How Meditation Could Help Your Grades

An update: I would like to do some Q+A posts with questions from my regular readers! If you have a question you'd like me to have a go at answering, please send it to me at this email address. Or put a comment on a post. All Q+A posts will be anonymous.

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Like many students I am in the middle of revising for my summer exams. And earlier I was sitting revising when I realised that revision is not all that different from meditating itself. In this blog post I'll expand on that and then go onto a few general reasons why meditating is great for students.

When I am revising, what I want to focus on is learning the material. Distractions which come up for me include my phone going off, accidentally finding myself scrolling on Facebook, or thinking about my next meal.

Similarly, in meditation, we also have one thing we want to focus on. For instance, in a breathing meditation it is our breath. Distractions which come up include trails of thought, worries about how well the meditation is going and wondering how close to the end of the 20 minutes we are.

So given the similarities, it sounds fitting that someone who meditates is better able to focus on their work without succumbing to distractions. But here's some actual scientific evidence showing that students who meditate have been shown to learn better:

1. More likely to study something they enjoy.
   
   This is one of my own thoughts about meditation for students. When we meditate we learn a lot about ourselves - our feelings about things, our most common thought patterns, etc., and by getting to know ourselves we are more likely to know what we want to study.
   
   Students who are studying a subject they enjoy are 'likely to perform better', according to Charlie Ball, editor of What Do Graduates Do?
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2. More present.
   
   According to a study (here), African American students who engaged in 15 minute meditations sessions at home and school every day for 4 months were less likely to show absenteeism than the control group. Studies show (here) that absenteeism leads to worse performance in studies.
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3. Reduced testing stress.
   
   Less stress on the day leads to a clearer head, and this study (here) showed that 64 medical students who participated in deep breathing meditation exercises experienced:
• Decreased test anxiety
• Decreased self doubt
• Increased concentration
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4. Helps you further down the line.
   
   In the same sample of medical students, those who participated in the meditation exercises claimed that they felt meditation would help them in their future jobs as physicians. 

As if those reasons weren't enough, students who tried meditation regularly have been shown in all sorts of studies (one of them here) to have grade improvements.

So next time you're setting your alarm to get up for a lecture or exam, consider setting it 20 minutes earlier to try meditating. Alternatively, try meditating before bed - you could even try my very own bedtime meditation (here). Good luck!

Image from here

5 Ways to Get Dance Back Into Your Life!

Before I start this article, I have added a snazzy new Facebook like button to all of my posts! So if you like what I'm writing you can click that so I can see how many people are enjoying my posts and spread my writing further!

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Following on from my last post, today I'll be writing about making ourselves less invisible and taking up the space we deserve in the world. And what better way to do this than through dance?

It takes some confidence to dance. Whether it's in a club, in a dance class or in your bedroom, to many people it just doesn't feel natural. Last week I was lucky enough to go to Morning Gloryville (see their website here). They describe what they do on their website:

"Morning Gloryville is an immersive morning dance party. We are the pioneers of sober morning raving - responsible for bringing conscious clubbing to the world stage."

You might think that this sounds fantastic, and believe me it was brilliant. You might also think something like 'I could never do that' or 'I'd need a drink before I could dance'. And this is the reaction I got from quite a few people when I told them about it afterwards.

Why is dancing so hard?

I believe that the inability we feel to get up and dance, especially in front of others, is a result of our wanting to be invisible. In some ways, it is easier - we avoid the horror of someone laughing at the way we dance, or going for it a bit too much and tripping over.

But becoming invisible in this way is not healthy for us. Every human being, as I explained in my last post (here), has the need to be seen. By not allowing ourselves to completely let go, we cause ourselves anxiety, our negative self talk spirals and we become more and more isolated.

So how can I get dancing?

There are a few ways you can do this.

1. Start in your bedroom.

Put on a dance tracks playlist when everyone is out, and just let go. Given the part of us that loves dance comes from our inner child, even better if you can find a track you used to dance to as a child. Bring back some of those moves you used to pull as a 12 year old. S Club Juniors is one of my favourites for this!

2. Go clubbing more.

If you feel you need to drink alcohol to have a good dance, go out with some friends and spend the night enjoying dance. Remember your goal through this though - this guidance isn't an excuse to end up out on the smoking terrace all night before retreating to McDonald's!

3. Join a dance class

Go to a dance class where there will be more 'beginners' at the dance style you choose for your class. This might take away some of the fear that you won't automatically know which moves to pull out when you're dancing. Because you'll be taught them.

Dance classes at the gym can also be fun - Zumba and dance fit and the like are all growing in popularity and if you take along a friend you can have fun as well as coming away having done some exercise (though be careful that your desire to dance doesn't become a desire to get fit - this is not the point of this article!)

4. Go to a flash mob!

Get searching online and find a flash mob that's happening in a city near you. When you feel that your dance has a purpose and fits into a larger goal, it can really give you some confidence.

5. Challenge negative self talk

If, while you're dancing, you begin to have thoughts like 'dancing isn't for me' or 'I can't dance' - remember that dancing is for anyone who has a body! The desire to dance comes instinctively to human beings, as well as an ability to move, so honour that in yourself and find a dance floor.

