[Music]
what is up guys karma medic here
and welcome back to another dose if
you're new to the channel hi my name is
nasser and i'm now a fourth year medical
student studying at king's college
london in today's video i'm going to
tell you exactly how i was able to push
myself and motivate myself daily in
order to study 1620
hours over a six month period in
preparation for a huge medical school
exam
i started studying for this exam in
mid-february and i finished in middle of
august and i was doing between eight to
ten hours of studying a day the exam i
took is called the usmle step one
it's an eight hour long exam that covers
four years of biomedical science
material and the first three years of
medical school so it has a ton of
content so much to learn and so much to
do
and so that's why you have to study for
it over such a long period of time
throughout this study period my studying
schedule was to wake up at 7
30 and study from 9 to 1 take a lunch
break from 1 till 3
study from 3 till 7 take a dinner break
till 8 30 and then study from 8 30 till
10 30 pm
so 10 hours of studying a day really
only taking breaks in order to eat and
then at night time
to relax and have a little bit of fun so
how did i do it how did i study for
eight to ten hours a day for 180 days in
a row
here's how the first thing that you need
and honestly there is no way around this
you need a very strict studying schedule
i'm talking about a rigid studying
schedule like this has to be made out of
stainless steel if you've got thousands
of pages of reading to do
a couple thousand questions and hundreds
of hours of videos to watch
you have to be very efficient with your
time and the best way to do this is to
know exactly how your time is being
spent
and what you want to dedicate your time
to i've spoken about my personal four
hour study block method in previous
videos but honestly it doesn't matter
how you study or how you choose to break
up your time throughout the day
just have a set number of hours that you
want to dedicate towards studying and
towards learning
and make sure that they get met the key
to studying for such a huge exam or
working on a project of this scale is
consistency and having a studying
schedule helps you maintain that
consistency over long periods of time
because there's no point in working
really hard on one day and then doing
nothing the next day or taking a long
break
you have to be able to do a good amount
of work consistently
so when you make a schedule no matter
how you choose to make it you need to
stick to it when that friend calls you
and asks you to go for coffee you have
to say no
and when your friends hit you up on the
group chat and want to play some warzone
on the playstation
sometimes you just have to say no if
something comes up in the middle of the
day during your studying time
as best as you can put that aside put it
in your to-do list and tell yourself
when you're going to do that thing
later but try and make sure that you
actually do the things that you've set
out for yourself for that day the less
exceptions that you have or the less
times that you let yourself break away
from your stunning schedule
the less likely you are to do that in
the future at the end of the day all of
this hard work that you're putting in
and this studying you're not doing for
anybody else you're doing it for you
and so if you make a promise to yourself
and stick to what you've told yourself
then you won't let yourself down
it's all about discipline discipline
discipline set a goal
plan out that goal and stick to it
effectively the second thing that you
absolutely
have to do and i really encourage no
exceptions to this rule
is that you need to include something in
your day or in your life that you
actually find enjoyable something that
you actually have fun doing because
there's no point in sitting down and
studying forever forever forever
just hating yourself getting depressed
feeling sad losing motivation
you have to sprinkle in that studying
and that hard work with other things
that bring you joy and make you happy in
your life whether that's hanging out
with your friends playing video games
drawing reading whatever it is that you
enjoy doing make sure that you find time
to actually do that and schedule it in
just like you put in your schedule that
you want to study for four hours you
also want to put in one hour of free
time one hour of happiness one hour of
whatever i want me personally i would
stop studying at 10 30 p.m
and then i would have two hours from 10
30 to 12 30 to do all of these things
i would edit and record youtube videos i
would catch up with my friends via calls
i would do my exercise like going for
runs now if relaxing or having fun at 10
30 p.m doesn't work for you
obviously that's perfectly fine you can
schedule in those hours of having fun or
doing what you enjoy
at any point in your day as long as you
stay on top of the studying that you've
told yourself you're going to do
you can use your free time or fun time
and put it in wherever you want
the third thing that i want to talk
about and i can't stress this enough
is exercise exercise is just it's such
an incredible way of having a reset
in your day of creating a blank slate in
