Studying isn’t always stimulating — especially after a long day in class or at work, when your brain feels ready to shut down.
If simply staying awake while studying seems harder than quantum physics, try one of the following nine strategies to help you be alert and focused.
Movement is a well-documented energy booster. In addition to helping you stay awake, it may also help relieve exam-time stress and improve your ability to actually remember what you study.
A 2018 study of students of all ages — ranging from elementary school to college — found that 10 minutes of walking outdoors significantly improved students’ performance with memory, feature detection, and mathematical problem-solving tasks.
Aim to take a short break every 30 to 50 minutes to walk, dance, or do a few jumping jacks.
Our bodies are attuned to respond to environmental signals such as light and darkness. While the relationship between light and sleep is indirect — it’s possible to fall asleep in a well-lit room or to stay awake in darkness — light is a cue that can help promote wakefulness.
According to a 2017 study of zebrafish, this tendency may come down to a protein that’s activated when we’re exposed to light.
When it comes to studying, try to mimic a daytime environment with plenty of light. If it’s dark outside, a single lamp or overhead light might not be enough to keep you alert.
It might be tempting to get comfortable while studying, but it won’t help you stay awake.
Lying down is associated with increased activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, known for its role in functions such as “rest and digest.”
In contrast, sitting upright is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity. The sympathetic nervous system controls functions such as alertness.
A 2014 study analyzed whether sitting upright or lying down affected performance on a test of working memory.
The authors reported that when participants were lying down for the test, their self-reported sleep quality negatively affected their performance. Sleep quality didn’t affect performance when participants were sitting upright.
How does this relate to studying? If you’re feeling tired, sitting up may help you stay focused and alert.
You may also want to try standing up instead of sitting while you’re studying. Standing and moving around from time to time may help boost your blood circulation. This, in turn, may prevent you from getting sleepy.
If you live in a dorm room or shared apartment, the most convenient place to study might also happen to be the place where you usually sleep.
But it’s best to avoid studying in any place that you associate with sleep, which could leave you feeling drowsy.
When possible, study somewhere else, such as a library, coffee shop, or a dedicated, well-lit area of your home away from your bedroom.
By keeping studying and sleep areas separate, you’ll also be making it easier to turn off your brain when it’s time to go to bed.
Fatigue or sleepiness is sometimes a sign of dehydration. But dehydration won’t just drain your energy — it may also disrupt cognitive functions, making studying difficult.
A 2010 review examined dehydration, including its effects on brain function. The authors reported that mild to moderate levels of dehydration might impair short-term memory, concentration, mathematical ability, alertness, and perception.
To ensure that you don’t doze off while studying, stay hydrated throughout the day. This is especially important if you’re physically active or live in a warm climate.
While how much you should drink varies from person to person, aim for around half a gallon per day.
What and how much you eat affects your energy levels.
While it may be tempting to treat yourself while studying, it won’t help you stay awake. Sugary snacks and junk food can make your blood sugar spike and then crash, leaving you feeling sluggish.
On the other hand, if you forget to eat or eat too much, you might find yourself dozing off.
Instead, aim for a diet of small but frequent meals. Make sure each meal contains protein, a complex carbohydrate, and a source of healthy fat.
Some examples include:
Reading and rereading class notes or a textbook might not be enough to keep you awake, let alone absorb information.
Keep yourself awake — and get the most out of your study sessions — by using active study techniques. To do this, try one or more of the following:
Avoid nodding off by talking through the material with a classmate, friend, or study group.
Not only is social studying more motivating and stimulating, it can also offer new perspectives and interpretations of class materials. Ask someone to explain a confusing concept to you, or solidify your own understanding by teaching the material to a peer.
If you prefer to study individually, you might find that simply studying in the presence of other people makes it easier to avoid falling asleep.
Sleep plays an important role in mood, attention, motivation, and memory — all of which affect learning. It’s no surprise then that poor sleep is associated with poor academic performance.
In fact, making sleep a priority — both in the short- and the long-term — might be the most effective way to stay alert when you’re studying.
