By Allison Neighbors
Editor-in-Chief

Stop stressing and start eating well. A new study has proven that less stress and better health will lead to better grades in school. The biggest factor in maintaining good grades is minimal stress, according to a Minnesota research study that looked at 10,000 Minnesota college students. The students who reported having eight or more stressful situations in their lives had a GPA of 2.72, while students who experienced minimal stress had a higher GPA of 3.3.

The ability to handle stress is as important as the ability to limit the amount of stress, and students who can cope with stress perform much better in school.

Stress and health are not the only factors involved in getting good grades. The study also showed that watching television and playing video games could lead to eating worse, which in turn can lead to poor grades. Students who spent four or more hours a day watching television and playing video games had an average GPA of 3.04. Students who played games or watched television for less than four hours averaged a 3.3 GPA.

The study also that showed students with jobs have the same average GPA as those who do not, according to Dr. Ed Ehlinger, one of the lead authors of the study and director of Boynton Health Services at the University of Minnesota. Working had no effect on students’ grades.

“There must be something else going on that is protective of folks that are working,” Ehlinger said. “It might be a matter of time management.”

“I have a job and to tell you the truth, my grades have actually gone up since I have had my job. I think that it is interesting that the study showed exactly what I am experiencing,” said senior Tenaya Bunch.

Photo by Tyler Livingston/Maverick Messenger
Imagine a world where contact lenses only need to be worn overnight.

Tyler Livingston
Copy Editor

Imagine if you could go to sleep wearing a special set of contact lenses and wake up with perfect vision every morning. For an increasing number of Americans, this is a reality.

According to Fox news, when someone goes to the optometrist’s office to buy a pair of these rigid lenses, the doctor molds them to the wearer’s eyes for a comfortable fit.

These contacts are a different kind of material than the soft contacts that most people are familiar with. They are made out of a hard and more rigid material. Wearers put them on at night instead of during the day, and the contact reshapes the cornea over night. When wearers wake up and take the rigid lenses off, they have perfect vision.

Rigid lenses are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers who do not want to wear contacts or glasses because they get in the way in sports, or are just annoying to wear day after day.

“I would love to have a pair of contacts that would give me perfect vision overnight,” says Ameera Essaqi, an A-TECH sophomore. “But they’re called ‘rigid lenses,’ so it sounds like they might hurt your eyes to wear overnight.”

It’s also true that rigid lenses can keep wearers from becoming increasingly nearsighted—a type of vision that only allows one to see things close to them.