your mind of sort of
getting all of that stress and tension
that you have in your body and releasing
it any way that you can physically exert
yourself is gonna be a good way of
relieving stress whether that's going on
long runs or going to the gym or even
something as simple as jogging or
walking around your block
any way that you can physically exert
yourself and get yourself moving
and sweating this is all scientifically
proven to help improve your mental
health
help improve your mood and it will
actually help you when you sit down to
study because you'll be in a better
headspace
during this really long studying period
i became very serious about running and
i would run somewhere between seven
and ten kilometers every two to three
days or so and i can't state the
positive
impact that it had on my life that it
had on my studying and i can honestly
say that if i didn't do all of that
running i don't think i would have been
able to study for that long along with
doing regular exercise comes healthy
eating i'm not going to go into too much
detail about that in this video i do
have a couple of videos about cooking up
on my channel if you would like to check
them out healthy body healthy mind
it's a very true statement okay now
let's talk about managing your stress
appropriately now i don't want to tell
you guys how to manage your stress
everybody is different and everybody
manages their stress in their own way
but the important part about this
section
is to learn how to identify when you're
stressed and learn what works best for
you in order to be able to cope and deal
with that stress
whether you deal with your stress more
in an emotional way and you want to talk
it out and call your friends or your
family
or you deal with it in a more practical
way and you create to-do lists and you
know plans on how you want to eliminate
that source of stress in your life
whatever it is that you do make sure
that you identify it and you actually do
it don't let stress build up for long
periods of time and just bottle up
inside you because one day it will all
come out and because the studying
process is so long
it's important that you manage your
stress throughout the whole time as
opposed to in random bursts
every couple of weeks or months so now
let me tell you about my personal way of
managing stress and what personally
works for me so besides doing exercise
as regularly as i can to sort of
get rid of all of that stress and
tension from my body physically whenever
a stressor arises for me throughout the
day
i almost always deal with it as soon as
it arises get rid of it get it out of my
way because once it's off of my to-do
list or off the forefront of my mind
i can get back to what i was originally
doing of course there's times when this
isn't possible and if that's the case i
make sure to write it down on my to-do
list
and i tell myself exactly when i'm going
to deal with the stressor or exactly how
i'm going to deal with the stressor in
the future
that way because i already know how i'm
going to tackle this in the future i
won't be sitting about it and thinking
about it while i'm trying to study or do
whatever is in front of me
if i have any stressors throughout the
day that are out of my control or i
can't deal with at that time
then i will physically envision taking
that stressor in my head
and moving it into my 10 minute box now
my 10 minute box is this thing that i
came up with
probably when i started university and
it's this idea that i take these
stressors that are bothering me and i
move them to a separate part of my brain
and i close them off in a box so that i
don't think about them at this current
time
at the end of each day i give myself
exactly 10 minutes to think about these
stressors
process the emotions that are associated
with them and figure out a plan for how
i'm gonna
eliminate them in my life and although
this sounds kind of weird it's something
that works for me
and what i will usually do is actually
set a 10 minute timer on my phone so i
don't spend any longer than 10 minutes
thinking about all these negative things
in my life when those 10 minutes are
over hopefully i have a plan for how i'm
going to deal with that stress which
i've probably written down on a to-do
list or something like that and if not
then i will just put them back in that
box close up that box and deal with it
tomorrow now the reason that i do this
is because
these types of stressors these really
big overarching stressors
are usually ones that are completely out
of my control and i don't like to spend
my time or waste my time thinking about
things or stressing about things that
are out of my control
obviously because i can't change them
even if i wanted to that's just what
works for me and i encourage you guys to
find whatever stress management plan
works for you
and use that as often as possible now
moving on to something else that i think
is really really important and is
probably half the battle when it comes
to tackling such a huge project or
studying period like this
is your mindset so your mindset is how
you think about the task that you're
actually doing your motivations your
worries
and sort of from what angle you approach