In a 2019 study, students were presented with detailed factual information over 5 hours. Midway through the 5-hour period, they either took a 1-hour nap, watched a film, or crammed the information. They were tested on the material 30 minutes after the end of the learning period and 1 week after the end of the learning period.
The researchers found that after 30 minutes, students who had either crammed or napped were able to recall the information better than students who had watched a film. However, after 1 week, only the students who had napped maintained better recall of the information.
Make time for naps, and stick to a regular sleep schedule to help make studying easier.
Staying alert and focused can be challenging when you need to study, especially at the end of a long day. But there are ways to boost your wakefulness and avoid nodding off in the middle of a study session.
The key is to adopt healthy habits, like staying hydrated, eating regular balanced meals, getting exercise, and prioritizing your sleep whenever possible.
Other strategies that may help include studying with friends in a well-lit area, avoiding your bedroom, and using active learning techniques.
Everyone wants that small edge, which can put her/ him ahead of others.
One such area is to squeeze in more effective hours into your study schedule.
What if you can stretch your effective daily study hours from eight to ten? It’s hard, no doubt, but achievable. In this post, I’ll cover seven steps which will help you fight lethargy (plus additional steps you can take to fight sleepiness in the evening) when studying and hence increase your daily output.
But before I come to the first step, I want to make three quick points:
You get the point: quality trumps quantity. Same holds for studyingHaving said that here are seven steps you can take to study long hours without getting overly tired or drowsy:
Take up the difficult material in the forenoon when you’re at your best, energy wise. (For most people this is the time when they’re most productive. If somehow you’re an exception to this, feel free to take up the difficult material at a time that works for you.
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Such scheduling matches your energy with the difficulty of the task at hand. As a result, you face less challenging topics in the evening, by when you’ve dissipated loads of your physical and mental energy and when tendency to slack is highest.
On the contrary, if you pick easy stuff early in the day to get a false sense of progress – which many procrastinators do – you’re more likely to succumb to procrastination and give up later in the day when your energy and resolve would hate being tested.
For the same reason, to the extent possible, schedule your low-effort, non-academic activities such as socializing, making calls, and daily chores later in the day.
As far as academics are concerned, physical exercise boosts learning ability and long-term memory, and controls anxiety and depression. But the benefits of exercise go beyond: it also improves concentration, alertness, and motivation.
To quote John J. Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and co-author of book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (the book delves into how exercise affects brain):
… It [exercise] optimizes your mind-set to improve alertness, attention, and motivation.
And the effects of exercise are visible almost immediately. In a review of several published scientific articles, this research brief by University of Texas, Austin says:
Physical activity can have both immediate and long-term benefits on academic performance. Almost immediately after engaging in physical activity, children are better able to concentrate on classroom tasks, which can enhance learning.
With these benefits, you can not only get more out of your study, but also last longer.
However, not all exercises are made equal as far as their effectiveness in improving your concentration and alertness in concerned. Most studies find 30-odd minutes of vigorous, sweat-inducing cardiovascular exercises to be the most effective.
(Please note that not all exercises are suitable for everyone. Before attempting a new exercise take into account factors such as flexibility, strength, and overall health to determine whether or not a particular exercise is appropriate for you.
You may consult your professional healthcare provider in this regard.)
Yes, steal… if you can’t get it the legit way. It’s so important.
To quote John Medina, a leading authority on brain study and founding director of two brain research institutes, from his book Brain Rules:
People vary in how much sleep they need and when they prefer to get it, but the biological drive for an afternoon nap is universal…. If you embrace the need to nap rather than pushing through, as LBJ [Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States and a prolific napper] found, your brain will work better afterward.
In a study by NASA, the pilots who took a 26-minute nap reduced their lapses in awareness by 34 percent compared to those who didn’t nap. Moreover, those who napped showed an improvement of 16 percent in their reaction times. Importantly, their performance stayed consistent through the day and didn’t slack at the end of a flight or at night.
The most important aspect of nap, as observed in the case of NASA pilots, is that performance slacks much less than when you don’t nap, which means you can study at a high intensity even late in the evening if you have had a nap in the afternoon.
