How to FOCUS to STUDY and memorize

Do you have exams and you need to study, but you can't concentrate? There are methods, techniques, strategies and supplements to improve concentration and memory. Vitae recommends Eye Q, a 100% natural supplement based on Omega-3 (EPA) and Omega-6 (DHA and GLA), two very important fatty acids for brain function. This formula contains a unique combination (EPA: DHA: GLA = 9: 3: 1) scientifically endorsed, which helps the proper development and functioning of the brain. Provides beneficial effects in all vital stages, improving performance, concentration and memory capacity; especially in cases of attention deficit and hyperactivity, learning difficulties, problems undiagnosed behavioral disorders, autism spectrum disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, among others. In addition, it is highly recommended by specialists in both infant feeding and women. pregnant women and for people with diets based on high intakes of Omega-6 (saturated fat, meat, dairy, etc).

You want to know how to focus to study and memorize

Index

1. Why can't I focus to study
2. Sleep well
3. Vitamins to study
4. Do physical activity
5. Find a quiet place
6. Manage concerns
7. Have everything at hand
8. To plan
9. To rest
10. Be realistic and accept
11. Use all the senses
12. Assist processing
13. Make outlines
14. Involve your emotions
15. Simulate context
16. Use mnemonic rules
17. Know how to stop

Do you find it difficult to concentrate when studying? What is the reason for the lack of concentration? Next, we will see the most frequent causes and reasons:

• External distractions: noise, music, voices, movement, the mobile phone ...
• Internal distractions: hunger, thirst, discomfort, sleep, fatigue ...
• Worries
• Stress.
• Anxiety.
• Depression.
• Lack of motivation.
• Attention problems.
• Little ability to concentrate.

Next, we will see how to solve the circumstances that make you unable to concentrate. There are many ways to focus to study.

The first thing that we must take into account for the proper functioning of cognitive abilities is rest. To be able to study and perform properly, you must have slept well. We refer to both sleep time and quality of it. It is recommended sleep 8 hours and have some good sleep hygiene habits for example:

• Use the bed only to sleep and not to study.
• Work according to sunlight, that is, sleep at night and be awake during the day. Studying at night will affect your circadian rhythm and affect your attention and concentration performance.
• Follow a relaxing routine before going to bed: have dinner early, leave the screens ...

Sleep is not only important to study better, but sleep is essential to memorize. One of the functions of sleep is learning. While you sleep, the concepts studied are consolidated. For this reason, it is counterproductive to study at night and sleep little and badly. Here you will find Tips and tricks for fast and deep sleep.

It is also important to follow a healthy and varied diet to be healthy and that the brain function is optimal. To do this, we must provide the body with all the necessary nutrients and as little unhealthy food as possible. Sugar especially affects the nervous system and cognitive abilities, among whose effects we find irritability, nervousness, lack of concentration and mood swings. For this reason, sugar consumption can be one of the reasons why you often say "I cannot concentrate to study".

On the other hand, fatty acids, such as Omega-3 and Omega-6, and vitamins They help the performance of brain functions, enhancing the capacity for attention, concentration and memory. Vitamin B1 increases the activity of the nervous system, vitamin B5 provides energy, vitamin B6 helps regulate mood and vitamin B12 helps the proper functioning of the nervous system central.

So what do you take to focus? Some tips for concentration in relation to food are the following:

• Avoid sugary drinks and alcohol.
• Regulate coffee consumption.
• Although they provide energy quickly, saturated fats and foods rich in sugar should be avoided as they make concentration difficult.
• Take foods rich in magnesium and potassium such as bananas, greens, vegetables, nuts ...
• Chocolate (with a high percentage of cocoa) in small quantities also enhances concentration and memory.

There's others foods that can help concentration and memory.

Physical activity is essential to stay physically and psychologically healthy. The practice of physical exercise increases the levels of neurotrophic factor, a protein that improves neural plasticity, in this way, can increase neural connections, which translates What new learnings. It also increases the formation of new neurons and the amount of blood they receive, thus improving their functioning.

Even physical exercise can improve function and slightly enlarge the size of the hippocampus, one of the brain structures most involved in memory.

In addition, exercising has many benefits at a muscular and psychological level, something of great importance if you intend to spend long days studying in the same position.

In order to focus on a specific stimulus, such as a book or some notes, it is important to avoid other more striking things that can distract you. When it comes to studying, the first thing to do is find the right place: a quiet place where distractions are minimal. A place is recommended spacious, clear, sunny, quiet, tidy, with few stimuli, in short, where you can feel comfortable, calm and isolated.

It is recommended that it is not the bed or the sofa, that is, that they are not places that are associated with rest or leisure. It will be easier to focus on a place that you associate with work and study.

"I am not concentrating to study, what can I do?" If your problem is that you get distracted by thoughts and things that worry you, you can do several things to improve your attention:

• Resolution: solve those things that have to be done immediately to be able to leave it closed and not interrupt the study session.
• Programming: If it cannot be resolved at this time, you can write down in your agenda when you will resolve that matter.
• Relaxation: to have the mind more clear of thoughts and receptive to study and learn new concepts.
• Mindfulness: For all those unproductive thoughts and worries that do not have a feasible solution at the moment, the most useful thing is to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is a meditation technique that consists of focusing attention on a single object and letting go of the thoughts that come. Be aware that a "what am I going to do for dinner tomorrow" or "the last test me it was fatal "and that these thoughts cannot be resolved and they are not helping at all, so you leave them to go. Kindly stop paying your attention to them and go back to focus on what you are doing here and now. In this article, you will find more information about how to practice mindfulness.

