This can change your perspective of exams or give you a new one.
This is based on my experience with exams and how you can benefit from my findings.
The word “exams” is very notorious in itself. Exams are evil and nobody likes them. However, I got some revelations when I had exams the previous week that shocked me. Now they are just the “necessary evil.”
Early morning study
Time after time, people have stated that waking up early in the morning to do stuff have a lot of potential benefits.
Waking up early is a difficult task in itself. However, the stress of exams had me sleep less and wake up early to cover as much as possible of the syllabus left.
The benefit of studying at 5 in the morning…
I was able to comprehend difficult parts of the subject when I read them early in the morning. I completed more of my syllabus early morning whereas I would waste a lot of time if started a little later and almost always skip the difficult parts. Troubled with my finding I decided to test this a bit more in real life scenario.
Late Night study
Now I decided to test the same thing but at night i.e. sleeping late after studying.
The results were good enough but not that good…
Soo… What’s the problem with that?
The simple answer is yes, you can get things done at night as well.
However, The problem with this approach is that you are already worn out from the entire day, making it difficult for your brain to process more things. If you have already had a bad or hectic day, you probably won’t have the energy to comprehend an equally difficult topic.
The other part of studying until late at night is waking up late the following day. You might wake up feeling groggy or less energetic, which will hinder your next few hours, which are of the essence during exams.
Heavy Processing mode
There are no direct signs of a burn out until the exams are over. It’s like you are invincible during the exams.
During exams, most students (the ones that study) become superhuman because the fear of failing makes all the other things fall by the wayside. More amount of stuff is completed in a limited amount of time. Somehow, you can make sense of anything, even if it was completely unknown to you before exams. Somehow, our lazy brain works at a very high capacity that can process information faster than a computer.
I know that sounds a little too much for our brains, which can’t even remember what we were thinking a moment ago.
The truth is our brains are really powerful machines that work very well under stress provided with enough rest.
Exams show the Raw Capacity of lazy humans beings.
Back to being Lazy
Now that we are done with the exams, the superhuman machine has been taken over by the more preferred “lazy” one.
Burnout is on the horizon, and we slip back to the old ways. You can go back to your old routine and ease up. However, only if you look back and recognize the power will you know that you achieved a lot in a limited timeframe.
Our brain is a dormant powerhouse that can adapt itself very well depending on the conditions.
A lesson to implement
Exams are always hectic (at least for me), but I was able to draw some perspective from them.
Now you don’t have to give exams to understand what I am talking about.
For instance, less sleep and more study can only work for a short span of time. What if you want to implement this over the long term?
The good news is that you can do so (with a few tweaks, of course).
I’ll be covering the waking up early instance first since it is much more powerful than sleeping late.
I have been trying to wake up early to write ever since I had this revelation during my exam, and boy, is it tough. However, It can only be achieved if you make a proper sleep schedule that allows you 7–8 hours of sleep (optimal) and stick to it on a daily basis. You have to make certain amends (like going to bed early) so that you can wake up early to get important things done.
If you can create a sleeping schedule and stick to it, you’ll definitely be able to wake up early in the morning.
Staying up late isn’t a long-term solution unless you have a job with night shifts.
Sleeping late has more potential disadvantages than advantages. I have already explained some of the downsides of staying up late to study. Even if you can get things done, staying up till late at night is bad for you health. For some reason, if you have to stay awake at night, make proper arrangements for sleep over the next few days.
I suggest you try the “waking up early” method if you are trying to learn or do something in the long run. Plus, the next thing can be paired well with early mornings.
Do you remember the high-processing mode that I talked about a while ago? That can handle anything you throw at it during exams.
It can be used on a day-to-day basis. You can use the high-processing mode of your brain if you give it the most challenging task of your day after waking up. It pairs up nicely with the waking up early schedule because when you are up before others, a difficult task can be processed by the brain in silence and peace.
It allows your brain to work at full capacity without any disturbance from your surroundings.
Final Thoughts…
- Try waking up early by implementing a proper sleep schedule.
- Complete the most challenging task of the day first thing in the morning.
- Try the techniques for long-term to see any potential benefits from them.
If you learned something from this article, share it with others so they can change their perspective too.
