Interview Dialogue

I recently interviewed my Intro to College Experience professor, Sean Fagan, on questions relating to exercise and stress management during college.

Me: "In your opinion, is there any relation between exercise and stress management and if so, how?"

Sean: "Yes and that is based off of different trainings we go to over the years for student services and health services. Regular exercise is one of the best ways to relieve stress positively as opposed to some other manner which would be a little bit more of a destructive behavior: alcohol, drugs, those sorts of things. They don't really do anything for the stress whereas the physical effect of stress can be medicated with physical exercise."

Me: "What is the importance, if any, of exercise during college and other parts of your life?"

Sean: "Well, lets starts with the college part first. In college, and ill freely admit I was not one to regularly exercise during college so this is kind of from a what-its-worth department, in general in college you form a lot of habits in ways of doing things that you'll carry forward into your adult life. For many students, especially your traditional undergrad students, if they are living on campus, college is that first experience of not living under mom and dads rules in which they might follow a prescribed routine given to them by other people. You start to get that freedom of your decisions and new routines and I found that if you set good habits for yourself in college it is much easier to carry those one into your adult life versus forming bad habits and then trying to break those later on."

Me: "What do you think are the long term pros of exercise and short terms pros of exercise?"

Sean: "Most people can tell you that short term pros, stress relief is certainly a benefit of exercise, its something that if you're stuck on a project or homework, brief cardiovascular exercise can help with that and clear your mind. When people put those ear buds in while they're on the treadmill or the elliptical or whatever, they're mind seems to go into another state and they're able to think through those things by going at the problem from a different angle. Physiologically the body releases endorphins to improve your state of being. Long term, there's the benefit of regulated blood pressure, cholesterol levels, health related issues etc.

Me: "Did you, as a student, manage your time to make exercise a top priority and if so how did that help?

Sean: "No I did not. I lived in a fraternity house most of my college years and me and a bunch of the guys decided we were going to get memberships to the park districts facility because they had a special rate for college student's to join. We sort of set ourselves up for failure due to the fact of our schedules being all over so we tried waking up at five in the morning to go and that didn't work out so well. I don't know about you but getting up at five in the morning  to be there at 5:30 am isn't so easy. We couldn't go at night due to club meetings and practices and homework etc. So that never really worked out especially because the school I went to had really poor gym facilities.

Me: "What advice would you give students about stress management?"

Sean: "Regardless of where the stress is coming from, you reach a point in which you realize that the sun will still come up the next day and life will still go on even if things don't end up the way you want them to and if you find yourself getting stressed out about something its okay to take a break to worry about yourself in the long term and find whatever that is that relieves your stress. Procrastination is not a stress reliever, exercise is.