After corona ended and everything started to become normal again, I found myself in a very uncomfortable zone, struggling to cope with everyday “normal” activities. I found that I wasn’t able to focus on any simple task. I failed to remember my lectures. I was struggling academically and wasn’t able to understand why. It’s not like I had suffered from any life incidents or any health problems.
But life seemed so different after corona. Weeks went by, and I finally realized that the reason for me being unable to cope with the academic environment was because of the way I lived my life at the time of corona. It was unrestricted, with no rules, an irregular sleeping schedule, no exercise, and most importantly, less social activity. The sum total of these: My brain forgot how to function in basic tasks properly, which started to affect me academically.
To solve this and get back to my prime academic self, I needed to understand the issues I was facing first. I’ve listed them here. Maybe you can relate to these as well, even in your current life:
Unable to wake up in time for lectures:
During Corona, I had messed up my sleeping schedule. I used to watch Netflix until I was tired and fell asleep. Because of this, my brain forgot its natural sleep cycle and adjusted to this horrible timetable, making me unable to wake up properly for lectures.
Unable to focus in class:
Even if I woke up for class, I realized that I could not focus as before. Everything seemed hard to grasp. I was struggling to keep focus and learn effectively.
Bad handwriting:
Since I didn’t write for a long time during corona, my handwriting had worn out. I couldn’t even understand my own handwriting, making it hard to get proper marks in exams.
More time to understand concepts:
At home, doing homework or assignments was very tough because it took me more than usual to understand a concept, let alone implement them in my homework.
Bad exam prep:
The ⅔ days’ preparation leave before any exam is considered the most important time for a student to revise and reallocate everything he had learned beforehand, but I was also struggling there.
To solve these problems, I started researching self-development, habits, and discipline. I hope you will also be able to learn something new from my understandings. The main takeaways:
1. Avoiding electronics before bedtime:
This may be a very common suggestion, but hear me out. If you can even constrain yourself from using your phone or laptop for 30m before sleep for 3 days, you will realize yourself how deeply it impacts our sleeping.
It’s not about the blue light; our eyes have learned to adapt to all the blue lights by now. This is more about the contents that we engage in on our devices. Short form content such as reels, TikTok, memes with absurd audios to make them dank/humorous, constant flashing of lights, thirst traps, etc., are burning the dopamine in our brains.
This is so extreme that once I began to stop using the phone before bed, I had lost interest in using them altogether. This will help you get a good night’s sleep and prepare you for the next day’s lectures.
2. Getting proper meals:
This suggestion may come out as weird at first, but if you can make some simple habits of taking proper meals at the correct time during the day, you will notice a difference not only in your body but mind as well.
Some simple eating habits may be as such: Keeping a bottle of water with you instead of drinking from a glass every time, eating a small amount of snacks with less interval instead of big chunks of food only 3 times a day, avoiding heavily processed foods, and eating one fruit every day.
3. Writing daily, keeping notes:
The advice of a daily journal is very popular, but nowadays we tend to just take notes on our phones and put reminders. But writing daily can be very beneficial. If you can make a habit of writing 3 good things you did that day, it will not only make you feel better but also make you inclined to do more good the next day.
Tip: avoid writing down bad things because that gives negative stimuli. This will also boost your handwriting and note-taking quality. And you can also make notes of your class lectures, which will help you for your exam prep.
4. Cleaning your room daily:
This may seem like a basic suggestion, but cleaning your room before starting your daily activities will make your brain ready. It will give your day a fresh start with a win because you can never fail to clean your room! This simple activity will boost your performance throughout the day and make you prepared to be organized and thorough in every task you will perform.
5. Working out:
Keeping your physical self-active is by far the best act you can do to improve yourself. There’s no need to overdo it. Just 10 pushups a day, maybe 10m of walking a day, stretching before doing any work. These simple acts of physical work will compound themselves and add to your overall well-being.
6. Socializing:
Socializing is the best way to work out your mind. Random conversations with people make your mind dish out a lot of thoughts, computing people’s behaviors, body language, etc. It also improves the way you speak and the way you can articulate ideas. This will also help you academically. The way you speak with older people and teachers, treat your juniors and colleagues.
Lewis Pugh made it very easy to understand:
Doing nothing at all vs. small consistent efforts
Meaning, if you don’t give any effort to change, after a year, it will remain the same as you started. But if you can improve on yourself only 0.01% a day, at the end of the year, it will compound to a 37.7% improvement. This is a very simple way to fathom the wild effect of simple habits on one’s life. We should always try to do 0.01% better than yesterday.
In the end, small habits will compound into bigger changes in your life. Implementing some simple changes will cause great development of your body and mind, all contributing to your academic success.
As a blogger, I would like to ask our readers which habits you would want to give a try first? Do you think you will be able to make a positive change in your life by doing simple habits? Comment and let us know!!
As a seasoned content writer specializing in self-development and AI tools, I draw from my past experiences to create insightful and engaging content. My work is dedicated to helping readers enhance their personal growth and leverage AI for better productivity.
