5 Tips to Increase Study Habits

Whether you are taking your class online, on campus, or independent study, there are a lot of distractions that get in the way of effective study. When you feel unorganized, or can't buckle down, your stress increases and studies have found that it can actually change your brain! Here are 5 tips to help you succeed.

1) Eliminate Technical Distractions

Technology is all around us. It enables us to be connected. We can look up when an assignment is due on the spot, we can study on our computer, on our phone, or a tablet. In a study done in 2013 by College Explorer Study from re:fuel, college students on average own 7 tech devices. If you have a Facebook account, Instagram or any other Social Media account, you can easily get sucked in and distracted. 

• Turn off your phone - or put it on silent. If you are tempted to check it, try putting it on airplane mode or disabling the cellular data. 
• Don't study by a t.v. - as much as we wish, our brains can't focus on more than one thing at a time. 
• Only open web pages that are necessary - it can be tempting to have other pages open while studying, but your studying will be less affective if you are jumping back and forth between school and what is trending on Buzzfeed.
• Music or No Music? - Play classical music in the background while you study. I may be a little biased because I am a cellist and have been using this method ever since I was little, but there have been studies to prove the positive effects classical music has on the brain. 
  

2) Stay Hydrated and Fueled

Fuel your body and mind by eating well and staying hydrated. This means eating a nutritious breakfast every morning, drink a lot of water, and make sure you are eating throughout the day. Dehydration and low energy limits your brains ability to stay focused, and retain information. 

• Keep a water bottle with you wherever you go and stay hydrated. 
• Have nutrient based snack foods in your bag such as: nuts, energy bars, or fruits.
• Plan weekly shopping trips to make sure you always have food readily available!
• Take daily vitamins - Try taking a multi-vitamin and fish-oil everyday and see if you feel the benefits. 

3) Make Time to Plan Your Day

It is good practice to take 10-15 minutes to plan out your day. You'll be able to prioritize your tasks and decide how to be efficient with your time. 

• Get a planner - this may be old school, but planning your day in writing takes more time and you'll be able to really plan things out. 
• Make a "To-Do" list before you go to bed each night, and it will be ready to plan the next day. 

4) Decrease Your Stress 

It is important to study and aim to do your best, but it is also very important to take care of yourself. If you aren't getting enough rest, or you aren't taking time in your day to do something for yourself, your stress will increase and it affects your longterm health. 

• Get adequate rest - Make sure you are getting 8 hours of sleep when you can. If you are cramming for a test and trying to decide if you should go to bed or stay up late, it is usually better to study after you have slept. 
• Get into a routine - Try and get into a routine, this is where daily planning is key, but the more you can predict your schedule, the more organized you'll be. 
• Be Active - take a walk around your house or apartment. Join a community sport team. Routine exercise helps decrease stress and regulate energy levels. 
• Go Outside - Vitamin D has been confirmed as a source to decrease stress. Study outside even, it really makes a difference. 
• Practice Deep Breathing Exercises - This can really help clear your mind and calm your energy. 

5) Study With a Friend and Ask Questions

One of the best ways to learn, is by teaching. Make friends with your classmates, if possible, and study together. If you aren't in a physical class, don't be afraid to reach out to your professor for advice or clarification.

• Make a list of questions as you study, so you know where you need help. 
• Use resources like Google Docs or Quizlet to take notes or build study material. You can log in anywhere, and aren't going to lose your material!
• Teach a friend or family member what you are learning if you aren't on a campus. 

It is hard to get into good habits, but its not impossible. Focus on one or two new approaches at a time, and add more over time. You'll see the differences quickly!

It gets dark fast

It is crazy how quickly we can get lost in our thoughts. 

When something is on my mind, I either have to write it out, talk it out, or I don't sleep. If I am anxious about a task, or a challenge I face, I just don't sleep. 

My mind fascinates me. It can facilitate some of the most creative thoughts. My imagination is wild. It is healthy. 

But how quickly it can go from light to dark. And gets stuck.

