Studying From Home Tip— Move Your Desk Next To A Window So That You Don’t Get Depressed While You

i got accepted into the research internship i applied to!!! 🥳 i guess my interview wasn't that bad after all lol

I did it. I fucking did it. It’s over!!!!

Math exam day stats:

Cry count: only 3!

Headache: 3/10 - pretty good, really not a lot

Moodswings: 10/10 - the first exam was awful the second one alright + confused crying laughing

Tired: 9/10 I’m exhausted

- and only like 18 weeks until I can do all that again and have the pleasure of taking my FINAL exam (Abitur) 😃😃

But until then… life is good again

you ask a student in april how they're doing and they'll say "oh i'm fine" but in reality they are treating themselves in such a way that violates the geneva convention on treatment of prisoners

funny story… the timer on my quiz was at ~40 mins and i only had an hour for the quiz so I was super stressed— only 20 mins left with a third of the problems left.

turns out the timer was counting down 😭 so i rushed for literally no reason. i got 100% anyways! so no harm.

today is a study day (fortunately or regrettably depending on your perspective). this problem set is really cool and i actually like learning about circuits, which i didn’t expect.

- circuits problem set (88 mins)

- circuits quiz (39 mins)

- advanced circuits lecture

i’m REALLY behind in my course and i need to catch up by the time school starts again so i probably have another 4 hrs of work minimum. it’s finally feeling like crunch time lol

life lately.

also chat do you fw buzzfeed unsolved :D

“Since it is now past 2 AM, perhaps it’s time to get some sleep and tackle this tomorrow?”

Especially as a student, it seems necessary to sacrifice sleep in order to study for a test more or get that last homework assignment done, and I get it.

It’s a never-ending cycle— stay up late to study, too tired the next day, procrastinate because you’re tired…

I used to sleep around 8 hours, which is generally the norm, when I found that I was still procrastinating and still tired. I thought that this was due to stress and therefore needed to study more to reduce my stress about upcoming tests. This led to me sleeping 6-7 hours instead.

These past couple of weeks, I’ve decided to listen to my body a lot more, often sleeping 9-10 hours.

I’ve become more productive: being able to work towards my goals without losing out on my health, being more energized, and also having more free time.

It seems counterintuitive, right? Sleeping three hours more should reduce how much I get done in a day, but no. I realized I spend a lot of time while I study being off track or doomscrolling on my phone. This actually is a logical result of being tired— not having enough energy to focus on a task and needing the dopamine in a fast release.

So what do I do if I enjoy working late at night? Especially in high school, there’s strict schedules and timings for when you have to be up so that you can be on time. Unless you can get a prep period, you have to wake up at 7:00 am.

I started taking naps as soon as I get home. If I’m not feeling as if I’ll get anything done, I try to get off my phone and just listen to music or daydream as I try to get a little bit of sleep.

If I keep this up, hopefully Copilot will stop criticizing my sleep habits 😁

homemade strawb matchas & cozy nights studying 🍓🍵

early morning study session! i’ve been at it for two hours and i’ve only gotten through 7 physics problems but that’s the fun part 😁

pretty sure i got one wrong bc one of my solutions is 1.3 x 10^65 hydrogen atoms….

#1. NO MORE GUILT

Ever find yourself crashing out after a long day at school, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, and getting nothing done? It sounds horrible when I put it that way. Bed rotting, doom scrolling, whatever it is, it’s never a fun thing.

Here’s the thing though— it doesn’t have to feel that way.

There are two states that we can consider you to be in. Focus and Relaxation. The situation I described above is caught in between these two states. You want to be in a focus state, but you’re overwhelmed and stuck in your relaxation state. The opposite is also true. You try to get work done but catch yourself distracted, on your phone, instead. You are in a focus state, but you want to be in a relaxation state.

The number one change you can do to help your mental health is to choose a side.

When you are in your focus state, commit. You put your best effort in and keep your mind engaged in what you are working on. No distractions. This is going to help you get so much more work done in a shorter period of time. As you practice this, you are going to realize that when you are in your focus state, distractions are less enticing and you will be able to maintain it for longer.

Disclaimer: if you have to tell yourself to “lock in” you aren’t doing it right. Forcing yourself into a focus state is never going to work, it's just going to lead to that same, tiring, useless feeling.

To actually decompress and feel happier, you can’t have second thoughts in your relaxation. Set a timer if you have to, but you need to let yourself enjoy whatever you are doing. Imagine this: after a long hard day, you treat yourself by getting some popcorn, bundle yourself up in blankets, dim the lights, and get to watch the movie that’s been on your bucket list for the past week. So much better than what we started with, right? The cycle of guilt relaxation starts with wanting to decompress but feeling guilty the whole time. You don’t rest and aren’t happy because all you’ve been thinking about is “I have to get work done.” Instead, you get more tired, and you need to continue laying around or scrolling on your phone.

You don’t have to change your entire routine— just be more mindful about which state you are in and how you can take advantage of that.

"Anything that is easy for me must be worthless." — Impostor syndrome in a nutshell