what it is that you're doing so for
example when i decided to write this
exam
about seven months ago now i knew for a
fact that i was going to lose out on my
summer
i wasn't going to be able to do as many
social activities as i wanted to
and in fact i was going to be doing
something every single day that is
pretty high stress and is going to take
a lot of energy from me and something
that really helps me with that is sort
of looking at the bigger picture what is
it that i'm really doing here
obviously i'm studying every single day
in order to do this exam but the reason
that i'm doing this exam is so that i
can keep my options open in the future
for where i would possibly want to
practice medicine and if i know for a
fact that that's something that i want
to do and that is something that i'm
okay with then it sort of makes
everything that comes after it easy to
follow and sort of automatic
i like to think about these sort of big
life decisions in a sort of like
flowchart type of way
so let's say at the very top of the flow
chart you have do i want to have the
option to practice medicine in multiple
different countries
yes or no and then everything else
underneath it sort of just follows on
from that and it becomes the obvious or
logical next step i really find that
any time you can take a small sliver of
something positive out of a bad
situation
anytime you can look at something from a
sort of happy or brighter perspective
it helps so so so much for just your
mood your mental health and generally
tackling these really big projects
i try and always look for the positive
in whatever it is that i'm doing
as long as i've already satisfied that
higher order decision and i've told
myself this is actually what i do want
to do i feel like that might have been a
little bit confusing and not made the
most sense
if you want anything clarified let me
know in a comment down below alright and
the last point that i want to mention in
this video is about
focusing on the task that is directly in
front of you so when i think about this
exam and i think about the fact that i
have to study for six months that is
super overwhelming when i think about
the fact that
then i had to get through both of these
super dense and heavy books
then i had to do thousands of practice
questions listen to hundreds of hours of
videos
and make all kinds of long booklets of
notes that is very very overwhelming and
rightfully so it is a huge huge project
to tackle so every single day when i
woke up or every night before i went to
sleep
i made a plan of directly what i wanted
to do over the next 24 hours or over the
next 12 hours
6 hours 1 hour 30 minutes whatever it is
i find that the best way to actually
start doing something is to break it
down into all of its smaller tasks into
all of its smaller parts and then those
small parts are
so manageable they're so simple and easy
for example if i want to do 20 pages of
reading in a day
i'll tell myself okay how about i
complete the first five pages of reading
in the next hour once i finish that hour
i could say all right now let me
complete five pages of reading in the
next hour and that way i'm always
focused on directly what i need to do
in the next period of time that's ahead
of me as opposed to thinking about the
bigger picture which can sometimes
really stress me out or cause me to you
know think about everything and make me
overwhelmed which i
just didn't need at the time so for me i
usually think about these smaller blocks
in terms of four hour blocks but you can
be as small and as
specific as you want and the smaller and
more specific you go the more manageable
and easy or simple those tasks are to
complete and every time you complete a
task every time you do something that
you told yourself you were going to do
please please please take that off of
some list
physically taking off tasks that you
need to do is such a
good feeling you know if you cross out
something you had on your to-do list
this is genuinely a good feeling that
helps motivate you helps you see
how much work you have done and how much
work is still ahead of you so i would
encourage you however it is that you
want to visualize the fact that you are
doing work the fact that you are
completing objectives that you've set
for yourself
just do it in some way staying motivated
and studying so intensely for such a
long period of time is something that
honestly was very hard for me to do
and i'm sure other students find it hard
to do as well so i hope that this video
has helped you in some way shape or form
if you did like the video please do
leave a like on it and also subscribe to
my channel see more content from me in
the future if you've got any questions
for me you can leave them in a comment
down below and i'll get back to you as
soon as i can
if there's any one of the topics that i
discussed in this video which you'd like
me to go into more detail in in the
future
please also let me know down below best
of luck in whatever exam or project
you're preparing for i hope you do
really well and i will see you
in the next one peace
physically ticking off these tasks
physically
physically ticking these tips taking
these discs
that's the blooper for this video