I think we all need to practice patience toward each other, but especially toward ourselves. We are quicker to forgive each other, and look past where others fall short, when we are in harmony with ourselves. 

We're All A Little Disordered

I have been trying to come up with a clever title for this post. Hopefully I can draw something from what I am about to say to give it a smashing one.

I am not angry at you, world. I am sad. I am sad that (usually) the first compliment we give to friends or strangers is about their bodies or personal image. As my husband says, comments like these are easy because they don't require you to directly interact with a person or to even really know the person whatsoever. The are comments that can stem purely from observation. You don't have to know me to notice my good hair, nice eyes, great legs, or changes in body shape from when we may've last met (cause trust me people I rarely talk to have talked about my weight with me). We all do it, we will keep doing it, and it is WRONG.

I started my recovery process for an eating disorder in the fall of 2010. It has been a long process, but over the past year and a half I have been way more candid. I have opened up and told my story to people. And do you want to know what the first question I usually get asked? 

"What kind did you have?"

I hate answering that question because I think it's irrelevant. I wish people understood this very important thing: Any form of disordered eating is not healthy. Why do we have to put a label on what kind someone has? I was about to rant about how there are three categories, anorexia, bulimia, and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise specified), but I guess one study they have added two categories: Psychogenic Vomiting (the relation between patterns of vomiting and psychiatric diagnoses)

, and Pica (characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive, such as ice, clay, chalk, dirt or sand).

Whatever

Now my ADD has kicked in and I want to take this post all over the place. I will not. I will keep it brief and to the point. 

We are all a little disordered okay? Maybe you don't focus on food or body image in the same way as someone who has (or hasn't) been diagnosed with an eating disorder. But, society focuses on body image and food so much, I truly believe we are all a little disordered (in case you can't tell, I have used this for my title by now. I actually came up with the title in the third paragraph).

We all make comments on our bodies, or how "bad" we are being for eating that dessert. We compare our bodies to our friends, we peak at their plates to make sure our portions match.

People are trying to be positive with the compliments, but by stating positives we imply negatives. So when Sally says "Mindy you are so good for not eating that cookie, I can't say no." Would she then tell me the next time I ate a cookie, "Mindy you ate that cookie, you are bad, you can't say no". (Do it, I dare you.)

If you want to talk to me a simple, "Hi Mindy" would suffice. If you want to say something positive about me "I notice how hard you work" "You are a very passionate person" would work for me. 

If you want to have small talk, I enjoy talking about the weather, not clothing sizes. 

Visual Hairstylist

Its An Art

I love doing hair, and even though I don't do it full time right now, I would be devastated if I no longer had clients to serve. I love knowing that I can make someone's day by making them feel beautiful. It doesn't have to be extreme make overs. I have never had the experience of changing someone's life because I worked on their hair (not that I've been told anyway). But I know that I touch people's lives in someway, or they wouldn't come back.

Oh and it helps that I am such a damn good stylist.

I am still human. I make mistakes. Sometimes colors just don't turn out. Sometimes I over think things and my lines aren't perfect. But every person I do, gets the special treatment of a personalized haircut.

I take so many things into consideration when I do haircuts. I constantly visualize what my next step will be. I constantly take steps to get a better look. I cross check the look in the mirror. Its an art. I am a visual hairstylist.

And what looks good on one client, does not always look good on another. I pay attention to detail, I remember everyones weird cowlicks. I am not lying when I tell people after 2-3 haircuts I know their head.

So thanks to all my clients who have stuck with me. I love serving you.

