Reading Time: 8 minutes Before you imbibe, know the side effects of mixing alcohol with prescription and OTC medications.

Reading Time: 2 minutes It can be tempting to “treat yourself” by eating sugary foods when you study. However, this can leave you with less energy than when you started. Try these healthier alternatives for sustained energy.

Reading Time: 6 minutes Thinking about having a nightcap to help you catch some extra zzz’s before the big exam? Read this article first.

Reading Time: 6 minutes Find out if weekend binge drinking has an effect on your academic performance during the week.

Reading Time: 5 minutes There’s a lot you can do to prevent memory loss down the road. Here are three things you shouldn’t do.

Reading Time: 7 minutes How to turn down (and respond when someone turns down) a drink.

Reading Time: 6 minutes Understanding the connection between alcohol and sexual assault can help us foster stronger, more respectful communities.

Reading Time: 11 minutes Social events are an important part of the college experience. Whether you’re a host or a guest, here’s how to make your next gathering fun for everyone.

Reading Time: 10 minutes Follow these four steps if you’re with someone who drank too much, and when in doubt call 911.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

—Jayden*, Portland State University, Oregon

Yes, in ways both large and small. Are there students who drink from time to time and still manage to get good value out of their investment in higher education? Of course. In fact, most students would fit this description. But alcohol can still impair your learning experience. Here are several ways that this can happen:

Time lost to intoxication, hangovers, and/or injuries

If you’re drinking, you aren’t in a state to concentrate or remember, meaning you aren’t learning. For many college students, drinking is part of blowing off steam and relaxing after a hard few hours of academic work. In moderation, this may not present any problems. You just have to weigh the risks and be conscientious in your decision-making. It’s certainly the case that drinking to the point of being sick or having to go to the hospital, or getting in fights or injured, will likely soak up much more time than you’ve budgeted. If you have a big paper due Monday, perhaps it would make sense to take a weekend off from drinking so you have plenty of time to complete your work at a high-quality level. I often challenge students to take two to three weeks off from drinking just to prove to themselves that they can, and to see what it’s like.

Reduced sleep quality and impaired memory formation

Learning has several components. You have to be concentrating when exposed to ideas, in order to form short-term memories. While you sleep, those short-term memories are consolidated into long-term memories. Research has shown a linear relationship between hours of sleep and GPA—in other words, the more you sleep, the better you do academically.

Not sleeping enough, or getting poor-quality sleep, impedes long-term memory formation and thus the learning process. Drinking often affects decision-making, leading you to stay up later than you’d planned, and the sleep that you get when intoxicated is relatively poor quality (though it’s healthier than engaging in other activities while intoxicated; e.g., driving).

Reduced control of emotions (e.g., higher risk of depression)

There are many reasons not to drink on a particular night. Maybe you’re sick or taking medication. Maybe you have a big test the next day, or want to do well at tryout. Maybe you just don’t feel like it. At the top of the list is depression and anxiety. If you are unhappy, don’t drink. Very few things in this world are 100 percent true, but this is one of them: Drinking will worsen your experience of depression. There are much better medicines than alcohol. Ask for help at your student health center or counseling center.

Relationship complications causing upset and distraction from learning

Drinking amplifies most emotions. This can lead to euphoria, arousal, the belief that you’re an amazing dancer, and so on. Drinking can also lead to drama, and sometimes physical violence.  It’s your life, of course. Personally, I find my life complicated enough without alcohol ramping things up.

Getting in trouble

Getting in trouble for underage possession, intoxication, vandalism, or anything else does not provide any short-term benefit to your educational experience.

Addiction

For some students, the stakes are much higher than getting a B instead of the A- you were capable of. About 10–15 percent of people are at particularly high risk for addiction. Their brains are wired in such a way that they struggle to control their relationship with alcohol and/or other substances.  Unless they get help, and that help is effective, they are at high risk for suffering serious consequences, such as damaged relationships, financial difficulties, and the inability to complete their schooling on schedule. Sometimes it takes a serious consequence, like failing out of school, to help them come to terms with their condition. But ideally the problem would be identified and rectified before the consequences became profound.

(*Name changed)

Reading Time: 10 minutes

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Reading Time: 6 minutes

 

Having the drink without the downside

Do you choose to drink alcohol? If so, chances are you’re interested in figuring out how to get alcohol’s buzz (feeling chatty, relaxed, and socially connected) while avoiding its negative effects (feeling tired, sick, embarrassed, and all set to fail Monday’s test).

You may have noticed that once you’ve passed the euphoric stage of drinking, and started to slump, consuming more alcohol does not bring back the buzz. This is always the case (science has figured out why, but that’s another story).

This guide is about how to get the effects of alcohol that you want without ending up with its baggage too. A key skill is knowing how to take care of yourself while still being part of the party. Here, we outline seven realistic ways to do this.

Note: Our emphasis is on realistic. Most of you are using some of these strategies already, a large national survey shows. To find out how to make this easier, while expanding your options for having fun and staying in control, keep reading. These strategies are especially important when you’re new to college, new to drinking, or both. (The minimum legal age for consuming alcohol in the US is 21.)

