A lot of students complain that they feel sleepy the moment they sit down to study. Drowsiness disrupts their ability to sit and study for long hours. What can a student do about this problem? Here are 7 tips to overcome sleepiness while studying.
Table of Contents
Lack of Burning Desire
Students often lack a burning desire to achieve their goals. Sometimes the lack of a SMART goal can be the reason for the lack of interest in chasing down the goal. The end result is that one feels sleepy when studying as motivation is missing.
Fix both long-term and short-term goals. Print them or write them down and paste them at the place you sit down to study. View the goals a few times each day till they become your mantra.
Internalising your goals will start nudging you to start achieving these goals and that can create a burning desire inside you.
Eating heavily can make you feel sleepy when studying
Having a heavy meal with lots of sugar and carbs can redirect the blood flow to the stomach from the brain. This too is a leading cause that makes you feel sleepy when studying.
- Eat light before your study time
- Break your meal into smaller portions and distribute it over 4-8 hours
- Drink lots of water as that brings down hunger levels
Eating a heavy meal also increases your body weight which too can prevent you from studying for longer durations.
Back pains due to weight gain can prompt you to lie down while studying. This leads next to sleepiness.
Minimum number of hours of sleep
Students also make the mistake of not sleeping for the minimum recommended hours. This is driven by the anxiety to study more. However, lack of sleep can also disrupt studies.
Lack of sleep also upsets blood pressure in the medium to long term which can cause elevated levels of stress. This too plays havoc with your studies. A key way to overcome sleepiness whiles studying is to ensure that the body gets the requisite hours of sleep at night.
Stick to a rhythm
Somebody has famously observed that a 1% improvement every day in a chosen task leads to you being 37 times better at the task at the end of 1 year. Consistency rewards you like nothing else.
Sticking to a rhythm helps you to keep moving towards your goals steadily even though it might be slow.
Avoid distractions that suck you in
Make a list of distractions that really have huge sway over you. Stick that list in front of you to identify them consciously and maintain your distance from them. It could be Facebook, Instagram, TV, Radio, or plain gossip with friends.
Reward yourself in small ways when you have managed to successfully avoid getting distracted from the known distractors.
You may even want to have a few family members or friends keep reminding you if they catch you whiling away your time with distractions.
Keep the alarm clock away from you while sleeping
A simple tip to all you oversleepers is to keep your alarm clock far away from your arm but close enough to hear the alarm. Most of us heavy sleepers tend to switch off the alarm without fully being aware of it. Later, once fully awake, we feel sorry for our actions.
An easy solution is to distance yourself from your alarm clock. When it rings, you will need to make the effort to pull yourself out of the bed and walk a few paces to switch it off. This is usually enough to wake up fully.
Commit to yourself about getting up the next morning a dozen times
One of the easy ways to ensure you get up on time is to reiterate several times the previous day to your mind that will get up at a certain time the next day. Repeating this to your mind allows it to gain acceptance of the planned task and creates an aura of inevitability around it. This commitment to yourself helps you overcome sleepiness early in the day.
Conclusion
Following the 7 steps elaborated above can not only help overcome sleepiness but can give a wonderful boost to your motivational levels. Let me know how these worked for you. Share your ideas in the comments below.
