Attention LSU students: The Snowpocalypse could have ruined our brains.
Like any person who is unfamiliar with winter weather, I dedicated my Tuesday to catching up on sleep, watching 12 hours of Netflix and staying in bed. When it was announced that LSU would not open Wednesday either, I cherished the extension of my unexpected break.
By the time Wednesday morning came along, my mood had changed dramatically, and my desire to do homework and even write this column was replaced by a hollowed-out mind focused on nothing but eating and sleeping.
This kind of break can cause irreparable damage to our brains if we are not careful.
A study, recently published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, was done on rats to test what living a sedentary life can do to the mind. 
The scientists at Wayne State University in Michigan concluded that being inactive for long periods of time can reshape our neurons in ways that affect our brains and, in some cases, our hearts.
The scientists used a dozen rats as their study subjects. Half of them were placed in cages with wheels while the others were placed in cages without wheels. After approximately three months of these living conditions, the rats’ brains were analyzed for any changes in their neurons, and what the scientists found corroborated their theory.
The active rats’ neurons remained similar to the way they had been before, and their brains were working normally. The sedentary rats’ neurons, however, had changed. The neurons associated with subconscious reactions, such as breathing and blood flow control, had grown their branches, making them more sensitive to stimuli.
This change in the rats’ brains, the overreaction to stimuli, could potentially cause them to have increased blood pressure and heart disease.
While humans and rats don’t share a lot of similarities, it has actually been proven that both suffer the same kinds of diseases, which is why scientists can prove both groups react in a similar way to inactivity.
Now, I’m not a scientist and there’s no way for me to know if during the process of these two “sedentary snow days” my sympathetic nervous system changed in any way. But I will say that, from personal experience, exercising turns your brain back on.
The imminent re-opening of the University, an event that I yearned for and dreaded at the same time, reminded me of the mountains of work that I had to get done and, in the back of my head, I remembered the study.
In an attempt to be a responsible adult, I fought the temptation to stay in bed, walked over to the gym and forced myself to work out.
Maybe it was the power of suggestion from the study, but my willingness to do my work resurfaced, and being active for an hour helped me refocus on my responsibilities.
So if you are still feeling unmotivated because of the snow break, get out of bed, do some jumping jacks and do some homework. Because – unlike the rats – we have to get back on that college grind.
Jose Alejandro Bastidas is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from The Woodlands, Texas.