it's that time of year again Leaving Cert season libraries are full and
ironically it's a time of year where the Sun seems to shine all the time right
especially here in Ireland I know that you students spend long hours studying
but the question often get is are you getting a good return on your time
because just because you're spending long hours doesn't necessarily equate to
effective retention I personally couldn't sit too long studying so when I
was a student I developed a way to achieve a maximum return on my time spent son Ian and so I've tested you
steps and I'm about to share with you today these steps because I'm so passionate about sharing good quality
information I don't have a school or I don't I'm not into any of that kind of
stuff I just want to impart this information because it's helped
countless number of people not only achieve higher test scores but also
improved their their focus they get better clarity and more energy so they
get more time out of studying that they put into it and it leaves you much more
refreshed for your thoughts and you can relax and you can go in and you can
absolutely crush dis Leaving Cert exam today we have a Leaving Cert candidate
key and steel here he's also a a professional basketball player you see
deep which means to the American audience University College Dublin okay
he's the white guy if you're watching them on TV
okay and we're gonna pass around some ideas we're gonna we're gonna give you
what you need so you have the edge this is when you take these Leaving Cert
exams and later on this video I'm going to give away some free stuff I'm gonna
be a good guy and and for those who give their personal experiences and advice in the comments below the best ones I'm
gonna leave it up to you you pick them out we have some great stuff to hand out
to you guys today so long with the video okay first thing we're gonna talk about
is your environment and this is a critical part of any ideal studying situation and some of you may require
let's say a quiet place like a library like that or others like a little bit of
background noise like a coffee shop to stay focus but whatever you choose it's
imperative to choose your study spot with these criteria first of all you
need a large surface space with plenty of room for all your stuff right and you
need plenty of plugs you sit is really important right we
spent a lot of time over the years talking to you how to sit yeah you would
never think this when you're taking a leaving sir or studying for Leaving Cert
that how important sitting is in terms of not only your core strength and stuff like that but being relaxed and being at
ease well I just feel like you you concentrate better when you're sitting
upright yeah because when it's like if I'm studying in my bed I'm more than likely gonna go to sleep in the bed or
rather than things yeah that's a great point and the reason why you get tired
is something that's because like and we've talked about this over the years
of with Kean's been a fat friend that a family for many years when you're when you're sitting let's say for example in
bed you're bending forward yeah and when you're bending forward and you're slouching like this you're starting use
your spine your discs your nervous system and you start your stressing and
you're in you go into this what they call a fight-or-flight mode yeah okay
right right and so but when you're sitting relaxed you're much more
conscious and like most of you the people out there who read my book I'm
sure you all read my book right you better read my book yeah the one thing
you really got to get is make sure your hips are above your knees right does
that make sense to you okay but why is that why is that that's that's a great
point when you sit with your knees or 90 degrees 90 degrees or were sitting on
the couch or something soft that ball or stuff like that
you lean your head forward okay okay and you disengage your hips you disengage
your muscles and you engage your spine and your spines got a counter left for
the weight of your head going forward so but if you're sitting with your knees
below your hips you set the foundation the framework yeah okay and if that's
right your your back is relaxed your spine is relaxed your central nervous is
relaxed and guess what you're much more engaged too but you're taking much more
information here right and the whole point is this is when you sit down a
study you don't want to be there all day long just because you sit and study for
four or five six hours ten hours doesn't mean you're taking in all that
information so you when you sit down and you sit right okay uuuuu your quality of
time is so much better right sit in smarter you study smarter yeah
you study smarter now when you when you study do you study with friends or you
study alone I study alone great because like we're friends it might be helpful
to ask some questions if you're stuck the same time they might go off-topic
yeah and then you feel that half an hour has gone before you even realize yeah
and you know you know and that's in your I mean that's exactly right if you look
at the studies on the studying it sounds kind of like a paradox yeah um they
agree with what you're saying there and so most people they found that most
people it's better is much more beneficial to study alone now if you're
listening to music you want to listen in and and key and here's a rapper and
we're gonna put his links down below check it out okay check it out through
Iraq do it no no no okay no change today okay okay so if you're sitting down
listening to music you want to be listening to rap or things with words in
it because that's gonna that's gonna make you drift if you're one of listening music and I recommend you want
