Fit to learn

When my mind is tired I don't remember as well, so I need to take short breaks and walk around. It gets more oxygen to the brain and it works better.

A message from the Energise team:

Climbing, running, meeting your mates,
dancing, skipping, taking a break,
working out, swimming, doing something new,
if you're fit for life you'll be fit to learn too

Energise aims to get more young people, more active, more often by raising the awareness of the benefits of physical activity for young people, along with developing a range of physical activity projects and activities. To find out more go to Energise.

• Energise Activity
• Energise Dance
• Energise Sport

The importance of sleep

When vital hours of sleep are missed, the mind and body crave for rest. The mind tends to become less alert and attentive. People lose mental agility and powers of concentration. When they cannot concentrate, they absorb less. What is taught or what is learnt is not stored in the form of memory." Dr Medha Baskaran

• Research shows that learning doesn't really sink in until we've had a good night's sleep.
• Eight hours a night during school time is about right.
• The brain needs to file away information so that it can be used later, and much of this happens during sleep. If there isn't enough sleep this can't happen.
• Staying up late the night before an exam to do last minute revision will not help. You are likely to become more stressed and exhausted on the day and your performance will suffer.

Lots of young people give up sleep to study, giving up in other words the one thing that would help them more than practically anything else ...

A good night's sleep:

• End your evenings with light tasks like planning the next evening's revision sessions or ordering your notes so that your mind isn't "whirring away"
• Relax yourself before bed with a bath or shower
• Don't drink anything with caffeine in (Coffee or Cola drinks) within three hours of going to bed.
• Don't exercise last thing at night.

Keeping calm

Relaxation exercises:

• Sit or lie somewhere where you feel completely comfortable. Work through your whole body, muscle by muscle, tensing the muscle for 10 seconds and then relaxing it for 10 to 15 seconds. Work from your feet through your body to your scalp. Take your time and relax. Play relaxing music in the background if you have any!! This gets easier with practice and is useful at least twice a day before and after revising or preparing for exams or tests.
  
• Breathe in for the count of 3, hold for the count of 3, exhale for the count of 3 and hold for the count of 3. Repeat as many times as you want.
  
• Lying down with your eyes closed, imagine yourself in a very peaceful place. It can be real or totally imaginary. Use all your senses to create a total picture. What do you see? What is the temperature like? What do you smell? What do you feel? Is there a gentle breeze? Can you hear birds or the gentle lapping of waves? Can you feel sand in your toes or the sun on your face? When you bring yourself back to the real world bring the feelings of relaxation back with you. Make this your special place… you can visit it any time you like!
  
• On the night before an exam, rehearse a relaxed and positive performance. Close your eyes and begin by doing your breathing exercises. Imagine arriving at the examination room, calm and relaxed. Imagine opening the paper and being pleased at the questions you are being asked, because you are confident of doing well. Then complete the paper with ease and sit back feeling completely satisfied. Repeat the whole process in the morning when you wake up.
  

First, pause for a few moments: put your pen down and sit back; slow your breathing down a little. Let your body relax. Relaxation and breathing exercises will help to reduce these symptoms.

Some foods are more calming than others. Milk and bananas for example contain natural substances which help to calm you down. Sugar does the opposite! It may give an instant "energy hit", but at the cost of making you even more nervy than you were before. Chocolate, interestingly enough, seems to be the exception. It is possible that chocolate has a calming effect and cancels out the effect of the sugar. If you absolutely must eat sweet things during your exam time, then try to keep to chocolate.

Apart from calming you down, exercising also increases the rate of blood flow around your body, and to the brain as well. It appears that this can really help you to think more clearly, and to learn better.