How To Read for Long Hours Without Getting Tired or Sleepy: Questions are always being asked on the secret about being able to stay up for a long period of time studying. So many people find it difficult to keep up their retention capacity for a long period of time. Others find it difficult to win the ever-fierce battle with sleep when they are trying to study for long hours. For some others, they just are unable to keep their attention in check when reading for long hours.
While it is of utmost importance to able to stay up for long hours immersing ourselves in studies of academic material, being able to retain so much while studying is also important. There are situations where we have very short deadlines to meet or have a lot of work to cover. Studying for long hours in such situations become very imperative.
This is a guide on how to study for long hours and retain as much details as possible. How to achieve the desired aim without having to resort to cramming and being disturbed by headache. This guide also explains how to carrying on studies for a long period of time, retaining a huge chunk of the texts covered.
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Top 7 Tips on Studying for Long Hours Without Getting Tired or Sleepy
To be able to study for a relatively long period of time and retain what’s being studied without being unduly bored, the following tips should be considered:
1. Set achievable study goals: We all understand our individual strengths and what we can achieve within a reasonable period of time. To be able to maximize our study time, it is best to set achievable study tasks. Being practical with the study goals we set go a long way to improve our study hours.
If for instance, before we begin our studies, we tell ourselves that we are going to finish up two chapters of a text, doing this gives us some extra motivation to continue even when we start feeling tired. While it is important to set practical and achievable goals, we must not be too rigid with these goals. Planning how our studies will be goes a long way to give us direction during studies.
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2. Prioritize your studies: When planning on what to study and how many hours will be dedicated to the study of a particular subject, it is best to prioritize. Take time to think and clearly distinguish between subjects that are of particular interests to you and those that are not. To be able to achieve the desired result, it is best to pair both interesting and not interesting subjects together. Begin studies by dedicating the first few hours to the seemingly boring subjects.
The reason for this is that at this point, you have a lot of energy and can take on a boring subject with this energy. However, after a few hours, you can move on to the very exciting subjects to you. You will still be able to study them and get a true understanding of this subject as it is an area you are interested in. Where you have a complex subject to study, e.g, one involving calculations, it is best to begin with it before moving ahead to studying the less complex topics.
3. Study in a serene environment: To be able to reduce the distractions associated with studying, it is best to pick a location that is reasonably serene. Studying in a noisy place has a way of reducing our attention span. Also, where concentration on the subject being studied is broken from time to time, understanding capacity becomes reduced and studying becomes more stressful.
It is for this reason that research has shown that people understand more easily subjects read at night, than those read during the day. This is because, it is usually very quiet and serene at night. Moving away from distractions goes a long way to improve our study time. The library is therefore one of the best places to study during the day because there is the likelihood of less distractions there.
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4. Include breaks in your study schedule: When planning how your studies is going to be for a particular day, it is best to incorporate breaks. During these breaks, you can decide to take a short stroll, or drink some water, or speak briefly to others.
For a person interested in studying for about 4 hours, a 15 minutes break after the first two hours will go a long way to improve studies during the succeeding two hours.
5. Have a Study Partner: Where this is possible, try as much as possible to incorporate a study partner into your studies. When you are interested in really studying for long hours, get a friend who is also interested in doing the same thing and study with that friend.
When you incorporate a study partner into your study schedule, you are more likely to act as checks on each other and also as a motivation to each other. Be sure to use a very serious-minded person as a study partner. You both can align your study plans and goals together to attain the best outcome and inspire each other to read for long hours.
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6. Undertake discussions on the subject studied: One of the best ways to have a subject studied stick more tightly to our brains is to speak on the subject. When discussing about a topic we just studied, we tend to expose the gray areas in our understanding of the topic. You can never be too confident of your understanding of a topic unless you discuss same.
So, to increase the hours of productive study time, you may incorporate maybe one hour of discussing what has been studied with a study-partner. By having these discussions, you both expose knowledge gap on the subject and are inspired to study even longer and more diligently.
7. Stay away from your mobile phones: While we are trying to study for long hours, it is also important to make sure these hours are productive. One way of achieving this is by keeping away our phones aside when studying. If possible, it is best to go to your study location or library without your phone. By so doing, you are able to maximize the number of hours you have to study to the fullest.
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Conclusion
Studying is an art and one that must be learnt and mastered. If you want to improve on your study hours and make these hours more productive, you must take out time to learn and plan about your studies. This is a guide on how to utilize your study time and attain the best result. When next you need to study, think about incorporating the above tips in your studies.
Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.