It’s easy during exam week to get into the habit of all-nighters, boxes of pizza and can after can of energy drinks.

However, there are three major parts to maintaining energy and concentration at any time, and especially during exams: nutrition, physical activity and appropriate rest. And just because it’s exam week doesn’t mean you can ignore these facets of a healthy lifestyle, according to Keith Harris, associate professor of food science.

Here are some tips to eating healthy, keeping active and staying awake during crunch time.

NutritionFats, carbohydrates and protein are the three major macronutrients, and their balance is the focus of any healthy diet.

“It’s very important to maintain a balanced diet during the period [of] exams,” Harris said.

He also mentioned that, along with the three major macronutrients, fiber is still important and can come from a variety of fruits and vegetables. Major sources of fiber include whole grains (whole wheat breads, pastas and oats), leafy greens (lettuce, collards) and fruits (apples, oranges and bananas).

Cooking a healthy meal that will fill you up isn’t as hard as it seems. It becomes even more important if you have to stay up late, Harris said.

“Protein is the most satiating [of the macronutrients],” Harris said.

Meals that are heavy in carbohydrates will tend to put a person to sleep faster than one lighter in carbohydrates would, he said. A healthy late-night meal might be as easy as a grilled chicken breast over top of some pre-packaged salad greens, served with a piece of fruit on the side.

Physical activityTaking time out of studying to exercise may not be as difficult to accomplish as you may think. According to Harris, it’s good idea to intersperse physical activity into hours of studying to break up monotonous periods of inactivity.

“You study for perhaps an hour, you get up and do 15 minutes of activity, you go back and study for another hour,” he said. “That way, you’re going to maintain your mental alertness to a much greater degree than you would if you simply try to sit there and knock out four hours of studying.”

It can be as easy as climbing a set of stairs in between study sessions, or just walking around the area that you’re studying in.

“Try to get to the gym at least three times a week if you can,” said Daniel Twiddy, senior in criminology, a powerbuilder who works with both bodybuilding and powerlifting. “If not, do half an hour of something at least. Get on the bike for half an hour, or [get on the] eliptical.”

Twiddy also mentioned lifting weights, but cautioned only to use equipment you know how to use.

“If you don’t know what you’re doing, ask someone in the gym who looks like they know what they’re doing, because most people that are in there often don’t mind giving advice if you have a question about a lift.”

Appropriate restThe common nightly sleep recommendation is seven to eight hours a night. However, during exam week, it can be hard to devote that time to sleep alone. According to research done in Australia and New Zealand by Drs. Williamson and Feyer, the performance of subjects that had been awake for 28 hours straight were equivalent to the performance of subjects whose blood alcohol content was at .1 percent. The legal limit to drive in the state of North Carolina is .08 percent.

The research results were based on a range of tests that included categories such as reaction time, grammatrical reasoning, memory and search and spatial memory — a few things that might be important while taking a final exam.

Limiting caffeine intakeThe average person consumes approximately 200 milligrams of coffee a day, and they usually consume it in one sitting, according to Keith Harris, assistant professor of food science.

He recommends drinking half cups of coffee instead of whole cups, and spreading those servings out during the day.

“[Half cups] of coffee should keep you alert much better than a huge dose at once,” Harris said.

But according to Harris, gratuitous cups of coffee aren’t always the caffeine culprit. People, he said, often rely too much on energy drinks like Red Bull.

“If you’re relying on Red Bull, or any other energy drink, just to keep you awake in the absence of good rest and activity, you’re in trouble,” Harris said.