to listen to like like like a soft jazz background soft background classical
music yeah something that's just like a white noise it which works really really well
would you agree with that yeah because I have some people tell me that they might
have things like ADHD or whatever and they find that she helps them
concentrate that's right that's writing yeah like it's a call like a bit of
white noise in the background that's why some people like going to like for
example I hate using the word Starbucks but they go to Starbucks to study
because there's out that background murmuring going on there and and it kind of helps them but it you know but but
like I said studies show you're better off studying in a quiet place and if you have to have
some music make sure it doesn't have any words okay number two and this is
something you're good at being a rapper and a basketball player is movement
movement okay movement okay movement is the key
and if you look at all the studies done on organ ah mcc's the largest study ever
done was done at NASA and was done over three decades by actually paradoxically a Russian scientist for nakos if you
look at these studies over three decades and you cut to the the analysis of it
the two two sentences they basically say if you just stand up every 15 minutes it
reboots your nervous system as it's one of the greatest things you can do and
it's great for cognitive skills and like your mental and physical well-being and so so here's the thing if you're
studying this is something most people don't get if you just as much as stand
up and sit back down every 15 minutes it reboots your central nervous system and
you're going to learn you're gonna take in so much more information
okay right now does that make sense yeah that's interesting to know because
normally what I would do is study for a long period and take a longer break
that's right isn't that good yeah it's almost counterintuitive isn't it the
thing is but but it's it but it's just a mere action like we've put like we
worked at this office and they had they they you know the the the productivity
was going down and they had massage therapists and chiropractors and new
chairs and all this kind of stuff and I went in I said yeah I'll fix this for
like 10 or 15 euros and they said you're crazy and so I invented this timer and here we go I got this timer is called
reboot all it is it's a simple little timer and it's it see like if you put it
a timer on your phone you just turn it off but this is a button with a light on
it okay and you put it like that say five feet away from you're ten feet away from you and every 15 minutes it reboots
so you have to get up out of your chair and turn it off
is that cool yeah yeah yeah I wish I had one to show you here today but they're
on our site okay so movement move in every 15 minutes that's number two
number three sleep if you look at the studies on
studying they always point back to sleep and we're not just talking again it's
not just quantity its quality of sleep okay outlet studies on this and I know
this is something you wanted to talk about you have question about that like
how much sleep is needed in order to obtain as much as you study so this
stuff you're studying there's no point studying it unless
you're gonna remember it okay so how much does leave okay there's well
there's countless studies on this but let's back up a little bit before I
answer that but we're gonna talk about the quality sleep first okay when you go
to your room that should be your that should be your Oasis you're taking this
test you want to do your best okay and so what you want to do is remove all the
gadgets from your room remove them all no TVs no phones no electrical design
ice no wire all this all this electromagnetic fields get it out of
your get it out of your room okay because it's gonna interfere with your
sleeping if you need an alarm clock put your phone in the hallway okay yes so
hear it trust me you'll hear it right make sure your room is cool okay and
studies have shown that if you sleep with the room slightly cooler we're gonna get into a much deeper sleep and
the thing is you want to get into the deeper levels of sleep you want to sleep
in a dark room and you want it quiet and you want to sleep at the same time every
night wake up the sight same time every day now the biggest study in glomer ation of studies
over 300 studies they found for your age leaving certain let's say 1718 roughly
it's 8 to 10 hours of good quality sleep I don't think I know anyone I guess no
no no but but here but the people are watching this you want to get the best
and this is trust me on this one you you just don't trust me trust the studies on this one if you get good quality sleep
people think if they just grind all night long and and I've been through as
myself and I and I'm not the kind of guy can sit for too long so once I master
this myself as a student I worked on sleep first got in my sitting and then
you know things like all the other things we're going to talk about it it
was so much easier and I was so much more alert I was so much more relaxed
going into these tests yeah yeah and it's a really nice balance yeah because
you need to find it because when you're going into an exam it's easy to sort of
panic and then spend a like stay up a long time to cram in yes as possible
yeah you're probably better off it's yeah yeah yeah and just you know just
relax at that point you it's it's there you have to trust it you know this stuff and you're gonna rip your gonna pull it
out retention is exponentially better if you get a good quality sleep number four
and I know this sounds is obvious but a good diet and people don't think they
