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Fun study breaks to refresh and refocus –
Studying from home coupled with lockdown can leave you frazzled and frustrated.
Incorporate study breaks that work for YOU into your day – but do not use these to procrastinate doing your school work!
Below are some ideas for study breaks you could consider.
- Make a list of things you want to do after lockdown
There is nothing as energising as positive energy!
Jot down ideas of where you want to go, who you want to see and what you are going to do when you have get-togethers with friends after the lockdown is over.
Even allow for a bit of daydreaming. According to www.psychologytoday.com new research has shown that daydreaming leads to greater creativity and focus.
Alternatively make a list of New Year’s Resolutions, or post-lockdown commitments, or a playlist.
- Do push-ups, jumping jacks or planks
Although no-one is exactly sure why doing exercise makes you feel more clearheaded afterwards, there is evidence that indicates you think and learn better after having done some physical exercise.
Part of the reason for thinking and learning better after exercise has to do with increased blood flow, including to the brain.
A brisk walk around the house a few times will suffice as well.
- Call/Skype/Zoom someone
It’s not for nothing that the saying goes ‘No man is an island’.
As you have surely realised by now people don’t do so well if they are isolated. This also applies if you are not alone but with the same people all the time.
Make contact with someone you miss and chat up a storm.
- Watch one episode of a funny TV show
It’s true – laughter is the best medicine.
Laughter relaxes the whole body and it is said that it leaves you relaxed for up to 45 minutes after. That’s a bonus knowing you have to get back to your books soon enough!
An added bonus is that laughter, so it is said, makes you live longer.
- Record a video or make a podcast
Make it fun. Act wacky. Dress up. Stand on your head. Pull your best dance moves. Sing a song, badly if it must. Or lip sync the song instead. Come up with your own special effects. Perform a short skit. Make whoever is going to look at it, SMILE.
Or: make it informative. Demonstrate a skill you have by compiling a step-by-step tutorial. Play a musical instrument.
Tell a story. Challenge yourself by using a different accent. Or by relating an incident in your second or third language.
Explain a concept of your school work to help someone else or to understand it better yourself.
Do your next oral task for school in the form of a podcast.
These last two suggestions will feel like a study break but you will get school work done at the same time. You will be filling two needs with one deed!