First things first: Be confident in your choice to drink mindfully

Alcohol seems (and is) part of the social culture on many campuses. But over and over, studies show that students perceive alcohol use among their peers to be far more common and frequent than it really is.Here’s what undergrads think their peers are drinking, compared to how much undergrads report they are actually drinking:Source: National College Health Assessment, Fall 2015; 19,800 respondents, anonymous and randomized

7 ways to get what you want from alcohol:

1 Make a plan in advance

Planning what you’ll drink through the evening is key to staying in control. Consider:

• What you will drink
• How many alcoholic drinks you will have
• How you will pace those drinks through the event
• Whether or not you will have access to the drink of your choice

To figure out what works for you, see Know what you can drink—at what pace later in this slideshow.

Part of planning is anticipating whether you will have control over your own alcohol choices. For example, if jungle juice or mystery punch is all that’s available, the healthiest choice is not to drink or to bring your own.

2  Set your limits up front

Let your friends know that you’re looking forward to hanging out with them and that you’re choosing to not overdo it. Can’t afford a late penalty for your assignment or a missed team practice? Your friends will get it.

3 Tag team with a friend

You’re not the only one who wants to be in control when you go out. Tag team with a friend, help each other out, and celebrate the people who step in and let you know when you’ve had enough.

4  Alternate alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks

We feel more comfortable when we have a cup in our hand, whether or not that cup contains alcohol, studies show.

• If you usually have eight alcoholic drinks and you want to cut that to four, you can still have eight drinks: alternate alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.
• No one has to know what is in your cup or can: Refilling your beer can with water or juice keeps others from worrying that you haven’t had enough to drink or aren’t having fun.
• Bonus: Add ice to your drinks—studies show you’ll drink more slowly (and the alcohol will be diluted).
• Caution: Carbonated drinks may be best avoided when you’re drinking alcohol; carbonation appears to speed up the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the blood stream, according to researchers. Instead, go for water (add fruit for flavoring), juice, or a sports drink.

Good to know: Studies of the placebo effects related to alcohol show that the chatty, witty persona we associate with drinking is more about our expectations of alcohol than the alcohol itself. In other words, we can be that person without alcohol.

5  Delay the next drink

You can delay your next drink without seeming to reject the person who’s offering it or distancing yourself from the social scene.

When someone offers to get you a drink, show appreciation, and give them a reason to hold off.

Bonus: This sets you up to get your own drink directly from the bartender—the safest source of alcohol. Here’s why:

• You’ll know what you’re getting. This is very different from jungle juice or mystery punch, when you have no way of knowing how concentrated the alcohol is. (If you expect punch to be the only alcohol served at a party, bring your own drinks.)
• You’ll more easily stick to your plan. Bartenders know what a standard serving size looks like—and can also recognize a person who shouldn’t drink any more.
• You’ll reduce the risk of your drink being spiked. “Date-rape drugs” are tasteless, odorless, colorless, and rapidly dissolving.

6  Show that you’re having a good time

The person offering you a drink wants you to have a good time and include you in the fun. Let them see that you’re enjoying yourself.

7 Be thoughtful about drinking games

Drinking games vary in their safety and risk. If you participate, choose wisely.

Be cautious about matching your alcohol intake with someone else’s. When participating in drinking games, we often consume more than we had anticipated, and we drink more quickly than usual. This hikes up the risk of illness, impairment, and regret.Consider adapting drinking games in these ways:

• Take a sip, not a shot
• Play all or some rounds with nonalcoholic beverages
• Take breaks

Know what you can drink—at what pace

Those strategies are helpful in social and professional situations involving alcohol. Being mindful about your alcohol use also means knowing what you typically drink and how your body and mind respond to it. Here’s how to figure that out:

A  Ask yourself three questions:

• What do I drink?  The amount of alcohol you consume depends partly on what you’re drinking. Alcoholic beverages vary enormously in their alcohol content.
• What’s my usual serving size?  The amount of alcohol you consume also depends on the shape and size of your glass or cup. A standard serving size is unlikely to be whatever your friend just ladled into that red solo cup.
• How long will I be out for?  Think about pacing your drinking. If you’ll be out for four hours and you plan to have three alcoholic drinks, you may decide to have one alcoholic drink per hour for the first three hours. Pregaming—drinking before you go out—means you hit “peak buzz” earlier, and your mood declines earlier too.

How to calculate your alcohol intake (Rethinking Drinking: NIAAA)

B  Consult a BAC calculator or chart:

This helps you estimate the amount of drink servings you can consume, and how you should pace them, before your Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) reaches “peak buzz”. For many people, “peak buzz” is around 0.06 percent BAC. For some, it’s between 0.04 and 0.06.

Predict how you’ll feel through the evening (Yale University)

Estimate your BAC during dinner (Éduc’alcool)

Are you already doing this when you drink?

Almost all college students (98 percent) who responded to a national survey reported that they routinely took one or more smart measures when socializing with alcohol in the past 12 months.

	“Most of the time” or “always”
Alternate non-alcoholic with alcoholic beverages	35 percent
Avoid drinking games	37 percent
Choose not to drink alcohol	26 percent
Decide in advance not to exceed a set number of drinks	43 percent
Eat before and/or during drinking	80 percent
Have a friend let you know when you have had enough	44 percent
Keep track of how many drinks being consumed	68 percent
Pace drinks to one or fewer an hour	34 percent
Stay with the same friends the entire time drinking	88 percent
Stick with only one kind of alcohol when drinking	52 percent
Use a designated driver	89 percent

Source: National College Health Assessment, Fall 2015; 19,800 respondents, anonymous and randomized

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