Why Utah is so Depressed

1)
Dramatic changes of weather.
     Hot
                   to                                                                FREEEZING!!!

to                6 months of winter

to                                                          3 weeks of "spring"
to                                                                                                           3 months of decent weather

How are we supposed to function with the sudden changes in weather. I mean you wear your sandals thinking its going to be a nice day, but then your feet are cold. No one can be happy,

2)
Unrealistic misinterpretaions of religious beliefs that get turned into social behaviors

I am a proud Mormon. I do not approve of the behaviors and beliefs that have come about in the culture. It is not doctrine. It is unfortunate, because I find a lot of peace and comfort in my religion. I think the LDS gospel is very hopeful. The members are their own worst enemy. One of the core beliefs we talk about is "being Christ-like". Okay I would like to point out the phrase

Christ - "like". Christ is an example to us. We believe that Christ was "perfect". We are not told to be him. We are told to use look to him as an example of humility, love, patience, kindess, forgiveness, etc. We are not asked to never make a single mistake in our life.

Do we forget one of the biggest words in our church, ATONEMENT? Yes I think we forget. We forget that we can use the atonement as often in our life as needed. And I believe the atonement is not just for when you are seeking forgiveness. It is when you need comfort, it is when you need to feel love. It is when you need to feel support. This to me is Hope. The LDS Church to me is hope.

Unfortunately, we are human. We are not perfect. We all make mistakes and have skeletons hiding in the closet, under the bed, in a bottle, in pills, in our heads.

 I wish so badly this scenario could happen:

     A fellow member admitting they are struggling with something, whether it be an addiction, or even a belief. They say it in a whole congregation, or in one of their block meetings, or to another member.
      What if - what if we could just open our arms, our ears and our hearts to them. What if we could avoid judgement(I believe being judgemental is part of human nature that we all have and its OK to admit we have all been judgemental),  and help that person. Sometimes it may just be a listening ear. Which means you don't have to say ANYTHING. You don't need to give any advice, or try to relate it to your life, or try to compare an urelated story to thier life. Just Zip the lip and listen. AND LOVE!
     I don't think anyone likes being vulnerable, but we need to be. We need to be real. You don't have to disclose your life struggles to everyone, you can keep details to yourself. But I am starting a movement.
LIFE SUCKS SOMETIMES! When I lost my baby I didn't want comfort from people(bare with me on this). I just wanted peopled to say "yes, it is unfair, it hurts and you can be as sad as you need".

Guess what ladies and gentelmen. Your life can be stressful, and you can vent, and it doesn't have to be OK. Lets take off the masks. Let stop pretending(or feel like you have to) that there is nothing that brings you down. That there is nothing in your life, family, or home that discourages you.

The end.

One Year

This day has been a fog for me. I keep finding myself asking "whats the date", for work related tasks, then I have to realize that it is March 25th.
There is no way to know how to feel today. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. I worked my full 8 hours, and plan to do normal activity with Perry tonight. But, the thing that is on my mind is the 'what ifs". What would life be like if I had not lost my baby?

There is the obvious: I would be a mother. We would have all the stresses that come with having a baby. Since I did lose my baby though, its hard to imagine what life would be like if we had her. I do know what I would have missed out on if I didn't lose her.

Relationship with Perry: We have grown very strong as a couple. It was not easy. In fact the first 6 months after losing our baby, I was very not like myself. We have since worked very hard on our relationship, and have strengthened things between us. It is amazing as life goes on, the closer you can get to your significant other, even after you go through hard things.

Work: I most likely would have not started working with Barebones. I was offered to work with this company within the week of losing my baby. This job opened a lot of doors for Perry and I. It gave us the financial stability we were needing so Perry could go back to school (speaking of, while we were pregnant Perry was not going to school full time).

Music: I found Searching for Celia by random happenstance. I have been so unbelievably blessed to find such amazing people. All of the people I met in that band have been such a strength and good example to me. Thank you guys.

Dogs: I would not have my Dexter! He was born on March 29th. I don't think I was planning to get a second dog while I was pregnant. He is my little baby. Both of my dogs are spoiled shits, but I find justification because of what I have gone through.

Life Progress:
We have been given another chance to prepare ourselves for another baby. Not that one can ever really plan for a baby, but it has given us new goals and desires. It is a little push for motivation. And I am excited to continue working toward those things.

This is how I feel today, but at least some light is still shining through:

- M