Fact check: Don't that's the answer your body is signaling to you that it's tired so why do you want to tire it out even more with a bunch of calculus problems or that English essay that you haven't even started no no no you deserve to treat yourself i want you to go and grab the warmest and the comfiest blanket that you have turn the lights off and take a nice long nap until you feel re-energized and when you wake up in the middle of the night that's when you can scramble and panic and try to finish all of your assignments just a few hours before class obviously I'm joking you probably don't have the luxury to take a nap right now so how do you get through that pile of work that's just staring at you in this video I'm going to cover my tips for studying even when you're exhausted the truth is you only have two solutions here you can either boost your energy so you can work for longer or you can optimize your workflow so you can finish faster now obviously you want a mix of both let's begin by talking about ways to feel more energized tip number one fix your body posture like right now I see the way that you're slouching there's an idea known as embodied cognition which states that the physical condition of our body influences how we think feel and process information in other words the way that you're sitting at your desk right now influences your energy levels and your concentration so look although sitting like this or this or even this might seem comfortable actually that one seems kind of uncomfortable it hinders your ability to focus and studies support this researchers at San Francisco State University tested 125 students on a series of math problems both while they were slouching and also while they were sitting upright 56% of those students a majority reported that those problems were easier to solve when they were sitting up straight so as you're working keep your back straight your shoulders slightly pushed back and your feet flat on the floor of course you don't have to freeze yourself in this position feel free to move around a little bit but avoid slouching so you don't put your mind in that lethargic state alternatively you could simply stand as you work especially as you're listening to lecture recordings reciting key points or brainstorming i'm a huge fan of my standing desk for this very reason and plus you should be standing around every 30 minutes or so because sitting isn't all that great for your health which brings me to tip number two for boosting your energy more powerful than simply standing is the walking plus sunlight combo this is one of the quickest ways to boost your energy if you're feeling down i know you're busy so the walk doesn't have to be long just 10 to 20 minutes is plenty even walking for just this long increases your heart rate which pumps more oxygen and glucose to your brain think of glucose as the fuel that your brain needs to lock in plus if you're working on a creative task like a research project or an essay I would argue that walking is a necessity a Stanford study with 176 college students found that their creative output increased by 60% while walking compared to sitting now simply walking around even inside is fantastic but when you combine it with sunlight that's when you unlock some gamechanging benefits why because sunlight suppresses melatonin the hormone that causes us to feel tired plus sunlight encourages the production of serotonin which is our body's feel-good neurotransmitter that enhances focus and mood but go hard what if it's cloudy outside still go for that walk even indirect sunlight can help regulate melatonin and serotonin tip number three take a power nap all right I knew this one would be on the list and it is a valid strategy but here's the thing i'm not a huge fan of taking naps for some reason I always feel like I'm being lazy or not using my time efficiently even though I'm literally re-energizing i don't know does anybody else feel this way anyways I know that naps are sometimes necessary and note how I said a power nap and not just a regular nap the last thing I want you to do is take a 3 4 5 hour nap wake up at 2:00 a.m not knowing what universe you're on and scramble to finish your work at the last minute instead I want you to take a 20 to 30 minute nap preferably earlier in the day this way you can experience the restorative effects of a nap without feeling groggy when you wake up all while protecting your sleep schedule let's go ahead and give this a try this is going to be my first nap in months so we have found a dark quiet and cool place which feels pretty ideal for napping so let's go ahead and set a timer for 30 minutes now I am a bit skeptical because I feel like it takes me 20 minutes just to fall asleep but let's see i'll report back to you shortly all right so I did manage to fall asleep and I didn't feel super groggy had I slept for longer I might have gone through a sleep cycle and woken up with more sleep inertia which is that drowsy postnap feeling i'm very glad that we avoided that all right and then the next tip for boosting energy drink coffee maybe now this one I saved for last because guzzling through cups of coffee to finish your A push readings should not be your go-to solution think of coffee as a band-aid that you should use only in dire situations so you know how I don't take naps well this might also surprise you i don't drink coffee either i didn't drink it at all during high school nor did I drink it during college if you're younger I recommend you do the same or at the very least limit your coffee intake because once you get hooked it can be very hard to stop and here's how that happens your brain produces adenosine a chemical that makes you feel tired by binding to adenosine receptors when you drink coffee the caffeine blocks these receptors which prevents adenosine from making you feel fatigued if this happens once in a while cool but if you start doing this more often your brain will actually produce more adenosine receptors to make up for the ones that are blocked by caffeine so now you'll need extra caffeine to block the extra receptors to achieve the same level of alertness and this can just spiral into a continuous loop so if you want to drink coffee to feel more alert avoid doing it habitually limit yourself to 100 to 200 millig of caffeine in a day especially if you're younger and also stop drinking coffee at least 6 hours before bed because the caffeine can linger in your body a lot longer than you expect caffeine has a halflife of about 6 hours so if you drink 200 milligrams at 400 p.m your body is still going to have 100 milligrams at 1000 p.m and 50 milligrams at 4:00 a.m which is when you should hopefully hopefully be asleep now let's move on to the second part of this video how to optimize your workflow but before we jump in let's hear from this video sponsor Grammarly grammarly is an AI tool that