When you have to do a lot of studying for a big exam, do you find it hard to settle down and study?
If you’re like most people, you’ll put off studying until the very last minute. The night before the exam, you’ll stay up all night cramming, getting little or no sleep.
Then you’ll drag yourself out of bed, psych yourself up with lots of coffee and some cigarettes, and go into the exam feeling exhausted, drained and jittery at the same time. You’ll find it hard to focus or think, and you’ll be cursing yourself for not starting to study sooner.
And not surprisingly, unless you’re blessed with natural brilliance, or you happen to know the subject matter extremely well, you’ll probably do terrible on the test.
If this has been your usual method of studying, you already know it doesn’t work. And even though you promise every time this happens that you’re going to smarten up the next time you face a big exam and start to study earlier, you keep repeating this crazy pattern. Why does this keep happening? And what should you be doing instead if you want to get better marks?
A big problem for most people, especially young students, is that life gets in the way. If you’re a student, you probably have a part time job, and like most young people, you also want to have a social life.
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Studying can seem very boring compared to all the exciting temptations just outside your door. Even watching old reruns of Sesame Street can seem more interesting than the biology text your teacher is expecting you to master!
Another reason we often don’t start studying until the last possible minute is that we have misjudged how long it will actually take us to absorb and understand the material.
If your mid-term is still six weeks away, that might seem like plenty of time left before you need to get around to studying. You might find however, that the subject matter is harder to understand than you thought it would be, and all of a sudden there’s no time left to ask someone to explain it to you.
Another reason we often put things off, or procrastinate, is because we are too overwhelmed with how big the project actually seems to be. Somehow we convince ourselves that putting off a tough project can be the best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed by it.
When we are faced with a study project that seems exceptionally difficult and overwhelming, it can be to maintain a high level of interest and motivation for the duration of the learning process.
If you have been guilty of all these bad study habits, it’s not too late to learn some other habits that will work better for you.
First, remind yourself why you want to do better in your studies. Maybe you need a good mark to get into a good college. Maybe you want a chance at a career that will pay you well. Always keep your end goal in mind.
You can put little cards up around your room with inspirational messages, and attractive photographs that will remind you why you want to do well in school.
If you feel very overwhelmed, you can improve your motivation and your performance by breaking up the project into smaller sections, or “chunks”. Each time you accomplish one little bit successfully, give yourself a meaningful reward.
If you have a deadline looming, use this information to decide how much of the project to tackle at one time.
Let’s say you have six weeks to master the content of a difficult biology text. Looking through the book you realize that if you study one chapter each night, you can get through the book in 28 days, leaving two weeks in which you can again review the material.
With this knowledge you can pace yourself. You know what your assignment is. You know how much you need to read every night. Concentrate on the immediate task at hand. You don’t need to feel overwhelmed by the entire book at one time. Next, work out a system of rewards for yourself. Give yourself a series of small rewards each time you master one chapter, and a larger reward for completing the entire book.
For rewards to work they must be immediate, and personally meaningful to you. There is no point in rewarding yourself with a new fishing rod if you hate fishing.
Rewards don’t need to be material objects if there is something else that would really motivate and inspire you. How about attending a special concert, or taking a special trip? You decide. Get creative and think of something that will spur you to take action.
It’s very important that the reward take place soon after the work has been accomplished. This creates a sense of positive reinforcement. Give yourself a small reward every time you finish a small part of the job, and a bigger reward when the project is completed. If there is too long a gap between the activity and the reward, it will not have the effect of reinforcing the desired activity.
Besides motivating yourself with a series of external rewards, learn to motivate yourself internally. Tell yourself you’re a good learner. Tell yourself you enjoy learning. Tell yourself you enjoy giving your brain a good work out. Congratulate yourself for your efforts. Tell yourself you love acquiring new knowledge. Be proud of yourself for the work you do to gain more knowledge.
Don’t just say the words to yourself. Take the time to actually feel the sensations of pride, happiness and accomplishment within you.
For information to sink into your brain and be accessible to you, you need to review it several times, and your brain needs to sleep well for the memories to be encoded in your neurons. You need to reduce your mental stress. Your brain needs good nutrition and it needs to be in a peaceful, confident state.
If you start to cram the night before, you are putting your brain at a big disadvantage.
You’re increasing your physical and mental stress, and you’re not giving yourself time to review the material several times. By cutting back on your sleep, you’re not giving your brain a chance to put the information you’ve been studing into the hard drive storage of your brain.
By starting to study early, even if you master only small bits of information at a time, you have more time to review, and you have a much better chance of remembering and understanding the material when you face a big exam.

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: This article is taken from the new book by Royane Real titled "How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative" If you want to learn how to make your brain work better, download it today or get the paperback version at www.luly.com/real