And when you've gone off and danced,  leave me a comment on the blog to let me know how you got on :)

Image source here

What's So Special About Me?

So I bet you thought this blog post was going to be a personal one about me. But no! It's going to be about you. Like most of these blog posts. I'm not sure if that'll come as an excitement or a disappointment for you, but on to what I'm going to talk about!

So many times we underestimate ourselves. It comes across in all sorts of ways.

1. Jealousy

We find ourselves looking at others' achievements. That friend's graduation photo, hearing about someone's new plans, someone else's good fortune. That pang of guilt as we realise we do not feel completely 100% happy for them is usually down to self deprecation. 

The reason that person's graduation photo is creating a sense of jealousy might be because a part of you always wanted to graduate but didn't. In that moment of longing for what they have it doesn't matter that your premature leaving of university led to a great period of self discovery and starting your own business. It doesn't matter that you met all sorts of great people. You could've become a billionaire. And still your inner critic believes that you are not enough because you didn't graduate. 

2. Isolating ourselves

People probably wouldn't notice if you didn't turn up to that party. Right? 

Wrong. So often we tell ourselves that our absence isn't noticed. We could skip that gathering to lay about in bed and not bother getting in the shower. And yes, you guessed it, it's another way of putting ourselves down. 

The truth is, people do notice when we aren't around. They miss us. And in the mean time we dismiss what they actually miss about us.  

3. Pushing away loved ones

We self deprecators sabotage our own opportunities. That guy you've been dating you might find yourself pushing away from because to your subconscious, he seems too nice. In an old journal I have written 'it's only a matter of time until he discovers that I'm not all that great'. Come on! 

We also push away opportunities. That art fair you've been wanting to go to might get put on the back burner by an inner voice saying 'what's the point?'.

Well, what is the point?

It's a human need to be seen. The more you are seen the more you are remembered, and the more opportunity will flock straight to you. You'll have a lot more freedom. 

So how?

Put yourself out there!

Nobody but Van Gogh would have created Sunflowers in the way he did. All the things we love about creative professionals' work is a direct result of them getting out of bed and deciding to put themselves out in the world. And we can all learn from that. 

Go to social events, do what you feel drawn towards, because it's a great way to discover yourself and how much capability you really have. It only takes 2 clicks on a laptop to order a pizza to your house. Think how much you could create with a little thought and a few more clicks?

Make your voice heard!

As Michelle D'Avella writes (here), 

"The world does not carve out a space for the voiceless. They do not roll out a red carpet and invite the invisible to parade through."

Stay connected to the ones you love - participate fully in that group chat, make your voice heard when something doesn't feel right - refuse to pay the service charge if the waitress had no time for you! And make yourself heard!

Then see how it feels and leave a comment on this post :)

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Image 2 from here

A seven-step exercise to getting to know who you are behind the mask.

This blog post is going to be dedicated to talking about ourselves in an objective way. I think this is really important because the way you describe yourself objectively gives big clues to the way you think about yourself and how strong your sense of self-identity is. Who is the person behind the mask you present to the outside world?

What is this mask?
In the past when I have applied for jobs or studies, I have spent hours looking up on Google things like 'qualities desired in baristas'. Usually a long list will appear, looking something like:

• Team player
• Positive attitude
• Works well under pressure
• And the list goes on...

I believe that people would look up a list such as this for two main reasons:

1. They want to see if this type of job would be suitable for them.
2. They already want the job and now they need to memorise these things to show on a personal statement or at an interview that they are appropriate for the job. 

The first reason is very authentic and fits the job around the person. The second reason is learning how to adapt the outward mask the person fits on to get the things they think they want. The problem is that often behind the mask they actually do not know who they are. 

When you know yourself it is 100 times easier to nourish yourself and create the most fulfilling life ahead for yourself. It is a great feeling to be able to talk to someone about yourself and have a solid enough foundation to know whether a job or other situation is actually for you, and it helps you to take any rejection a lot less personally. 

How do I get to know who I am deep down?

This is a BIG question and takes some time. But there are things you can do to help you along the way. The main idea is to get to know as much as you can about yourself, and pay special attention when you do figure out these things. More things you can do will follow from this post because knowing one's own self identity is something I have a big passion for. One to start with is here:

1. Grab a pen and piece of paper.
2. Write about yourself as if you were looking at your life from the inside.
3. Focus on what you feel is most important to you in your life right now.
4. Use these questions for guidance. Expand if you feel you want to on any question:
1. Am I male or female or transgender? 
2. Am I currently in a relationship?
3. Do I have a job?
4. What do I want in life?
5. Which feelings come up for me most day-to-day?
6. Where can I most often be found?
5. Think of your own questions and continue writing until you feel you have written a good summary.
6. Repeat at various stages of your life because the things you like and dislike are symbols of who you are but will change. 
7. Look at the 'roots'. For example, if you are a student and you want to be a teacher, a core quality of yours might be creativity, growth or self development. See which general ideas fit to you and try and apply them to other things you like in your life. 

Image from here