In this post, you’ll discover two unique techniques that will help you concentrate on your studies.
Doesn’t the mind wander off every time we try to study or sleep? Sleeping is all good but it sucks when you are cramming for an upcoming exam and you just can’t concentrate. The moment you realize your mind has wandered off somewhere else, 15 minutes have already passed, and you are just at the first page of the chapter.
Maybe your conditions are not as worse as this, but a wandering mind is the root cause of poor grades and poor time management.
Here are some tips and steps that will help you concentrate on your studies. And ultimately, give you the grades that you wish to see. These 3 steps worked out for me. I am pretty sure they’ll work out for you too.
3 steps that help me concentrate on my studies.
Step 1: Relax Completely [In the present moment].
You can’t concentrate on your studies when you are feeling tired. If you want to develop a studying routine after you come from college or classes. Make sure that you are relaxed. You can take the following steps to relax your body and mind.
- Take a hot water bath.
- Eat refreshing food [Not too much].
- Coffee or tea if you want [If you feel sleepy].
Know that relaxation without tiredness is a prerequisite for concentration. If you feel sleepy after a hot bath, either take a 20-minute nap or just have some caffeine beverage.
Step 2: Only Keep Things You Need For Studying.
If you study from a book, don’t keep your phone, laptop, or even the books you don’t need to study, near you. The lesser things you keep around yourself, the better. If you are going to study for long hours, just keep a water bottle near you.
Do prefer sitting on an empty stomach, not a hungry stomach! We’ll discuss the right foods to eat if you are a student.
Step 3: Calm The Mind Through Concentration Techniques.
A tired and uncalm mind wanders off everywhere. Concentration is the key to studying smart. The more concentration you develop, the stronger and spongy your mind gets.
To develop unnatural levels of concentration and perceptivity, you should practice the following technique every day for 20 to 40 minutes in your free time if possible!
#1. Technique To Concentrate
Only do this practice for 3-5 minutes prior to starting your studying session. Following are the steps:
- Sit in a relaxed posture. [Not in a posture that’ll make you feel sleepy]
- Close your eyes.
- Take deep breaths for a minute. [As you do, visualize breathing out all the clutter of the mind]
- After a minute, watch your breath flow in and out. Move your awareness with the breath as it moves in and out.
This watching of breath will help you control your mind. Controlling the mind, in the sense, that you’ll be able to decide what you want to think about. Regardless of the things that happened to you throughout the day.
If you practice watching the breath throughout the day. Bring attention to your breath whenever you remember, and slowly your mind will begin to become more and more silent.
You’ll stop reacting to situations.
Develop A Habit.
Once you begin to study regularly, and not take breaks initially (for, let’s say, 30-40 days of studying), you’ll start to develop a studying habit.
Once you do that, studying will become effortless. You won’t even have to think about scheduling your day, you’ll instinctually do the right things.
How to Develop Higher Levels of Concentration?
If you want to develop your ability to concentrate, practice this skill directly, not through studies.
Of course, devote yourself to this practice only in your free time. But this is an investment that you must make, to become the person you want to be.
#2. Technique To Concentrate
Follow the meditation practice mentioned below, step by step, and unleash the genius within.
- Take deep breaths for a minute and calm the mind.
- close your eyes
- Visualize a halt. Imagine a small white point of light at the center of your forehead.
Watch that light as you breathe. Slowly but surely, you will notice that light becomes more and more still.
You’ll feel like you are going into a complete halt. This state of halt is called concentration.
Swami Vivekananda practiced this type of meditation. We already know how intelligent he was. I’d really recommend reading more about him.
Eating The Right Food For Concentration.
You can’t concentrate on your studies if you are feeling groggy and sleepy throughout the day. We eat the wrong foods and believe that we feel sleepy in the afternoon. There are two causes of feeling sleepy in the afternoon.
- Boredom
- Too much food or wrong food
Boredom can only be fixed by sitting with students that actually like the subject. Or by developing genuine enthusiasm for the subject.
The Right Food
What foods to eat to have a clear mind and sustained energy throughout the day?
This is an important aspect of studying. Eating too much will make you feel sleepy and eating too little will make you feel hungry (if you don’t practice intermittent fasting).
You can eat anything you want, besides these:
Do Nots
- Sugary foods [Creates a sugar rush for 5-15 minutes, then makes you feel groggy]
- Too much caffeine [Too much caffeine causes the opposite effect and also makes you feel anxious]
- Processed carbs [Only eat in moderation, because they don’t provide constant energy]
- Low protein meals.
