How do I improve my study habits? (With serious anxiety problems?)

[MonkeySage]

I have had at least one test every single week for the past month. I hardly get any time to breathe, and when I'm studying, about 90% of my study time is spent panicking.

I've been told that I should devote 3 hours of study time to each class, every day, for a total of roughly 9 hours... But the trouble is, I spend 9 hours on a single homework assignment(again, 90% of that time is spent in full panic mode/restlessness). I simply can't find the time to study for each class.

As a result, I have a C in all of my classes, which of course does nothing but reinforce my anxiety.

Truth be told, I need to see a doctor, but I don't have the time. The counselors on campus are definitely not worth my time; all they ever do is recommend breathing exercises, or worse they just tell me that I'm blowing these problems out of proportion.

So, until I do get the opportunity to see a real doctor, how can I improve my study habits?


(Oh, and our school has cancelled fall break this year. Usually, in mid-october we get a 4 day weekend, which gives us the opportunity to breathe. The two days have been pushed back to thanksgiving...)

[WarTortoise]

Have you tried seriously blowing off some steam? Sport, bingedrinking.. long evening walks. Anything really?
I can't say I know what your going through but it sounds like you're going in overdrive right now.



Edit:

Hmm..
Just read my own advice and came to the conclusion that i'd make a great campus counsellor

[MonkeySage]

Yep; I blow off steam by playing video games and going for long walks... But, I never have the time to do either of those things, hehe.

[Aedilred]

Blow off some of the time you're spending studying and go to a doctor. I can understand the feeling of not having time, but given your study doesn't seem to be effectual thanks to your anxiety issues, using that time to see a doctor and trying to resolve the problem is a much better investment than spending it studying anyway. Speaking from experience, even the act of going to see the doctor can help with mood issues, as it helps you to feel like you're taking control rather than being entirely at their mercy.

The other thing to do is to take regular breaks. Schedule breaks and take them. Don't tell yourself you haven't got enough done and you'll skip this break to catch up; when the clock dings for a break, put down the work and go and do something else. Get up from wherever you're working and physically move somewhere else. Stare out of the window. Go for a walk or otherwise get some fresh air. Make a cup of tea (albeit caffeine isn't great for anxiety, and avoid coffee if possible). Sit in a chair or lie on your bed and listen to some music, or play some if you're an instrumentalist. Read some trashy pulp fiction. I would advise against video games as (a) if you're working on your computer, they keep you in the same place, and (b) they're addictive, and hard to put down when the break is over, but even that is better than nothing.

Whatever you do, it's an opportunity to unplug your brain for a few minutes and relax: this will also help you to re-order your thoughts so that when you return to work you're less stressed. Likewise, make sure you're eating properly. If you have to prepare your own meals, use the preparation time as another opportunity to step away from your work, and try not to cut corners by eating lots of fast or ready-made food. Bad diet won't help with mental health issues, but unfortunately it's an easy trap to fall into and can quickly become a vicious circle.

There is something to be said for the punishing, 24-hour work blitzes, but that's for short intensive periods of at most a week or two at a time during exam season. Right now it seems like it's a marathon not a sprint and you need to make sure you're not working yourself to exhaustion, either mentally or physically.

[lunaticfringe]

Music while studying helped me. Lots of Study mixes on YouTube. Also I found I studied best at the campus Library. It was quite & everyone was focused on their own studies. But yeah breathing exercises. Breath with your Diaphragm not with you upper chest, that supposedly increases anxiety. A good trick is to put your palm gently on your Diaphragm if you notice your Anxiety building. It reminds me to breath with the 'gut'.

Edit: Also watch you caffeine intake & try probiotics it's supposed to help. I drink Kefir every other day.

[MonkeySage]

I've got a few herbal teas in the pantry, but they kinda make me drowsy... Unless I'm actually trying to sleep, then no power on this earth can put me to sleep.

[AMFV]

One option is to do the opposite of blow-off steam. Practice studying Studying like most skills is something that's improved by practice. The key to being able to do that and not lose your mind is to find a field that you enjoy and then practice a few hours at a time as a hobby. The only thing is that you don't want to have that practice be unlimited or you won't spend any time on the actual things you need to study. This sort of thing will give you confidence with your studying and that can be a really really good thing for somebody who is anxious about something.

[smuchmuch]

First, i'll be secoding the advice to go see a doctor if it wasn't already done. As someone who let problems of anxiety among others rui their live slowly for the last ten yas before i finaly decided to do somethign about it, trust me there's no shame into seeing a professional if you think you have a problem impacting your life.