like their binge eating junk food eat I know you don't do that right okay when
you start eating all this junk food it affects your brain function and so but
the bigger thing is hydration yeah okay yeah and and when you if you really even
get what I'm trying to say here make sure you drink good quality water now
I've done two amazing videos on water and I promise you they're uncommon I'm sure no but I'm pretty sure no one else
is saying what I'm saying on the internet if I want to give you the
bullet points because you don't need to watch my video right now make sure you
keep your water cool I say four degrees centigrade which is most refrigerators
you want to keep it in the dark you're a refrigerator and you want to keep it at
round-bottom container after the Leaving Cert go into this you know I'll explain
it more in the videos you can go check it but just take my advice on that just
do just three things keep it cool keep it in the dark and
keep it at round-bottom container does that make sense yeah it makes us you
because you watch those videos right yeah
especially because they go more in depth like people think oh if you just have a
filter for your water and one of the questions that comes up in terms of diet and drinking stuff are these what they
call these quote unquote energy drinks and I just want to throw a word of
caution about these things you know you don't want to burn out your adrenaline
glands I mean so you could take these things in they'll give you a bump but in
the long term you're gonna crash have you noticed that you've probably heard a lot about these kind of things right
yeah it's going well at the start and then they just get super tired and then they have to take another one and that
yeah and then it kind of cascades yeah and then you're gonna burn out I mean so
you got to pace yourself you got to pace yourself and you got to structure your
studying Senate structure study times and just really have a balance you know
you get an iota of sprint it's a marathon yeah not a sprint and you want
it but you want to really balance it you really structure it well so you're
relaxed okay and you don't want to rely on that kind of stuff yeah that makes
sense okay okay number five to accommodate you
people out there who always asks about supplements yeah supplements are our
supplements called nootropics and they improve your cognitive function there's
a particularly memory creativity and motivation I'm sure you've heard of some
of these things like glutamine ginkgo what's the thing PS I can't even
pronounce it's called phosphorus but but don't worry about that I will list these
down below do you know people taking these kind of okay they're kind of more
trending in the States right now but yeah they do the research does show that they do work but you they kind of you
have to when you take these kind of things like income something that they
don't work overnight you have to build up over time
okay but I still think my water works my way better yeah okay okay and the last
one and I left the Celeste because I know everybody hates dis but it's got to be said right and and I said I don't
want to sound like a parent but you have to avoid brain drain and and just don't
take my word for this look at the studies and the mere presence of one
smartphone reduces the available cognitive capacity it also you can also use like these things like like if
you're studying you have to use your laptop yeah it's there's always these
ads that come up and you you know and they and the studies show now that if
you jump off topic let's say if you're
studying something and and you you get distracted it takes 20 to 23 minutes to
get back on focus okay so what you want to do is we're gonna
put some apps down below things you could put on your tablet your phones
your computer that blocks these apps okay good idea right that's a great idea isn't it yeah yeah yeah and while we're
on this subject we're also gonna put an app down there for blue blocker
okay blue block are you familiar with that blocking the blue light that's
right why would we want to do that
it's called flex pay way a flexors well putting it to sleep it's where you have
blue light from your phone it takes away it like it's much harder to yes yeah
it's like the thing they called in the New Agers the pineal gland a pineal
gland makes a thing called serotonin which makes melatonin mellow makes you
sleep and that so so if you're if you're it's it's like it interrupts your what
they call circadian rhythm and so it like if you're watching if the blue light doesn't diminish us time to us on
blue lights not bad for you in the morning it's actually good for you but
as time goes on you want to diminish your blue light and so put this on your tablet your computer your smartphone -
it's free and you can download it and that's the day goes on it starts to
eliminate a blue light oh and of course the most important thing is don't forget
they keep have fun doing this okay you know you only you only do this once and
just enjoy it I know it sounds pretty but get a balance right and try to try
to do stalin's approaches best and you you want you don't want to be studying all the time you know again this is
based on research you want to kind of balance things out go out shoot some
baskets or something moves to shoot some hoops okay and anything else no no okay
okay well I wish you the best of luck out there I thank you came for for
joining us in our small yeah a youtube channel I know you guys will do well we
want to get your comments below we have lots of gifts for you guys out there and
and hey and if you like this video please like and subscribe it really does
help us thank you thank you thank you for right
you