Put your Best Brain Forward
To have a great start to the academic year, give you brain what it needs:
Get plenty of sleep. Adults need 7-8 hours a night on average. Kids need even more. Regular sleep timing is also important. Try to go to bed around the same time each night and to wake up around the same time each morning.
Be sure to exercise. Your brain, like the rest of your body, benefits when you get your heart rate up and keep your blood flowing healthily. Taking short exercise breaks, even just doing a few jumping jacks as a study break, can be really helpful to help you stay focused and learning your best.
Eat good food to fuel your brain. Simple advice for choosing a snack is, whenever possible, to eat food that can be found in a similar form in nature. Potato chips aren’t found in nature, but sesame seeds and nuts are. Remember your brain, like the rest of your body, needs protein, fiber, healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals, which is why it’s important to eat a range of foods.
Also remember good study habits:
Don’t save studying for the last minute. Spacing out your studying is much better, for your brain and for your learning.
Test yourself. Don’t just re-read your notes or your book. Quiz yourself to understand what you know and don’t know. Make yourself short written quizzes, or use flashcards to help you quiz yourself, or try to write down as much as you remember a few minutes after you finish reading something.
Make sure you understand. It’s hard to memorize something you don’t understand. So if what you’re reading isn’t making sense, take the time to ask a teacher, or a classmate. If you understand material first, it will take you much less long to commit it to memory and it will be much easier to recall it later on a test.