On a second part, try to time yourself. Have alarm clock mesure the time your spend on thing and train yourself to do thing in a set time limit or at least do as much as you can and even if you aren't done and then fore yourself to move to somethign else for a while even if you aren't satisifed with yourself. Better to leaan (and yes it's a thing that's learned, that's trained, like most habits) reglary in small doses.

And make sure you sleep, becaus i'm pretty sure all the late studying and worrying must be doing a number on your slepp schedule and that doesn't help.

[nyjastul69]

Take the time to see a doctor. If what you say is accurate the time spent will be worth more than time lost in the long run.

Outside of that, take breaks. They are important in giving your mind a rest while intensely studying.

I also support the suggestion of studying how to study. It seems silly, but there are numerous things you can do to increase the efficacy of your study time. I took a junior high school (now commonly called middle school in America, not sure about the rest of the world) course called study skills. It was an experimental course that didn't take root in my school system, but it should have. Minimize distractions. These distractions will differ from when I took the course in 1982, but the principles still apply.

Study in a place where others are interested in doing so too. Your dorm room or apartment may not be ideal. Check the library. Shut your phone off, not put it on vibrate, shut it off(This was never a concern of mine). Create outlines to organize your thoughts. A poorly organized outline is better than none. You will get better at it over time. Study with like minded individuals, they can also help keep you focused. Don't keep GitP as an open window. Close everything and access nothing that isn't realted the the subject at hand. Basically don't try to engage in, or entertain yourself while studying. Studying is difficult and usually requires a great amount of focus.

I will finish with: You have the time to see a specialist. You just need to make it happen.

[Winter_Wolf]

People who tell you you need three hours to study for a class are full of it. Unless you're being buried with reading or trying to write code, reviewing should not take that long. Y'know, even if you are being buried with reading it shouldn't take three hours. I can't imagine I'm a genius (because I'm assuredly not; pretty average intelligence and "common" sense if anything) and I still spent very little time actually studying for my classes but still did quite well on most tests.

Are you actually interested in the subjects AT ALL? It makes a difference. I aced geology, but got a very low C grade in biology, because geology is awesome and screw letting pathologists teach a Bio 101 class. I developed a case of germophobia that semester. I also fell asleep during one of her lectures and nearly fell completely out of the lecture hall desk/table. It didn't go unnoticed. I even went to get help during office hours; couldn't fault me for lack of trying, but it was excruciating.

[MonkeySage]

O chem and Calculus, I really enjoy... Physics, not so much.

[Goodkill]

my job actually improved my studying because there's so much down time. i would bring my textbook and read during those times. i had trouble motivating myself other than this but at work there was nothing else to do so i got a lot of studying done.

i have some sort of adhd which could be tied to anxiety. i find that caffeine helps me. (though when studying i try to limit myself to green tea.) my own procrastination i think is partly tied to high intelligence and partly to adhd. some people can study a lot and don't procrastinate because they are dumb and there's just not much going on in their heads. the other part of procrastination is being dumb so i have trouble motivating myself because my brain isn't doing what it's supposed to do. so what i'm saying is there is good reason for procrastination (thinking about things other than just your schoolwork), and then there is the reason due to you being dumb.

i've learned that often procrastination can help with problem solving and working on projects like homework (or for me, working on my video game), because there is something you haven't found out yet. like i take a break for a day from working on my game and because of that i have a couple minor epiphanies regarding whichever part i was just working on. i often think of things while lying down or in my rocking chair or pacing ... basically what i am saying is i have learned a couple of tricks for working on an intellectual task.... once you learn better how you learn and function creatively, procrastination will be less of a problem.

[Dill Raulnor]

Paying attention in class helps knock down study time I find for myself. It's pretty hard when I have to try and teach myself something I shouldve learned in class but didn't pay attention. Half the battle is there I believe

[Velaryon]

Every person is different, so what I or anyone else can recommend may not be as useful to you as it is to us. Also, some of it has already been said.

1. Whoever told you that you need to study 3 hours per class per day is wrong. Period. I don't know how many classes you have, but even if it's only two, you would be spending 6 hours per day studying and that's not practical if you have any other demands on your time whatsoever. Truthfully, there are a lot of factors that influence how much time you need to spend on a class outside of class time, such as how much homework they give, how well you are able to grasp the material during class time, how much interest you have in the subject, how you are being tested on your knowledge, etc. You will have to figure out on your own how much time you can and should spend on each class, and that number may even change as the class goes on.