So, steal a nap in the afternoon, and you’ll be in a better position to handle your next session. The little nap can add hours to your schedule in the evening, quality as well as quantity wise. Here, are few quick tips for effective naps:
Although your brain constitutes just 2 percent of your body weight, it guzzles 20 percent of your daily energy intake. Studies have shown that non-pleasurable mentally exhausting tasks – academic learning will fall into this category for most – drain our energy fast.
Therefore, it’s important to eat in a way that sustains your energy level when performing mentally exhausting tasks.
Eat higher proportion of low Glycemic Index (GI) foods (examples: oats, porridge, low-sugar museli, granola bars, yogurt with seeds/ nuts, low-fat dairy, soups, salads, anything wholegrain, and most fruits), which release glucose slowly into bloodstream, thereby maintaining energy level for a longer period. High-GI foods (examples: pizza, white bread, burger, cake, chocolate, cookie, potato chips, sugary beverages, and ice cream) have an opposite effect: your energy levels rise fast and crash equally fast, resulting in fatigue and drowsiness.
Here is an illustrative representation of how your energy level changes with low-GI and high-GI foods.
Second, if you notice in the above graph, your energy levels go down in 2-3 hours irrespective of what GI food you eat, which implies that you need to replenish your glucose level every three hours, if not two, in order to maintain your energy.
So, eat small portions every 2-3 hours.
Because your brain is energy guzzler (2 percent vs. 20 percent), it’s important not to dissipate your energy by letting your mind wander into debilitating, irrelevant thoughts. Thoughts that linger on:
“Why did he behave with me so rudely?”
“What if I fail in the exam?”
And so on…
An effective way to squash such thoughts is to recognize them the moment they cross your mind, count up to three, and divert your mind elsewhere. (Yes, such thoughts creep in so automatically that we don’t realize that they’re gnawing you mentally, unless of course you practice breaking the train of thoughts. And counting, or anything else you may try, does precisely that.)
I know it’s not easy to control such wandering thoughts, but if you can…then you conserve some precious energy.
You should take breaks for two reasons. It not only relaxes you, but it also restores your waning concentration.
Your concentration starts dropping after 50 minutes or so, and if you keep powering your way through, you’ll be studying with lesser concentration, which is akin to wasting time. Therefore, take a 5-10 minute break every 50-odd minutes to restore your focus. (Note that this period may vary for individuals. So, test what works for you.) During the break, do anything but study: walk around, eat something, get some quick exercise, gaze outside, and so on. Idea is to take a break from what you have been doing.
Well, this may be a luxury which most likely you can’t afford, but if you can, then read on.
Research has shown that studying/ working in daylight makes you less drowsy, more alert in the afternoon, thereby increasing your productivity or adding more hours to your schedule.
In a study, Mirjam Muench and his team exposed two groups of people to six hours of either artificial light or daylight for two days and found that:
Compared to the afternoon, people who had DL (Daylight) were significantly more alert at the beginning of the evening, and subjects who were exposed to AL (Artificial light) were significantly sleepier at the end of the evening.
DL group was also found to perform better on cognitive functions – functions such as reasoning, memory, and attention you need when doing an intense mental work – on the second day.
So pull your table and chair to the corner of the room which receives sunlight. This, however, doesn’t mean studying directly under sunlight. If the room where you study receives sunlight, it’s good enough.
Here is the summary of what we’ve covered so far:
Now if you’re one of those who get time to study only in the evening because either you’re too busy attending other things in the day or because you work part-time, it may be even more challenging to not feel tired and drowsy in the evening. The only time you’ve is in the evening, and you’re certainly not at the peak of your energy after the day’s work.
If that’s you, you may take few additional steps (the ones covered till now will all be helpful in this case too) to squeeze in more productive hours:
At Naperville Central High School, Illinois, known for its physical exercise program, students report that exercise, besides other benefits, also helps them preempt dozing off in the class.
(When you exercise, neurotransmitters are released in the brain keeping you awake and alert. There is an evolutionary reason for this. In African savannahs, whenever prehistoric humans sensed danger – and there were many – from predators, they used to get alert and run for their lives. This evolution has hardwired alertness with physical activity in us. So, when you’re exercising, the brain gets the signal to be alert, awake.)