Dos
- Protein rich food
- Healthy fats (Nuts and avocadoes)
- Winter melon juice.
- Green vegetables
- Plenty of water
If you want an entire list of brain food, its benefits, and recipes for meal prep: check this out (Sally’s Place)!
Benefits of Having a Study Group
Surrounding yourself with people who have similar goals helps a lot. It is underrated to the point that people don’t consider taking this advice seriously and dismiss it right away.
Upon surrounding yourself with the right people, you’ll realize that you’re able to make up for your weaknesses and flaws.
Did you know? Your IQ and bank balance is the average of the 5 closest friends you surround yourself with?
You have to choose whom to surround yourself with. A negative personality will sabotage your academic performance. On the other hand, a positive and enthusiastic student will improve your grades even if you are not a top performer.
Following are the traits that you are looking for:
- Enthusiasm towards academic topics.
- Positive mental attitude.
- Highly focused and silent person.
- Someone who is moderately social.
- Someone who values grades.
- Who has set the right habits in their life
- Scores high in the classroom.
Remember you’re not looking for extremely hardworking students who score average. Not that you should become toxic towards them, just that you must surround yourself with people who you want to be like, as much as possible.
How to Study Without Distractions At Home?
This might depend on the situation you are in. For me, I have two dogs, have to walk them many times, cook food for myself, clean my home, there are too many things to do.
When these things are so spread out throughout the day, it is hard to study for hours on end. Whatever your excuses or problems at home are, you’ve got to manage your time.
To manage your time, you can schedule your day on weekends. Pick a day and prepare for the week in advance. You can also look up foods on the internet, that can be prepared in batches and eaten throughout the day.
If you live at home, or a place where you don’t have to worry about anything and just study. You can follow these steps to avoid distractions.
- Pick a place that is only meant for studying. Never do anything else there.
- Prepare well before a studying session. Keep water nearby.
- Decide when to take a break clearly. For example, if you follow pomodoro techniques, set a timer but don’t look at it every 5 minutes. You can do this by keep the clock outside your FOV.
How to Concentrate on Studies Without Sleeping?
It all boils down to the kind of food you eat and also on your interest in the subject. Of course, you’ll feel sleepy if you are not interested by the subject. Boredom always induces sleep. To overcome this limitation, you have to spend time with people and students, who are actually interested in the subject.
Forming a mastermind group will change this psychological behavior really quickly. If you study for an exam with a friend who is certainly going to score good, you too will score good!
Don’t eat too much sugar and processed carbs before studying. You can have them when you don’t have to study for long hours.
Exam Pressure?
Some Students, a day before the exam, instead of studying, watch and read about how to study. I remember that I used to do it. Of course, if the syllabus is huge, it won’t be possible to study everything in one day.
Stress and panic is the main cause of not being able to study. Just let go and start studying what you feel is important.
Forget about the exam.
Just imagine that you are on a holiday and you’ve got to study for studying’s sake. This will calm your mind and help you concentrate before the exam. If you have an exam tomorrow, make sure that you stay calm [This’ll increase your chances of success].
You can also use the 2 techniques mentioned above to release stress and exam anxiety.
Conclusion: Most Importantly Find Your Why?
Know why you are studying or want to study. What do you want from it?
Do you do it solely for good grades? Parental pressure? Freedom? Riches? or Fame?
Or maybe you want to get it all done in time. Whatever the reason is!
No reason is smaller than the other. If you know your “why”, visualize the end result. Watch yourself score better marks and achieve the things you want, in your mind.
And as you do, your mind will begin to develop cohesive neural connections around that visualization. You’ll start to develop neural connections that take you towards what you visualize. This is called “Autosuggestion or self-hypnosis“.
That’s it. Focus on developing the right habits and actually follow the steps mentioned in this post. You’ll surely begin to see results. Thanks for reading this post on “How to concentrate on studies”! Make sure you comment below. Here are some more posts on Productivity.
8 Powerful Habits of A Successful Student [Unleash Your Genius]
Top 10 Chrome Extensions For Productivity [2021]
Meditation: How to meditate Spiritually?
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Welcome to Shuflash. I’m Shubhanshu Rawat, a yoga practitioner with 2500+ hrs of time spent in meditation & 250,000+ words of published content on Shuflash. I have no plans to stop. What’s stopping you?