2. Do not neglect your self-care for the sake of studying (or any other reason, really). Pulling an all-nighter now and then because you need to finish a paper is okay. Habitually staying up so late studying that you're averaging 4 hours of sleep per night is not. Leave time for meals, for exercise, for sleep, and for relaxation, even if it's not a lot of time. If you don't eat enough, hunger will distract you and keep you from thinking clearly. If you don't sleep enough, you will doze off at inopportune times and your thinking will be muddled. Your ability to retain what you are taught will be significantly diminished, which in turn will make you feel like you need to study more. As for exercise and relaxation (be it video games, pleasure reading, staring off into space, etc.), both will help somewhat with your stress. They aren't a cure for anxiety, but they can help in their own right, as well as making it easier to sleep.

Have to go right now, but I will have more to say on this subject.

[Aedilred]

1. Whoever told you that you need to study 3 hours per class per day is wrong. Period. I don't know how many classes you have, but even if it's only two, you would be spending 6 hours per day studying and that's not practical if you have any other demands on your time whatsoever. Truthfully, there are a lot of factors that influence how much time you need to spend on a class outside of class time, such as how much homework they give, how well you are able to grasp the material during class time, how much interest you have in the subject, how you are being tested on your knowledge, etc. You will have to figure out on your own how much time you can and should spend on each class, and that number may even change as the class goes on.

I don't know; at university, an expectation of 6 hours/day studying doesn't sound excessively unreasonable to me. I had tutors who would have considered that a minimum. Of course, expectation and reality may diverge rather sharply...

[MonkeySage]

My classes are pretty demanding; organic chemistry, physics, and calculus. I'm also doing chemistry research, so at minimum I'm spending 6 hours a week in a lab.

[Starwulf]

I'll nth the opinion to go see a doctor. My wife suffers from anxiety(pretty seriously at times), and when she went to college a decade ago, there were more then a few times I found her curled up in a fetal position, staring blankly at a wall. Hell, one time she laid out on the porch in the middle of the winter with a foot of snow on the ground for half an hour before she was able to calm down. Now, granted her anxiety/panic attacks back then were significantly worse then they are now because she was working two jobs AND juggling a full-time course load, but the point remains that she didn't start feeling better until she went to the doctor and was prescribed a medication to keep the worst of the anxiety at bay(quite honestly, she still has minor to medium anxiety attacks even now while on meds, but nothing that's left near catatonic like back then).

[Velaryon]

I don't know; at university, an expectation of 6 hours/day studying doesn't sound excessively unreasonable to me. I had tutors who would have considered that a minimum. Of course, expectation and reality may diverge rather sharply...

I suppose the amount of time needed will vary depending on factors such as subject matter, how much you can retain from lecture vs. how much you need to get from reading, how good your notes are, and so on. Personally I never needed more than about half that time (while maintaining A's and B's except for one notable exception, a class I should have dropped but stayed in for sheer stubbornness), and even then only before tests and major assignments. YMMV I suppose.

Again though, the 6 hour figure is assuming 3 hours/day/class, and only having 2 classes at a time. That's pretty unlikely for the most part, since at most colleges a full-time enrollment is more like 5 classes at a time. Surely no one would advocate 15 hours of studying per day?!


Anyway, I said in my first post that I had more to say on the subject, so here I go:

3. Figure out what the best study environment is for you, and do all your studying there. Need quiet and solitude? Go to the library. Prefer music? Either bring headphones, or try to set aside a space at home that's only for study (if possible). If you study better with a group (the complete opposite of my experience, but I concede that it could be different for someone else), then find a place where you and your group can meet with little to no interruption. Most public libraries will have group study rooms you can reserve for at least an hour or two. This is less common with the academic libraries I've seen, but you may be able to find a collaboration space there too.

4. Figure out what you need to focus your studying on in order to be the most efficient. This may mean talking to the teacher during office hours, or taking a look at previous exams to see what was and wasn't focused on out of the things you learned before.

When it comes to the anxiety stuff, that's outside my realm of knowledge. Probably the folks saying talk to a doctor are right about that one.

[OACSNY97]

Hi,

O-chem, ah, O-chem. Actually, I don't mind it, but then again it's my field. On the other hand, how well do you see in 3 dimensions? If you can, o-chem isn't bad, if you can't, it's really hard and you really do need to get the modeling kit.