Whenever I’ve to work late in the evening, I exercise – mainly jumping jacks and kickboxing done indoors – for 10 minutes, usually between 6 and 7 PM, and it works well for me. It gets me rejuvenated, and can keep me going at a decent level till around 11 PM. If you noticed, the exercise is only for 10 minutes. It’s not strenuous. Otherwise, it’ll tire you and make you sleepy post-dinner.
You may take to any aerobic exercise (few examples: running, skipping, jumping jacks, and stair climbing) that ups your heart rate. But, as I mentioned earlier in the post, take into account factors such as flexibility, strength, and overall health to determine whether or not a particular exercise is appropriate for you.
As mentioned earlier in the post, you should ideally keep easier, interesting stuff for the night. Since you’re running low on energy and resolve, you’ll feel frustrated on encountering challenging stuff in the night. And if stuck, you know what you’re likely to do… hit the sack.
Study in bright light
Studying with only a table lamp lit makes the environment cozy, which can makes you feel sleepy. The same holds for a dimly lit room. So, brighten your study room.
Avoid comfortable setting
Prefer table & chair over sprawling on the bed or slumping on a couch to… you know it by now.
If you go to bed at 11 in the night and get up at 6 in the morning to leave your place at 8, try advancing your sleep and wakeup time by, say, an hour (that is, sleep at 10 and get up at 5) and put that extra morning hour to study.
Because you’re well rested in the morning, that hour will be more productive than that in the night.
I encourage you to experiment with other methods not mentioned here (examples: a stroll in the open, music, splashing water on the face, and study loudly). You never know what else may work for you.
I haven’t mentioned caffeine as a way to fight drowsiness in the evening for the reason that it may interfere with your sleep. It may be fine when you’re pulling off those occasional all-nighters, but not when you’ve to take it regularly.
Here is the summary of how to study long hours in the night:
How to catch a wave of rest without harming your studies and why is it so important? I tell you how to have time to study well and have a good rest, relax properly and become more productive.
The best ways to study well and relax: a teenager advisesI used to live with thoughts that you need to work hard, and I considered those who rest to be weaklings. This kind of thinking led to stress, which aggravated my anxiety disorder. Thoughts that I didn’t have time for anything caused daily panic attacks. It was hard to accept the fact that it was because of the haste and the fear of not being able to do something that my problems began.
All is well now. Studying combined with rest led me to calmness and efficient work. It is a pity that I was not told earlier that in order to study productively, it is enough just to rest.
Studying at school is exhausting.
Answers in class make you nervous. Running from class to class causes the same fatigue as sitting in a chair. Some face bullying, others are afraid of teachers and their screams. All this causes stress.
The brain has been processing information for several hours and is very tired. I would like to rest. And the first thing that comes to mind is to sit on the phone. Long texts, bright pictures and videos meet us on the smartphone screen. Mom came and started telling stories from work. Infinite information enters the brain. He does not have time to take a break from vivid images, thoughts and stories.
Constant stress impairs memory and concentration. This complicates the process of learning, which occupies an important place at this stage of life. And if you do not learn to rest, then it can cause chronic fatigue and burnout.
When talking about vacation, many people imagine flipping through the tape on the phone.
These people are partly right. Such a rest is called low-quality . It seems that while playing computer games or watching videos on YouTube, our brain is resting. But on the contrary, it works and struggles to process new information.
I'm talking about quality rest, which helps to recharge and relax. It even inspires and dilutes boring times.
It’s strange to talk about how rest affects our well-being, but here:
These rules will help organize the learning process during the holidays.
But these same techniques are used by people who work for themselves.
These days you do not have the right to sit down for textbooks. Get enough rest and take time to recuperate.
The brain cannot concentrate on work for a long time. He needs a reboot in the form of a little workout, a cup of coffee, or birdwatching outside the window. In these 5 minutes of rest, you should move away from the information that you received and relax. If you take breaks every 20-30 minutes, then study will be easier.
Estimate at what time you start to get tired and stop studying. If you continue, you will easily catch burnout and chronic fatigue.
Lessons are important, but they don't make sense if you are sacrificing your health.
