone for hours. This is one bad habit, but there are so many others to fall victim to. Freshman Lavanya Bose said her bad habits include not eating and sleeping enough.

“I really do try to sleep earlier,” Bose said. “But there’s so much homework and I procrastinate so much.”

Another common unhealthy habit among is getting distracted by music and the internet.

For example, sophomore Zack Zhang said he has difficulty focusing on school work because of the lure of YouTube.

“After finishing one math question, I just go straight to watching videos for another twenty minutes,” he said. “I always feel very guilty after doing that, but it can’t be changed.”

Sophomore Will Norwood’s distractions usually tend toward music.

“Whenever I’m studying and really stressed, I always decide, ‘Oh! This is a great time to start listening to some music,’” Norwood said. “So I waste more time trying to listen to music when studying.”

While time wasters like YouTube lead to feelings of regret, so do physical habits that are hard to break.

Sophomore Kayla Nguyen reports biting the end of her pencil when she’s nervous — especially during tests.

“At the end of the day, my pencils look really gross,” Nguyen said.

“Lately I’ve been using a mechanical pencil with a plastic cover on it. Also, I noticed how it looks weird to other people when I do it”, Nguyen said. “Those things helped me prevent my habit from coming back.”