Regarding the studying habits- I actually don't think 3 hours a day per class that's meeting the next day is totally out of whack assuming you're actually doing the assigned homework sets and have 2 lab reports a week. It generally took me ~1hour to do the reading and annotating and about 1 to 2 hours to do the problems per class session. Lab reports generally took 4 to 8 hours a piece depending on data crunching, number of graphs and professor required detail in formatting and analysis.

I suggest you look at your class schedule- maybe even post it here for suggestions and schedule what days you're studying what/doing homework problems/ writing lab reports. Generally, I suggest NOT doing homework after 5pm on Fridays.
If, forex, you have O-chem and physics lectures MWF, I would generally suggest doing the reading for those classes Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday and start working on the homework sets 3 days before they're due.

Regarding homework sets- GET A LARGE CHALKBOARD and work on them writ LARGE!!! For some reason, standing up and writing big makes errors pop out in ways that they never would small on paper.

For Test Prep- Try and find a couple (no more than 3 other people) in your class who are doing well and form a study group. Take over a classroom or a study lounge the weekend before the exam and spend ALL day REDOING all the homework problems. It's amazing how doing it this way can suddenly make things much clearer and you can explain your reasoning or why you're getting lost on something. List all the problems on the corner of the board and once you've worked through each question to everyone's satisfaction, cross it off- it makes it feel like you're actually making progress.
( I remember from my P-chem 2 days that my study group had me, the person who got the chemical reasoning behind why stuff mattered but couldn't do the math, the chemical engineer who could actually do the math but didn't get they why and a 3rd guy who could translate between the two off us.)

How are your reading and note taking/ highlighting skills? Do your textbooks look mostly yellow highlighter or rainbow colored? If so, you're probably not narrowing each paragraph/each page down enough to it's main ideas. When I took o-chem, I was also tutoring one my classmates and she really struggled with this. Once I explained that out of each paragraph maybe 1 or 2 sentences "matter" and the rest of it are the details and ONLY highlight the main ideas, her grades went up and her anxiety down.

Good Luck

My classes are pretty demanding; organic chemistry, physics, and calculus. I'm also doing chemistry research, so at minimum I'm spending 6 hours a week in a lab.

[Velaryon]

How are your reading and note taking/ highlighting skills? Do your textbooks look mostly yellow highlighter or rainbow colored? If so, you're probably not narrowing each paragraph/each page down enough to it's main ideas. When I took o-chem, I was also tutoring one my classmates and she really struggled with this. Once I explained that out of each paragraph maybe 1 or 2 sentences "matter" and the rest of it are the details and ONLY highlight the main ideas, her grades went up and her anxiety down.

Excellent point regarding the highlighting. I've seen people highlight whole paragraphs, sometimes nearly whole pages. At that point you're just wasting highlighters because it's not doing any good. The whole point is to pick out the most important stuff you need to remember or read again, so less is definitely more when it comes to that. In grad school I also found it useful to color code, using two or three different highlighters to mark different ideas, and sometimes marking a matching or related section of my notes in the same color.

[Winter_Wolf]

I'm guilty of the excessive highlighting. I don't know if that's just because I was really into my classes and all the stuff I was reading seemed really important or because of some compulsive behavior.

Margin writing works better for me because space is at such a premium. Kind of have to be pithy and selective. Plus I hate defacing my personal texts with writing so I'll do it only as much as absolutely necessary. Then again, if I keep a text beyond the necessity of a class, I'm going to be reading it for fun. I really wish I'd have kept my geology text from uni, though. Trying to spend even the cost of an older, used science book is just so hard to justify these days. It's somewhat ironic that I've kept only two or three textbooks from May major, but have loads of books from other fields.

[Thundercracker]

Read the subject matter ahead of when it is covered in class. Then the class will reinforce what you read and you can ask any questions you have at that time. It will minimize the amount of time you need to spend on studying/homework because you're more familiar with the material.

You need to find what works for you. I knew people who studied for four or six hour stretches but I can't do that. Every forty minutes or so I needed to take a 20 minute break because after 45 mins, I just couldn't retain any more. I also purposefully had to schedule hour breaks between my classes so I spent the time finishing homework before I went home. For problem type classes (math, physics), it was important to have a good study partner and complete all of the assigned work.

I probably averaged between 5-10 hours studying per week with another 5 hours per week outside of class spent in group work.

[Bohandas]

Find something even more unpleasant that you need to do and then make studying your excuse for not doing it.