Solomon, the sage, once said that the race isn’t for the swift or the battle for the strongest, but time and opportunity happen to all men. This maxim applies to academic success, and we can also say that winning academic battles or races isn’t automatically guaranteed to students with the swiftest and strongest brains.
So, what guarantees academic success? Other factors besides IQ promote it because good education happens in the context of wholesome living. Remember, your journey through school prepares you for future life. Thus, pay attention to how you live to maximize your intellectual potential.
This post shares practical wisdom to help you harness your brain power for academic success. Keep reading to discover more.
Good Study Habits
Studying is critical to your academic journey’s success. Thus, you must enhance your studies with healthy habits. Here are the best habits to help you benefit more from your study time.
Manage Your Study Space
All humans are environmental. Therefore, you must take care of your study space to ensure it’s conducive to studying. Your study space at home and school must foster mental productivity. Always keep it orderly by removing all clutter because studying in a cluttered environment is unproductive. Moreover, it should be quiet enough to help you focus. Pay attention to the lighting and other ambiance components to boost productivity.
Find a Study Group
Studying alone is good but not universal for all tasks, temperaments, and academic disciplines. Therefore, you need to join a study group with like-minded classmates. As the ancients said, run alone if you want to go fast but run with others if you want to go far.
Surrounding yourself with study buddies lets you quiz each other, reteach materials you learned in class, ask questions, and learn from one another. A good study group has the following benefits:
- You can easily exchange notes.
- Get ideas from each other.
- Understand complicated concepts more easily.
- Complete assignments faster.
- Keep one another accountable for studying.
Create a Study Plan
You also need a practical study plan to succeed. This plan shows you what you will learn and when to do it. You may also back it with notifications from productivity apps or your smartphone. You may also use a physical planner to remain on course. This plan motivates you to study and maintains your daily focus. It also helps you break your study sessions into manageable pieces.
Asking the Right Questions
Asking the right questions is another lifestyle habit you must embrace. This culture helps you learn easily because you don’t need to stress yourself reinventing the wheel when you can easily “look up” the answers from another person’s head. Be ready to ask your classmates and tutors to get timely help. This approach is an easy way of understanding things better.
Embracing the Right Company
Keeping the right company is one way of boosting your productivity. A like-minded friend can encourage you to remain on the right path. Inversely, the wrong company in and outside school can ruin your future.
It only takes one person to recruit you into drugs and make you drop out of school. You also need one frenemy (an enemy masquerading as a friend) to join a bad company and drop studies altogether. Remember, you can never move farther and rise higher than the wisdom of the friends you keep.
Time Management
You can have all the big brains, resources, and best friends around you. But eventually, these can’t live your life or study for you. You need time to implement every good idea to succeed academically. Therefore, you must manage your time well to succeed and implement all the other habits discussed in this post.
Time management involves using your time more efficiently and effectively. It involves planning, organizing, and prioritizing jobs to maximize productivity. This way, you achieve your academic goals within a specified period.
Managing your time well directly affects your performance and well-being. With proper time management, you can adequately prepare for examinations, participate in extra-curricular activities, and get enough time to relax.
Moreover, research published in the Journal of Educational Psychology reveals that learners with excellent time management skills perform better academically and experience less stress. Let’s examine these benefits in greater detail below.
- Improved performance. Good time management lets you plan your study schedules effectively, helping you meet deadlines, prepare for exams, and fetch higher grades.
- Low stress levels. Time management lets you allocate enough time for relaxation and recreational activities. This healthy balance reduces burnout and stress while boosting overall mental well-being.
- More opportunities for learning and personal growth. Managing your time well lets you engage in additional learning opportunities outside class. This way, you can grow holistically.
- Improved self-discipline and responsibility. Lastly, proper time management promotes self-discipline and responsibility, invaluable life skills beyond school and academics.
Healthy Eating
Beware of what you eat because it could also eat you up tomorrow! No wonder eating junk food is like taking slow-killing poison. Your diet directly affects your academic performance, as anything that negatively or positively affects your mental and physical health will directly impact your academic performance. The logic is that simple.
No wonder several studies have revealed that nutrition directly affects cognitive development among school-aged children. Sufficient vitamin and mineral intake improves children’s growth and development, promoting better physical and mental function. Below are some of the observations studies have made in this area:
- Missing breakfast makes it hard for students to remain alert and focused, recall vital information, and solve academic problems.
- Not eating the recommended amounts of healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and dairy products containing essential vitamins A, B6, B12, C, folate, iron, and zinc, lowers grades and attendance rates.
- Insufficient eating is connected to repeating grades, lowering class grades, and concentration difficulties.
So, what brain-friendly foods can you eat to boost your performance? Below is a list of foods we recommend for improved academic performance.
- Nuts contain nutrients that promote brain health, including vitamin E and zinc.
- Citrus fruits promote brain health.
- Avocados boost brain function.
- Berries promote academic performance and protect your brain’s health, increase blood flow to the brain, protect the brain against inflammation, and boost memory.
- Cocoa increases blood flow to your brain and enhances memory and reaction time.
- Eggs boost brain function due to their richness in vitamin B12, choline, and selenium.
- CBD-infused foods help calm the mind, boost focus and concentration, and regulate better sleep for overall mental health.
- Drink enough water to improve focus, memory, and boost physical stamina.
Sufficient and Quality Sleep
Now, what do you do after you have done all the above? Do nothing by retiring to bed on time and relax while preparing for the next day. This last key unlocks all the others because it saves you many health problems.
Students who don’t get enough sleep struggle with their memory, focus, and problem-solving ability. Sleep deprivation also causes emotional stress and behavior problems that can deny you good grades. You may also suffer from slow processing and reaction time, grossly impairing your ability to absorb and analyze information.
Additionally, sleep deprivation reduces sequential thinking or your ability to remember a series of steps, as in science experiments or when playing musical instruments. You may also lose your mental creativity because you can’t connect different ideas well. To address this challenge, you may try consuming CBD edibles or use CBD bath salts for pain to ensure proper muscle relief and good sleep. These remedies will surely help you relax, unwind, and enjoy high-quality sleep, feeling fully rejuvenated the next morning.
There you have it! We hope you will use these insights to build a supportive all-around life that lets you optimize your mental power for academic success.
