Time To Study
It's always so amusing to see people running around proclaiming their indifference (both feigned and real) to studying, their fatalism (both feigned and real) with regard to studying, their iniquities and transgressions of omission and commission in the area of studies. I have been there before, repeatedly and sometimes with unneeded and unsought excess.
And yet, I've never felt I had insufficient time to study. Sports and games (three), societies (four), and a purposeful avoidance of all things more regimented than that, kept me sane and balanced. My grades were never great, but I always achieved my objectives – sometimes to the chagrin of teachers who felt I should have aimed higher.
But here is a simple recipe based on the latest in neurobiology and cognitive science.
1. Wake up. Your body's blood pressure rises dramatically and you will sometimes have the sensation of falling. This is almost like shock, as your engine shudders to life. It is not good to sleep too much. My old friend, a sleep specialist with fourteen degrees and qualifications in medicine, recommends not fewer than five hours and not more than eight hours.
2. Begin the day by flexing the limbs and their servitor muscles. Nothing too traumatic, but light weights in supine position followed by a gradual shift to a more upright posture will do wonders to bring the surges of the body's tides into proper equilibrium. 15-20 minutes, perhaps.
3. Try for a run. 2-3 km would be a bit much, given that you are a student first and an athlete a distant second (save for some of those who are either more deluded or far more talented than the rest of us). Skipping, simple calisthenics, these are fine.
4. Cool down. Your body has to be persuaded that you are indeed about to settle into a resting state of some sort. Or at least, one without so much adrenaline, activity, and angst.
5. Watch your diet. Have a good coffee. Coffee maintains metabolic tone, rekindles the brain, and speeds everything up. It is also virtually non-toxic. Have some carbohydrates. Your brain runs on glucose and indeed consumes more than most muscles. Make sure you get some glutamate. You cannot initiate thoughts without it.
6. Prepare your mind. Read the newspapers. You need to re-train your brain to handle text, not images. Text is a higher-order symbolic medium. Just what you need for studying.
7. Swear off all moving visuals - TV, RTS games; turn-based without excessive animation is fine. But I would recommend turning off the visuals entirely. Your brain is like Caesar's Gaul – it is split into three parts, one which handles moving things (like mosquitoes and other people, threats and menaces), one which handles symbols, and one which tries to forge memories (which is why there is no such thing as a true memory). You need to use two and switch off one. Guess which one.
8. Make sure that for your entire period of studying, all your stationery is present and neatly arranged. Ditto all study materials and textbooks. The body will cunningly plot to make you take a break while you search for missing stuff – especially missing stuff you don't really need but will allow you to absent yourself from your desk.
9. Follow this sequence all the time: wake up, exercise, rest, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, take a break, study, eat a bit, study, sleep the sleep of the just. This doesn't work so hard if you have to go to school. It works great during holidays, weekends, and self-declared compensatory off-days. Studying like this gives you about 8 hours of rest and 10 hours of study, with recreation added. Great, isn't it?
10. If you have to go to school, make sure teachers don't distract you from your plan of study. They are there to serve you in your quest; make sure they work hard. In your studies, you will have taken careful and detailed notes about what you don't know. Make the teachers answer your questions and make the material clearer to you. If they can't do this, either you are not smart enough or they aren't good enough. It is sometimes hard to tell which it is.
11. Condense your study materials. If you have 250 pages of notes, there should not be more than five by the time you are done. The rest is either derivable or recallable using logic, mnemonics, or creative artistry. This is because you only have time to do last-minute reminders and refreshers for about five pages of solid material.
12. Ace the exams you want and pass the rest. It is very easy and you will not overstrain your brain. Remember that while your heart may go on and on (like Celine Dion), it is your brain which is the core of your being and the organ whose death means your own death. Protect it well; don't let it work too hard, or have too easy a time.
And that's all there is to it. Really. If you need a reading list (as if you haven't enough to read already!) do let me know.
