Self-Care Tips for Students

Preparing for any exam like JEE and NEET is difficult, and it gets even more challenging if you are not able to care for yourself and study with deep concentration. If you are not able to focus on your studies, there are high chances of failure. It is because of this reason that every student aims to achieve the highest level of concentration while preparing for the exam. There are some tips that you can follow that will definitely improve your concentration power and help you in bringing the best out of you during your preparation.

For students, self-care is critical. These children are still developing mentally and emotionally, and they must learn to protect themselves by practising self-care. They might use such knowledge to think and prepare themselves autonomously once they reach maturity. Knowing how to care for oneself now will be important in the future when being independent means being responsible, and knowledge will be useful.

1. Find a quiet place first – The first thing you need to ensure in order to boost your concentration is to study in a quiet place. Find a quiet place; it may be a small study room, library or a place in a garden. If you do not find a quiet place, find a good pair of earphones and listen to white noise or music that is soft and soothing. Do not listen to the regular songs or music that you like or any song with vocals.
2. Keep the gadgets away, or better turned off – Many students have smartphones, laptops, etc. It is advised that they should turn off these gadgets while studying. Some students get addicted to gadgets and find it hard to stay focused during their studies. They constantly check their social accounts or take time to call friends. This hampers their preparation. It should be ensured that the use of gadgets should be done only to make your studies easier and not to hamper it.

So, why should aspirants keep themselves out of touch with their phones?

1. The biggest source of distraction – If you get addicted to your mobile phone, you are making your mind restless. You constantly have the urge to grab your phone (even while studying) and cannot focus on the topic at hand. This makes the study time futile. Moreover, it is known that only the topics that are studied with deep concentration stick to one’s memory.
2. Affects health – The fact that spending long hours on a phone or any other electronic gadgets results in improper sleep is backed by science.
3. Takes you far from achieving your goals. Achieving big goals requires passion, interest and determination. If you spend most of your time scrolling aimlessly on your mobile phone, you are never going to achieve what you have set out for.

Now, the following are a few tips on the ways one can minimise the usage of mobile phones while studying.

The first thing you need to do is to understand and make yourself aware of what is good and what is bad for your preparation because only then can you develop the will to minimise the usage of your phone. Once you have decided to stop using your mobile phone, take the necessary actions to do so. Some of the things you can do are:

(a) Switch off your phone during your study session and keep it far from your study table.

(b) Delete all the addictive apps from your phone on which you spend most of your time. Out of sight, out of mind!

(c) Only keep utility apps. Also, turn off the notifications of all the apps on your phone. Doing so will kill the urge to pick up the phone every time a notification pops up.

1. Take short breaks – Do not study for long durations in one stretch as it can hurt your concentration power rather than improve it due to mental exhaustion. Always take short breaks of 5-10 minutes between study sessions of 1 to 1.5 hours. These mental breaks will actually help you concentrate more on your studies. Take a short walk, do a few stretches or meditate while on the break. This will refresh your mind and help you get back to study with complete focus.
2. Power naps – Taking a short nap of 20-30 minutes after 4-5 hours of study time can help you immensely. It is a proven fact that power naps boost cognitive function and enhance the ability of the brain to absorb information. They refresh your body and mind, which, in turn, improves concentration.

There are a lot of reasons due to which you might get distracted during the exam, such as anxiety and stress. Following are a few tips to keep yourself from getting distracted and maintain your focus during the exam.

1. Engage yourself: The foremost way to keep yourself focused on the exam is to engage yourself in the exam. Use diagrams to relate to the given question and get involved with the questions actively. Use annotations to engage your mind with the question. Such activities will keep your mind focused on the questions at hand.
2. Breathe: It is possible that you will start to panic and feel anxious. In order to decrease your stress levels, you can use the 3-sigh breathing technique. First, take a deep breath, hold your breath and let it out with a big sigh. Repeat these steps twice. A big sigh is the fastest method to relax. Tell yourself that you have prepared for this exam, and in reality, it is just an exam.
3. Sitting in the right posture: Sit upright with your back straight. Your shoulders should not be hunched. Don’t sit with crossed arms. Sitting in the right posture will make you feel confident and will help you in maintaining your focus during the exam. You should practice this posture while preparing for the exam so that it becomes your habit.
4. Stretch at regular intervals: Sitting at the same place or position may lead to cramps in your muscles. This will make you uncomfortable and will put you off from your primary goal. In order to avoid any such scenario, stretch your body after completing each section of the question paper. This will help to relax your body and restore your energy and focus for the succeeding sections.
5. Keep yourself to your own tools: It is possible that you will be tempted to look at what others are doing. You may look around to see if everyone else is able to solve the questions or not. But this will result in the wastage of your precious time. Rather keep an eye on the timer and stay focused on your question paper.
6. Hangout with family: Take some time out of your schedule to chat and have fun with your family members. This will keep you relaxed and help you emotionally. You can have group video calls with your friends.