How To Strengthen Your Brain Outside Of School:

How to strengthen your brain outside of school:

Maybe you’re not in school anymore, or you’re taking a gap year to save for school and you’re worried about keeping your brain fast and not getting too lazy. Well, here are a few helpful ways to make sure that you keep thinking:

Read books daily. Always have a book on the go. Reading keeps your brain active and it’s a cathartic activity. If you’re feeling up to it, read self-improvement books, or informative books.

Watch Ted Talks. Not only are these videos filled with so much great information, they are also inspiring.

Think about where you want to be in the future and start preparing for that. If this means that you need to spend hours of your life prepping the perfect resume so you can get a job or internship that takes you a step closer, then so be it. If you want to start your own business I’d highly recommend that you research the hell out of entrepreneurship. 

Exercise. Exercise is important for the brain. It also keeps you happy, which in turn keeps you motivated.

Expand your vocabulary. Write down the words you don’t know in books and look them up, keep them on flashcards and memorize them. Big vocabularies are so important and they do come in handy.

Learn a new language. You can do this for free on apps like Duolingo or you can actually go and take courses somewhere. This could help you so much if you plan on doing University abroad or even getting a job there.

Watch documentaries. Netflix can currently teach you about the Vietnam war, World War II, the Earth, the global food trade etc. Learn. 

Watch the news, listen to it or read about it. It’s important that we know what’s happening right now and memes can distract us, but try to be informed. Maybe you can make a difference.

Learn a new skill. It’s time to learn something you’ve always wanted to, whether it’s cooking, sewing, art, photography, yoga, mechanics etc. Teach yourself.

Do online classes to boost your grades for University. 

Do online classes because you’re curious. Don’t stifle your curiosity. Curiosity is an asset.

Challenge yourself to do one productive thing every day. Don’t let yourself go to bed without mental stimulation for the day.

Good morning, loves. I hope today is kind to you. Know that it’s never too late to make a start. You grow at your own pace. Appreciate the baby steps, they all add up. Everything will be okay. Remember that you are loved. You are not alone. You matter. Take care of yourselves and I wish you all the best xxx

Organisation and Planning

Have a planner or some area where you can write your plans for the day so you can easily see when you have a class or event.

Update your planner/ calendar every day

Have weekly to do lists. I taped mine in each week of my planner so i can see all tasks and events in the one glance.

Clean your desk or work space every night or after a session, this way it’s so much easier to get started the next day.

Have a post it note near you to jot down important things you remember for you to do later that way you don’t get sidetracked. 

Get out any power cords, pens, food etc. that you need for a study sesh before you start.

Stick on your wall a list of upcoming assignments or class work due dates and tick of as you do them, or post it note them and remove when done.

Break down tasks on lists so it seems more achievable. 

Always make a plan before starting an assignment, maybe a mind map of what needs to be done and where you’ll get what info. I love doing this for essays.

Make sure you know what things you need to do before each class whether its reading or printing slides, come prepared.

Keep all notes for a subject together whether in a folder or digitally, this will help in exam season and don’t leave papers in your bag to be forgotten about.

Empty your bag everyday and put handouts or information in its appropriate place.

Studying

Pomodoro! Most people i know do the 30 mins study 5 min break but this has always been too short of time for me to accomplish something with too little of a break so i tend to do 45 or 60 minutes with a 10 minute break which is pretty much the same time it just works better for me.

ASMR! i know this sounds cringe or cliche but asmr can be super relaxing and provides that white noise that we like without listening to music which may prove distracting. I suggest the Harry potter common room ones they are beautiful.

Attitude. This is so important because if you go into studying pessimistically you will end up annoyed, go in with the mindset of getting a lot done and reaching your goals.

A pretty work space is a used work space, well at least for me. When my walls are covered with artwork and my desk is neat i feel most motivated, cleaning your desk is a small task that might inspire you to get working. 

Candles, see above. 

Watch YouTube videos on the subject you’re studying, for visual and auditory learners this is especially helpful. 

Make summaries after your notes, mainly focusing on explicit points in the syllabus.

Make sure your summaries are done as you complete the course work so you are prepared for exam season.

A few weeks before exams make a list of all you want to get done before then and start working!

If you have your textbook on your device get a program that will read the text to you, save your eyes and this is normally a quicker way to digest material.

Find the study space that works for you, e.g. home, the library etc. 

As much as i love it, coffee makes you peak and come down so if you can water and good snacks can be better for sustained energy.