And yet, I've never felt I had insufficient time to study. Sports and games (three), societies (four), and a purposeful avoidance of all things more regimented than that, kept me sane and balanced. My grades were never great, but I always achieved my objectives – sometimes to the chagrin of teachers who felt I should have aimed higher.
But here is a simple recipe based on the latest in neurobiology and cognitive science.
1. Wake up. Your body's blood pressure rises dramatically and you will sometimes have the sensation of falling. This is almost like shock, as your engine shudders to life. It is not good to sleep too much. My old friend, a sleep specialist with fourteen degrees and qualifications in medicine, recommends not fewer than five hours and not more than eight hours.
2. Begin the day by flexing the limbs and their servitor muscles. Nothing too traumatic, but light weights in supine position followed by a gradual shift to a more upright posture will do wonders to bring the surges of the body's tides into proper equilibrium. 15-20 minutes, perhaps.
3. Try for a run. 2-3 km would be a bit much, given that you are a student first and an athlete a distant second (save for some of those who are either more deluded or far more talented than the rest of us). Skipping, simple calisthenics, these are fine.
4. Cool down. Your body has to be persuaded that you are indeed about to settle into a resting state of some sort. Or at least, one without so much adrenaline, activity, and angst.
5. Watch your diet. Have a good coffee. Coffee maintains metabolic tone, rekindles the brain, and speeds everything up. It is also virtually non-toxic. Have some carbohydrates. Your brain runs on glucose and indeed consumes more than most muscles. Make sure you get some glutamate. You cannot initiate thoughts without it.
6. Prepare your mind. Read the newspapers. You need to re-train your brain to handle text, not images. Text is a higher-order symbolic medium. Just what you need for studying.
7. Swear off all moving visuals - TV, RTS games; turn-based without excessive animation is fine. But I would recommend turning off the visuals entirely. Your brain is like Caesar's Gaul – it is split into three parts, one which handles moving things (like mosquitoes and other people, threats and menaces), one which handles symbols, and one which tries to forge memories (which is why there is no such thing as a true memory). You need to use two and switch off one. Guess which one.
8. Make sure that for your entire period of studying, all your stationery is present and neatly arranged. Ditto all study materials and textbooks. The body will cunningly plot to make you take a break while you search for missing stuff – especially missing stuff you don't really need but will allow you to absent yourself from your desk.
9. Follow this sequence all the time: wake up, exercise, rest, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, take a break, study, eat a bit, study, sleep the sleep of the just. This doesn't work so hard if you have to go to school. It works great during holidays, weekends, and self-declared compensatory off-days. Studying like this gives you about 8 hours of rest and 10 hours of study, with recreation added. Great, isn't it?
10. If you have to go to school, make sure teachers don't distract you from your plan of study. They are there to serve you in your quest; make sure they work hard. In your studies, you will have taken careful and detailed notes about what you don't know. Make the teachers answer your questions and make the material clearer to you. If they can't do this, either you are not smart enough or they aren't good enough. It is sometimes hard to tell which it is.
11. Condense your study materials. If you have 250 pages of notes, there should not be more than five by the time you are done. The rest is either derivable or recallable using logic, mnemonics, or creative artistry. This is because you only have time to do last-minute reminders and refreshers for about five pages of solid material.
12. Ace the exams you want and pass the rest. It is very easy and you will not overstrain your brain. Remember that while your heart may go on and on (like Celine Dion), it is your brain which is the core of your being and the organ whose death means your own death. Protect it well; don't let it work too hard, or have too easy a time.
And that's all there is to it. Really. If you need a reading list (as if you haven't enough to read already!) do let me know.
Labels: Management, Neurobiology, Physiology, Scheduling, Study, Time
etched with acid at 11:01:00 pm
3 Comments:
gd read sir
Hmm..where can music come in?
Music is best as one of the relaxation activities in between study sessions. Studying under the influence of music doesn't work unless the music is regular enough to be filtered out, which sort of defeats the purpose, no?
The reason is simple: your text-reading mind can't handle variable acoustic inputs well. And concurrent inputs of different kinds are bad for your brain. Listen to music a lot, but not when studying.
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