On weekends I don't allow myself to study or work after 4:00 pm. By this time, I no longer have the strength.
After that, all my time is spent on rest, which fills me with energy and returns inspiration.
Getting to the most interesting part - ideas for relaxation. Try to introduce these activities into your life and you will notice how easy it becomes and how easy it will be to study and relax.
You can keep a diary as you like. There are no rules here. The main thing is that you like it.
My diary is about creativity and chaos. In this article, for the first time in my activity on the Internet, I will show my spreads and throw in a couple of ideas for design.
When the plan of the day is in the head, thoughts get in the way. Because of this, a person can forget what he wanted to do. And in general, it’s hard to keep a to-do list in your head all the time.
When you write out a plan for the day, you don't have to worry about forgetting something.
Now your thoughts are on paper.
Previously, I had a separate block in the diary for tasks for the day, but in December I decided to try to make a to-do list in the very spread for the month. Each day has its own cell.
Lists are good for relaxing the brain and helping to learn to think in diagrams. They may be on different topics.
Example of lists:
In this spread, I decided to just write the daily routine in the form of a list and make it beautiful:
Lists are a great way to create a good study regime and restThis word is used to describe the analysis of one's behavior in order to understand oneself and stop making mistakes.
Often, I just take any area of my life and write about what it means to me.
It helps me understand myself better and relax.
For example, in this spread I have described life as I imagine it in the future. This helped me better understand what I want and what I should strive for:
When you understand what you want from the future, it is much easier to study and relaxMeditation helps to get rid of unnecessary thoughts and calm the mind . Before, I often did them for 15 minutes in the morning: I searched YouTube for videos on the query “meditation” and listened to them.
Now I switched to breathing exercises, because it is easier to do. My favorite exercise is called "square". Its meaning is that you need to inhale for 4 counts, hold your breath for 4, then exhale for 4 and hold it again for 4. This is the simplest exercise that helps even with panic attacks.
This type of activity helps to express emotions and fatigue in art.
The brain does not strain, and the hands act on the machine.
Here are some ideas on how to unload the brain through creativity:
Try to create with texts and create beautiful poems, interesting stories or simple essays. Heavy physical activity is not suitable during rest. They only take away energy and make you more tired. Try stretching or yoga instead. They relax the body at the expense of a slow pace.
I tried different physical exercises. Now stopped for walks. They calm me down. I withdraw from people and spend time with myself, without unnecessary information from the Internet or friends.
I used to have a negative attitude towards routine. She thought that she made life boring and monotonous. No.
Now routine is the best way for me to take care of myself. Morning shower invigorates, charging energizes, in the evening I take care of my face, and it relaxes. The routine gives confidence in what is happening now and prepares for the upcoming day or sleep.
It’s nice to be in the moment during the routine: pay attention to sounds, smells and sensations. It's kind of like meditation.
Good day, dear subscribers and guests of the blog!
We all get lazy from time to time and put things off until later. But what if a stack of textbooks lies untouched, and deadlines start to breathe in the back? In today's article, we will analyze how to force yourself to study, if you don’t feel like it at all.
And also find out what reasons kill our motivation, forcing us to procrastinate, and what to do about it.
Contents
Modern experts say that the concept of laziness does not exist and a whole range of other states is hidden under it. If you don't want to study, work, or engage in other socially beneficial activities, check yourself for the following signs.
Everything we do voluntarily is based on motivation. We go to work so as not to die of hunger, we read books on psychology in order to be able to build relationships with the opposite sex, and so on. If we do not have a direct need to do something, our brain sabotages to get rid of unnecessary work and save energy for something more important.
We want to do something only when we clearly understand what exactly we need it for and what result it will give. In all other cases, we are “lazy”.
A vivid example of this is a teenager who rebels against studying. Parents tell him that he needs to study, but he wants to have fun and does not understand where the connection is between boring lessons and an ephemeral “bright future”, that is, he does not see clear and quick results. In addition, he can regularly hear from others that they do not work according to their basic education and years of study have gone down the drain. And this only strengthens the child's doubts about the usefulness of learning.
On our blog there are separate publications on the topics of where to find motivation and what books to read on this topic.
