Top Ten Tuesday... Study Tips!

1. Study for short bursts, often. Rather than for hours at a time rarely.
2. Always have a healthy snack and water near you. I know what it's like to get hungry while you're studying and then you grab a chocolate bar or packet of crisps because you don't want to waste time making a healthy snack (or you just don't want one) but if you chop up some of your favourite fruit (apples, strawberries,  bananas....) or prepare some carrot sticks and hummus and take that with you to revise along with a bottle of water,  then you can be snacking while you revise and the healthy food will keep your brain feeling fresh and ready to take in information.
3. Make it fun! whether that means making colourful posters or putting up 100's of post-it notes around your house. Studying should be tailored to suit you if you want to stick at it.  A few things I personally like to do are: making flashcards to carry around with me, make a list of questions for other people to ask me repeatedly until I get them all right and re-writing my notes in pretty notebooks (I'm kind of a stationary geek!)
4. Join a study group
5. Reward yourself for your achievements, maybe after each chapter you've memorized or after you've spent a total of X hours studying - it will keep you motivated and happy. Your rewards could be a pamper evening, or a new lip gloss or even just a yummy treat, anything that you can look forward to and enjoy.
6. Don't push yourself too hard! - don't spend 8 hours revising all in one go or set unrealistic goals for yourself because you'll just end up feeling bad about yourself and probably give up.
7. Get plenty of sleep and 'me time'! - I've been guilty of this myself,  In the months leading up to my exams I was studying from the moment I got home until after midnight every single night and all day on the weekends until the point I made myself ill and was fainting at school. Although at the time I didn't realise it,  but lack of sleep makes our brain work harder to stay away and it takes in less information, meaning  that you would need to study twice as much as if you had a good 8-9 hours sleep. If you don't follow any of my other tips, please please please follow this one it really does make the biggest difference to both your health and brain function!!!
8. Set your passwords as  ''study', this probably sounds really silly but it can't do any harm, by typing the word 'study', it makes you think about it and motivates you to study, I did this and it worked for me!
9. Put up inspirational photos and quotes, around your room and as your screensavers. It could be the logo for the collage/ university you want to go to or a quote that inspires you to try your best.
10. PAST PAPERS!!! these are generally the best way to see how ready you are for your exam. Do one everyday and track your progress (use your wrong answers to motivate you to study more!) I would even suggest doing one the morning of your exam to get you in the right frame of mind and so you will be familiar with the layout of your exam so you can get right into the questions as soon as possible.

Finally I just wanted to say good luck to anyone who has exams coming up, I know it's very early in the school year but it's never too early to start planning your studying.