Life at MA

Psychology Backed Study Tips

By Makena Schwaegler ‘29 in Fall 2025

As we approach the end of the fall semester, many MA students are bombarded with tests. Thankfully, neuroscience offers some productive tips on how to maximize your brain’s information storage. 

Believe it or not, one of the most powerful study tools isn’t a notebook or a pencil, but it's actually a good night's rest! Getting poor sleep not only affects one’s mood but also sets students up for failure if they have a test the following day. Bad sleeping habits will affect productivity and mindset in the long run. Two types of sleep are crucial for brain function: slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. SWS is extremely important for memory consolidation and cognitive function. While in SWS, the brain is actually organizing thoughts and storing facts and dates in the neocortex. For example, how to complete a say, mean, matter chart! So it's best to get a good night's rest after a study session so that the brain can store all the information processed during the day. REM sleep is also extremely important because it filters through important facts and memories and prepares unimportant details for deletion, like how much money you spent on a cookie at the cafeteria! This is helpful because it makes room for new facts, like the quadratic formula or calculating derivatives! Not only can sleep help prepare for a hard day at school or a test, but it also regulates emotions, helping to calm stress and anxiety. To receive these benefits, it is recommended that high school students receive 8-10 hours of sleep every night.

When people don’t take study breaks, they can actually become less productive as they go on and can trigger a certain hormone to release cortisol. Cortisol can be a good thing if it is released in small amounts because cortisol releases glucose, which can give people a boost of energy. However, cortisol triggers the body to go into fight-or-flight mode, so if the body releases a lot of cortisol, it can cause a lot of stress on the body and mind. Meditation is a tool that can control cortisol levels and ease the stress/anxiety caused by high cortisol levels, school, and even social life. Meditation brings people back to the present and can help clear the mind. Some meditation techniques that can be helpful include box breathing and 4-7-8 breathing. Those exercises can help lower heart rate and make people more productive. Maybe consider doing meditation before your next test! 

Depending on how you use it, technology can either be a great study tool or your biggest distraction. Perhaps students are using Quizlet Pro, Google Classroom, Canvas, and Khan Academy. More likely, people are distracted by Snapchat, Instagram, and Discord. No matter what one is looking at on the screen, studies show blue light causes eye strain and disrupts the circadian rhythm, which can lead to poor sleep. Some solutions to this can be to buy blue-light glasses and to try not to use screens before bed. Especially when studying on a computer, it is extremely important to take breaks from looking at screens so that the brain can refocus. Doing this can also prevent migraines. Knowing the best environment for yourself, whether that's night, day, loud, or quiet, can be a game changer for your studying. Overall, it is best to limit screen time on social media, because short videos, on platforms like TikTok, lower people's attention spans and can lead to less productivity. Some tools to silence these distractions can be Do Not Disturb mode, Clear Space, and Brick, which can be bought from Amazon.

So the next time you are thinking of staying up late to finish your English draft or scroll on TikTok, try to incorporate these study tips into your routine. Happy studying!