DO PRACTICE QUESTIONS! For some reason i thought it was okay to think about a practice question and then just look at the answer? No, this did not work, you need to actually see what you know and write a response. 

When possible work under exam conditions, it’s going to be stressful to be put under those circumstances but you need to actually get used to working that way.

Set a time and write down all you know about a small topic on a page, what you miss is what you need to go over.

Most textbooks are a base resource that can help you if you don’t understand a concept but there shouldn’t be too many notes to gather that you shouldn’t have already gotten in class, this is obviously different for each class but for me this has been the case. Don’t waste good revision time relearning what you know.

Highlighting allows us to tune out of the actual reading so avoid when possible and take notes as you go if you need to as this makes you focus more.

Flashcards are fun to make and they are proven to work, just make sure if you make question cards you don’t cheat when using them and look at the answers. 

Making your notes is pretty but time consuming, don’t feel pressured to have that aesthetic all the time, the work is more important.

Find online quizzes on the topics you are studying. Many people have done your course before and already put in the hard yards, take advantage of this.

As above there are many resources for topics online, find these before you start a new section to be extra prepared. 

Rereading notes before bed makes sure it stays in your head as your brain will be processing it overnight or some science but it does work.

When studying put your phone in another room to relieve the urge to check it all the time.

Stationery 

Have a good trusty pen. Mine is the uniball signo. We have a friendship, it’s good.

I’ve learned recently you don’t need 100 coloured pens and the entire fine-liner collection because i only like a few colours and often don’t have enough time to use a brush pen, markers, highlighters and pens all in the one page of notes.

Don’t feel pressured to have pretty equipment, functional equipment is 100 times more important

Small dot or grid notebooks to do summaries in or mind maps really has helped me feel motivated because they do look really pretty and gets me focused in exam times.

There is a movement towards digitising notes but i think it is still good to have a binder for handouts and articles etc.

Only take to college/school/university the essentials and save your back.

Keep a few bad ballpoints in your bag to save giving friends your nice pens and never getting them back.

Don’t buy stationery that doesn’t work, yes the New York post its i got were beautiful, did they stick at all, no. This clutters your work space and steals your money.

Personal Care

Don’t feel guilty for taking breaks, realistically know your limits and think of it as refuelling.

Try to eat healthy not for weight or looking good but because your body will hate you when you are always giving it takeaway and then asking it to do 14 hour study sessions.

When struggling to focus of a morning, get up and have a shower. This will wake you up and get you feeling motivated.

Have a support person. Mine is my boyfriend and is the person i can just let out all the stress onto, have a cry and then get back to work. You just need to let it out sometimes.

A more relaxed study method is to group up with friends and test each other, create little games etc.

Make sure you still socialise and go to events during crazy stressful periods because you need an outlet and a break.

write out your goals for a term, semester, class or year and refer back to them when you get your results, this will make sure you are judging yourself by your own standards and not compared to anyone else’s.

Reach out for help or advice, whether that’s to friends or people on tumblr or your professors, if you are struggling its ok to get a hand.

good luck, my babies <3

~ graddie

let’s stop romanticizing stress.

why does studyblr glorify being stressed out? more stress does not mean better grades or more success. don’t stress yourself out because you think that makes you look like a hard worker, and don’t post about how it does. we need to work as a community to eliminate stress culture.

Why...

I'm really patient with others. Not with myself, but with others. Trust me.

BUT I'm losing my temper to my uni. I've started hated it since third semester. But from the beginning...

I'm studying architecture. For those of you who don't know - there are some ideological trends, experienced by very valuable people in this field. Like Walter Gropius, for example. And you know what triggered me the most? My teachers really respect all of those experiences from the past and all of incredible architects BUT THEY DO EVERYTHING IN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WAY, acting like they have no idea how to keep students inspired, motivated, how to broaden students' horizons and open minds. There are many "how to teach architecture" things. But professors here ignore all the steps that led the great architects to their success and do the opposite, being aware of these steps. They should try to instill these values in pupils at least a bit. But they don't. They only require being amazing individuals, at the same time they're giving nothing for us and not helping us to grow. I understand that I could demand too much but the ignorance and egoism are probably the worst things where the heart of the field is openness and learning from experience. Most of my values are from books and internet, not from teachers. They don't give a shit about us.

Do you know why I'm writing this today?

Because I was just touched by another (probably it's 736th example) situation of such treatment.

Do you know how many professors who I know, respect students and try to improve their work?

Two. One of them died 3 weeks ago.