Procrastination, that is, the habit of putting things off until later, is another reason for laziness. It is based on the desire to do only those things that are:
Because of this, large and complex tasks most often run the risk of being relegated to the background and third plan, since they take too long to complete and they do not provide immediate satisfaction.
You can read about how to deal with procrastination in our other article.
Quite often, banal fatigue and overwork hide behind laziness. No motivational speech or article will help you rise from the ashes if you are squeezed like a lemon.
Ask the following questions:
All of the above factors have a huge impact on our body and the functioning of the nervous system. At the slightest distortion, motivation simply does not have a chance.
Laziness has a subtler side that can be influenced:
Lack of motivation, fatigue and other manifestations of laziness can be caused by physical problems. For example, disorders in the endocrine system, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, as well as problems with the heart and blood vessels.
Therefore, if you are always too lazy, visit a therapist and psychotherapist first, and also take care of your lifestyle.
Well, if everything is in order with your health, let's consider how you can cope with your unwillingness to study on your own.
What to do if inspiration is not a frequent visitor, but you still need to study? In this section, I have collected for you the most effective recommendations and methods that will help facilitate the learning process.
The very first thing to start moving towards studies (however, as in any other direction in life) is to ask yourself questions about personal desires. For example: “And what am I doing?”, “Is that what I want at all?” etc. You will be surprised how short and not tortuous the path can be if you deal with your real desires in time.
If you are studying at a university, consider whether you chose this specialty because you wanted to or your goal was to please your parents.
If the latter, then perhaps you should look for a less energy-intensive way to express love and gratitude, and not live someone else's scenarios.
If you have outgrown college age and are self-taught in some online course, the task is the same: ask yourself why all this. Someone needs a crust to move up the career ladder, someone a diploma will help to completely change their occupation. Keep the main goal in front of you, and the key to motivation will be buried in it.
Some coaches advise you to write down lost profits on paper. Think about what specifically you will miss out on if you drop out of school.
Read about how to set goals the right way.
Do you remember why we procrastinate? Because we always strive to do something simple and fast. No one rejoices at the thought that there are long hours of lectures and assignments ahead. But if you break the whole process into small stages and short time intervals, the matter seems quite feasible.
Try the Pomodoro method to study well and perform well on assignments. Set a timer for 25 minutes and concentrate fully on your studies during this time. Then take a 5-minute break with a change of activity. For example, you can squat, wash the dishes, watch funny videos on the social network, or just lie down. Then you measure another 25 minutes and take up your task again, after which you take another 5-minute break.
After 2 hours of such a regimen (4 circles “study-break” will turn out), arrange a longer rest of 15–20 minutes.
Many of us have experienced a situation where constantly postponing until tomorrow leads to the fact that we have to complete the task literally on the last day. On this topic, they even brought out a whole law - Parkinson's law. It says that work fills the time allotted for it. In other words, if you have a month before the exam, it will take all of that month to prepare. And it doesn’t matter at all that you will really prepare for a couple of days, and the rest of the time you will merge into procrastination.
Discipline and planning will help solve this problem. Hang a calendar in front of you and decide to allocate one hour each day for preparation or training (you can take another time that is comfortable for you, for example, 40 minutes or 1.5 hours). Each time you follow your schedule, mark it on your calendar with a brightly colored checkmark. This will serve as additional motivation.
I advise you to study other time management techniques. I am sure you will find the most suitable one that you will gladly fit into your life.
Surely you have noticed that at certain hours you feel more alert and concentrated, while at others it is difficult to keep your attention. It's all about circadian rhythms (our biological clock). They affect not only the process of falling asleep and the quality of sleep, but also our mood and ability to concentrate.
On average, 7 hours after waking up, our mood and concentration reach their lowest point, and then gradually begin to rise.
It is with the circadian rhythm that the fact is associated that the maximum number of mistakes that people make at work falls precisely on the period from 14 to 16 hours.
For the same reason, the most complex and painstaking tasks should be done in the first 3 hours after waking up, because further attention and energy will only decrease.