To avoid distractions and not to cut off an activity when you are focused, it is best that you already have everything you need. A good idea is to do a list of the materials you need for that task or study day (the notes, the folder, the agenda, the computer, a book, a notebook, that highlighter, a pen that works, a glass of water ...). It seems to have less importance than it really does, since the most difficult thing about concentration is maintaining it. If every time you need something, you have to get up, you interrupt a moment of concentration.

To achieve a goal, the first step is planning. You may make a schedule or calendar with your goals study. You should include the tasks to be done and also the breaks. Why planning can help you focus better and make your study more productive? Because when you have a very extensive agenda and you don't know where to start, you waste time deciding it. Because when you don't know what to do, it's easier for you to get overwhelmed and end up doing nothing.

Spend some time to organize the study well, above all, raise realistic times that include breaks. Think that if you are achieving what is proposed, your satisfaction will increase your motivation, which will drive you to achieve the next goal (an outline of a page of the book, for example). While if the goals are impossible, you will not meet them, your motivation will plummet and in that frame of mind it is much more difficult to concentrate.

How to focus to study for an exam? The attention lasts approximately 45 minutes, however, each person is different. The best thing you can do is try and get to know yourself and know at what time of the day your concentration is best and how long you can be concentrated. It is very important to understand that in the study time, quality prevails over quantity. Studying is not a passive activity, it is an active activity that requires effort on our part to understand, assimilate, internalize and integrate new knowledge.

For all this, you must take breaks when you notice that you are not performing everything you could. Forcing yourself will only increase fatigue, decreasing concentration and memory function.

Sometimes, lack of concentration or poor performance in the study is due to poor organization during the course and excessive pressure during the last weeks or days. It is also important for the functioning of concentration to know how to be realistic and understand what memory is capable of and what it is not. You can't do miracles, you can't memorize manuals in hours, you can't study a course in an afternoon. If this is your case, nothing happens, May the experience help you to organize yourself better and start studying in advance next time.

Memory works better if information is captured by different channels. Therefore, it is interesting that you not only read, but also listen to the explanation. Thus, we exercise different memory types.

The more channels the better. It is important to attend classes or conferences, watch explanatory videos, documentaries, news on the subject... You can, for example, speak out loud, record and listen to yourself, etc.

The more you work with this information, the easier it will be to retain it in your memory. Therefore, if you want to memorize and concentrate better while studying, you can:

• Read the information.
• Summarize it.
• Ask you questions about her.
• Look for the answers.
• Explain the topic to another person.

Another of the tricks to concentrate when studying and memorizing better is involve different brain functions and areas doing different actions Thinking activates different areas than speaking, writing or moving. Therefore, the more actions you do with this information, the more ways you will be processing it and making it easier to consolidate in your memory.

Making diagrams is another of the best techniques to study better. To promote learning, a very useful technique is the outline, a visual method to memorize key concepts and the relationships between them. From there, other concepts are added and other important ideas are developed that allow us to better understand the global issue. You can make collage, do it by hand or digitally, you can use images, graphs, shapes..., everything that helps you connect and work with the information. In this way, we are working the visual memory. Here you can see How to have a photographic memory.

It makes sense that what we remember the most is what has generated an emotional impact on us, since in this way the brain knows that it is very important information and that it must keep it. The learnings that have a more personal connotation, the events that impact our emotions are the ones we remember best. You can use this trick to study and memorize better by relating the information to your own personal experiences and get emotionally involved in what you are studying.

The brain is a detector of changes in the environment. According to the stimuli it perceives in the environment, it responds in one way or another. For this reason, stimuli reminiscent of a traumatic event trigger an anxiety response or stimuli reminiscent of a substance provoke the need for consumption in an addicted person.

Another method of concentrating on studying is to take advantage of context. Namely, pretend it's time for the exam and study like this. For example, you can find a similar place, at a similar time, in a similar environment, having had the same (coffee, tea, nothing ...), etc. In this way, when it is the day of the exam, your brain will better connect with the moment of the study and it will be easier to retrieve the memorized information.

It is likely that you ask yourself what is the best way to study and memorize, although it is true that the most effective technique will always be one that requires effort and perseverance, if you are in an emergency and need to learn something from one day to the next, we offer you the following tricks to memorize faster:

• Make a list of the keywords that appear in the text.
• If you must memorize words or data, you can use mnemonic rules, these are short and simple sentences that can help you access a memory. For example, if you have to remember the provinces or capitals of an area, try matching the initials so that they form a word.
• If what you must memorize are objects, you can create a story between them, the more unlikely the better.

"I need to study and I can't concentrate." "What to do to concentrate to study for many hours?". Do you identify with these phrases? Perhaps what you need is rather to learn to stop. Concentration, attention, and memory are cognitive abilities that train and improve over time. To achieve these improvements, the important thing is to be constant and responsible. Being responsible also goes through take care and rest, disconnect, enjoy social relationships, physical activity in the open air, quality time with your family, your hobbies ...

It is important not to lose the north, especially, when studying with the pressure of the oppositions or other very demanding exams. As we have seen at the beginning, it is very important to study to be healthy and in balance. Therefore, it must balancing study with the other important areas of life.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to focus to study and memorize, we recommend that you enter our category of Education and study skills.

• Carlson, N. R., Bernal, I. M., Andreu, M. C., & Vázquez, S. S. (2006). Behavioral physiology. Madrid: Pearson Education.
• Ruiz-Vargas, J. M. (2010). Memory Psychology Manual. Synthesis.