goes way beyond spelling and grammar it helps with the entire writing process from brainstorming to editing let's say we have to write an essay about the American Revolution but don't know where to start all we have to do is ask Grammarly for help with brainstorming and it'll generate a handful of topics in seconds completely for free as a reminder we're not using this to write our paper for us but it's simply giving us thought starters i like this first one right here so let's go ahead and choose that and then the next step is finding sources but that can get very timeconuming thankfully Grammarly can even summarize articles so we can extract the main points and weave them into our writing with ease what I admire most about Grammarly is that you're still in control of the writing it'll never write your essay for you but rather steer you on the right path and polish your ideas for example with Grammarly Pro we can rewrite run-on sentences to make them more clear and we can also replace overused words so we don't sound repetitive and if you're worried about using AI in school there's a plagiarism in AI detector as well they even have Grammarly authorship which helps shows how much of your essay is AI typed human written or AI assisted so you can have a transparent conversation with your professors grammarly is a must have for all students sign up and upgrade to Grammarly Pro for 20% off using the link in my description and now back to the video so tip number one for optimizing your workflow capture the easy wins now picture the worst case scenario you're trembling at your desk on the verge of sleep exhaustion and you're 15 minutes away from going to bed obviously you're going to want to capture the easy points first these points usually come from mindless or repetitive tasks like creating flashcards answering true false questions labeling diagrams or creating citations now the benefit of prioritizing tasks like these especially while you're tired is twofold yes you're getting those easy points before you collapse but you're also building up that momentum you might need to keep going there's a good chance these quick wins actually help you feel more energized and earn more points in the long run and that brings me to tip number two understand what to prioritize once you capture the easy wins you need to think carefully about the remaining tasks a framework that I recommend is the Eisenhower matrix it's a 2x2 grid with the columns labeled urgent and not urgent and the rows labeled important and not important tasks that are important and urgent you do now tasks that are important and not urgent you reschedule tasks that are not important and urgent you delegate and tasks that are not important and not urgent you delete so first let's look at the tasks that we should do now study for a calculus midterm tomorrow morning yep finish a group project proposal due at midnight yep and finalize outline for club presentation tomorrow also a yes next let's look at the kinds of tasks that we should reschedule research summer internship opportunities yes prepare a study guide for biology exam next Thursday yes and schedule appointment with academic adviser for next month also yes all right and then we have tasks to delegate this category is weird because it's not like you can hand off your homework to someone else instead most of these tasks will pertain to group projects or extracurriculars for example coordinate snacks and drinks for tomorrow's club meeting or find sources for group history project and finally we have tasks to delete if you're in a time crunch you should delete any tasks related to passive studying or system maintenance here's what I mean organize old class notes from last semester yeah we can delete that or maybe reschedule it re-watch yesterday's lecture recording yep we can also remove that all right and then tip number three find the fun we go through most of our work because we feel forced to complete it not because we want to complete it but if you can find a way to enjoy the work you'll be much more compelled to follow through even if you're tired one of my favorite ways to do so is by assuming the persona here's what I mean if you're writing an English paper imagine you're a Pulitzer Prizewinning author if you're working on a biology lab report imagine you're an esteemed researcher on the brink of a breakthrough or if you're working on a calculus assignment imagine you're a NASA engineer it sounds cheesy I know but it does help alternatively you can gify your study session by rewarding yourself at specific checkpoints for example you can grab a snack or a drink every hour or you can game for 15 minutes every 2 hours the rewards should scale with the amount of work however in no world should you be watching a movie or a TV show for finishing an hour of work for example though you could reward yourself with the movie or TV show at the end of all your studying and finally you can also find the fun by enhancing your study environment either the place or the people you can enhance the place by studying somewhere new like a library or a cafe and you can enhance the people by finding a group to study with in college this was one of my favorite ways to study even though it wasn't always the most productive but I made it through many many late nights by studying with my core friend group this is why studying in college can sometimes be more fun than studying in high school even though the classes get harder you have access to far more locations and people to make these work sessions more enjoyable and productive which leads me to my final tip maintain the flow state the flow state is every student's best friend it's when you're fully immersed in the task at hand feeling like nothing else in the world matters time will slow down distractions will melt away and most importantly you'll fly through your work to maintain the flow state we have to minimize the number of disruptions such as jumping between two dissimilar tasks for example jumping from a math packet to an English essay is bound to ruin your flow state because both require very different mindsets the solution here is to batch your tasks look at your to-do list and group tasks that require similar mindsets for example you may batch tasks that require logical thinking such as a calculus PEP or a chemistry lab report and then you may bash tasks that require a bit more creative thinking such as an English essay or even a history reading although you're still going to experience some sort of transition cost or distraction when jumping from task to task that distraction will be much less pronounced if the tasks are batched and hopefully that makes it much easier to fly through your work and go to bed in time y'all that does it for this week's video be sure to subscribe if you haven't already join my Discord and newsletter for more study tips rest up get enough sleep