80% of students are stressed.
There’s a variety of reasons why this stress happens, but it’s safe to say that a large portion of it is due to studying.
Many students fear failure and live in chronic stress during the school year. This can lead to minor and serious health problems (raise your hand if you’ve gotten sick as soon as the semester ended).
This stress and fear can actually be the sole cause of a person not succeeding.
If you want to study smarter and live a healthier life as a student, keep reading for these 5 tips.
- Study Smarter By Taking Care of Yourself
We’re talking about your mind and your body.
The best way to study smarter is to think of education holistically. If your body systems don’t have everything they need, your mind can’t work effectively.
This means eating healthy brain foods: think seeds and nuts, vegetables and fruits, and your daily allotment of vitamins and minerals.
Additionally, incorporating nootropics brain fog into your routine can help improve mental clarity, allowing you to optimize your study sessions and enhance your overall cognitive performance.
It also means drinking plenty of water, exercising, and getting enough sleep—avoid all-nighters!
Aside from your body, you need to take care of your mind and spirit. Find ways to nurture yourself so you can reduce stress, increase health, and become more effective in everything you do.
- Opt-Out of an Exclusively Digital Approach
If you take notes on your computer in class, try to re-write your notes by hand when studying. And if you have the option, consider skipping digital notetaking altogether.
Handwriting allows you to draw arrows, write associations in the margins, use different colored highlighters, and visually organize by hand. You can do these things on a computer, of course, but research suggests it’s not as effective.
Plus, computers and technology, in general, offer endless distractions.
Multitasking isn’t a real thing, so avoid technology and other distractions in class and when studying.
- Avoid Cramming With the Spacing Effect
Just because we’ve all done it doesn’t mean we should keep doing it.
Cramming creates familiarity, which is why it feels like it works. However, familiarity is different than recall (which is the point of learning).
You can build up your recall ability by studying with the spacing effect.
The spacing effect is just what it sounds like: spacing out the times when you study rather than doing it all in one frantic, procrastination-driven cram session.
The results? Greater understanding and retention of knowledge.
- Study Every Subject, Every Session
The concept is simple. Rather than studying one subject per day or one subject at a time, you should study all subjects in one day (it’s more effective that way).
When doing this, make each study session short so your mind doesn’t get burnt out.
- Use Different Methods
Give your mind multiple avenues to remember information.
Make flashcards, read out loud, sing a song about it—the possibilities are endless.
One effective method is teaching or explaining content to others. If you have enough comprehension to explain it, you’re doing great.
In fact, this is a proven method of remembering known as the protege effect.
One method that you shouldn’t skip out on, though, is reading your textbook. Check out these useful tips for studying textbooks.
Get Creative
If you want to study smarter, you have to think outside of the box.
Take care of yourself, stick with some old school methods, and create new approaches to boost your success.
Keep reading our blog for more tips and tricks.