By the way, there are people with circadian rhythms who are called owls. In the morning they only begin to sway and come to their senses only in the afternoon. Therefore, listen to your body and plan your training for the time of your maximum productivity.
Even hours of maximum concentration can go down the drain if you are constantly distracted by informational noise. Messenger notifications, spam, notifications about new posts on social networks - all this makes you constantly shift your attention. But it takes time to get back to work. Alas, contrary to popular myth, our brains aren't multitasking after all.
To focus on your studies, turn off the sound on your smartphone and put your gadget away during class. There are even special services that block websites and applications on the device, preventing distractions during an important matter. A Windows 10 PC already has a built-in Focus Assist feature that collects all notifications in silent mode and protects the user from unnecessary distractions.
Of course, entertainment content is not limited to smartphones and computers. A little bored, we often plunge into our thoughts and fantasies. And since you can’t build a blocker into your head, you will have to return yourself to work on your own.
Not only gadgets can be distracting, but also mess on the desktop. Remove unnecessary items, cups, photo frames, throw out the trash.
Make your workplace comfortable. Put snacks next to you to replenish your energy reserves from time to time (nuts, cheese, fruits are great), put a glass of water.
By the way, you should watch your thirst very carefully. Through many studies, it has been proven that even slight dehydration (only 1-2%) leads to a deterioration in short-term memory and reduces the ability to solve mathematical problems.
Pay special attention to lighting. A dim lamp or no lamp at all can make you sleepy and interfere with concentration. Make sure the lighting is as bright as possible.
Let's get back to procrastination for a moment. Let me remind you that it leads to the desire of our brain for momentary rewards. In order not to burn out halfway through the learning process, reward yourself for completing small blocks of tasks.
For example, after working hard for half an hour, go to your favorite social network for 5 minutes or pet your pet. We sat for two hours with textbooks - eat a delicious candy or drink a cup of aromatic coffee.
And the completion of larger milestones can be celebrated with some small desirable purchase (for example, a new item or a paid game account), a dinner with friends in a beautiful place or an evening in a bubble bath and a cool movie on a laptop.
Good rest is the key to quality work. Physical activity will help unload the brain and restore emotional resources. If you feel that your intellectual strength is running out, you fall into a stupor and cannot understand a single line, go out into the fresh air and move. You can just walk, or you can take a light 5-minute jog.
Also watch the quality of your sleep. Sleep experts recommend that before going to bed, be sure to ventilate the room, sleep in complete darkness and follow the sleep schedule not only on weekdays, but also on weekends. You can read more about the rules of healthy sleep in our separate publication.
By the way, in a dream you can not only restore strength and mental abilities, but also learn! American researchers have found that memorizing information is much more effective before going to bed. The thing is that our brain has two states: focused and scattered. When we study, we are in the focused state, and when we sleep, we are in the diffuse state.
And it is in the second that new neural connections are created and memories are fixed. Another argument against a sleepless night before an exam.
Studying with someone is not only more fun, but also more productive. Researchers from Stanford University concluded that students who did not work alone studied much harder and did not give up longer.
In a school or other educational institution, classmates act as an additional motivation, since it is always possible to discuss incomprehensible points with them, it is easier to track deadlines and share progress.
Online courses most often have student chats where you can discuss assignments with other students. Do not neglect this opportunity, communicate and motivate each other.
Here I will briefly list what else you can do to make studying less painful and even enjoyable. What psychologists say about this:
This is especially useful in the summer, when there is no control from school teachers or university teachers. 
Test both options and find yours. 
Whether you're choosing clothes to go out to the store or deciding which specialty to choose, the brain still gets tired in about the same way. It is for this reason that many famous businessmen, such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, always wear the same clothes. They care about how they look, they just free the brain from unnecessary decisions. For example, you can immediately determine for yourself what you will do on Tuesdays and Fridays for 1.5 hours in your kitchen. This is easier than inventing a new time and location every time in the moment. We have discussed many ways and recommendations that should help you cope with laziness and everything that lies behind it.
Let me give you one more important piece of advice: get rid of perfectionism! Many people think that if they don’t have time to read a whole chapter today, then there is no point in taking up their studies and it can be postponed until better times.
