We've all been there. You make a plan to revise at a certain time, on a certain day, and as that time draws closer, you find yourself busy with other things or feeling too tired. You tell yourself. "It's ok, i have time." "there's no point trying to revise when i'm tired, i won't learn anything anyway" "i'll do it tomorrow, when i don't need to do [insert anything here]
In the last week, did you put off your revision?
Yes
No
I did a bit, but not as much as I intended
It's called procrastination. We all do it. often. Here's why .......
Procrastination isn't about your brain not being able to focus, it's an emotion regulation strategy. Your brain trying to avoid something that it finds Psychologically challenging (and yes, boredom is also Psychologically challenging)
It's actually, historically, pretty clever - your brain. It's there to keep you safe. emotionally and physically, so let's cut it some slack on this one.
Your brain's job is to send messages: The communication hub of your whole body. It's other main job is to ensure your safety by looking for dangers. That's where anxiety comes from: It's your brain's (sometimes overreactive) message to your body that there's a threat somewhere.
The challenge is that our brains have evolved so much that we now have all these new abilities: We can create, imagine, think about thinking. Great stuff! except when we start to create and imagine things that are threatening, like 'What if i fail' or 'What if i can't remember or don't understand it' This starts a tricky loop where by just imagining the threat, our brains send a message to our bodies that kicks our Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) into action to get us ready for either running, fighting, or playing dead. Now that's a challenge.
So here's how you retrain your brain using our three motivational systems
Soothe system: Keep your Parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) in top shape, so that it can help calm the threat response of your Central Nervous System (CNS). If you've not seen loads on your social media channels about breathwork, ice baths, and sound baths, where have you been? Seriously though, you don't need to sit in an ice bath, or have all manner of different breathwork techniques. Here's my three simple hacks
Keep your body moving every day. Exercise (including walking) helps to move cortisol (our stress hormone) through your body
Submerge your face up to your ears in cold water. It helps stimulate your vagus nerve which brings your calm system online
Breathing in speeds up your heart rate, breathing out slows it down. Simple. Breath out for a longer count than you breathe in. You can do this in whatever counts work for you, but my personal favourite is 3 in, hold for 4, out for 5. repeat.
Threat system:
Increase your awareness of when you're making excuses for not revising and actively stop and question: 'Why am i putting it off?' follow this with as many 'but why' questions until you reach your core fear. It will be usually something to do with: the value we place on success as a metric of our worth to others. Start to counteract that with changing the way you talk to yourself about your strengths, things that you've faced in the past, and - no matter how hard - things you like about yourself. Your life belongs to you. no one else.
You can also reduce your threat response, by breaking down how much you need to get done into smaller chunks, and set a focus timer. If procrastination is a real problem, start smaller and aim to do initially 10 mins, with a break just long enough to play your favourite song. Over time, extend your timer (and your breaks) so that you're in a rhythm that really works for your brain. BUT never longer than 45 minutes at a time for deep work.
Drive system: Our drive system is responsible for our motivation. ever notice that we can find huge amounts of motivation for things we are passionate about, but less for school work? The reason is that the things we are passionate about represent our own hopes and goals and values. The things we procrastinate about usually represent our hopes and goals, but mixed with a threat of some kind: Other's expectations, judgment, opportunities etc. The threat element clouds and creates a conflict in our motivations. The best way to work around this is to really question why it's important to you to work towards your exams. How do they get you closer to something of value to you. Why are they worth the effort. If all you have is the avoidance of getting into trouble with parents or teachers, or judgment from friends, you're way too much tangled in threat. Put a photo infront of you that helps you remember what you're working towards, even if that's just an open door of possibilities.
This is your life. your goals and dreams. no one else's.
You've got this
Warm wishes,
Fin
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