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Studying & Test Taking

Build Healthy Habits

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is good for the body but also for the mind!

Check out the following tips on building good habits, and consider a few different healthy habits you can add to your routine. By staying mindful about these areas, you'll likely be able to retain more information, perform better on tests, and feel better in your day-to-day life too.

What is a Habit?

Check out this video to learn more about habits, including why/how we form habits and what we can do to change our habits.

Quick Tips on Building Healthy Habits

  • Make a plan: Identify your unhealthy patterns and triggers, and write down steps to help you set new goals while understanding your personal obstacles.
  • Change your surroundings: Make healthier choices easier than unhealthy choices—remove temptations!
  • Ask for support: Find friends, family, peers, neighbours, or clubs at Sheridan for support and ask people to join you.
  • Track your progress: Record how well you're sticking to your new habits so you can stay motivated.
  • Think about the future: Focus on how much better your life will be if you stay on track and form this new habit!
  • Reward yourself: Give yourself a healthy reward when you've achieved a small goal or milestone.
  • Be patient: Self improvement takes time, and setbacks can happen. Focus on your own progress, not on perfection.

Make sure to add healthy activities to your schedule too—check out the section below for a few activities that will help improve your studying and test taking skills!

Healthy Activities

Exercise is proven to help with retention and recall. Getting regular exercise boosts your brain health which will allow you to learn, think and remember better.

At Sheridan, you have access to amazing athletic facilities complete with club sports, group fitness, recreational sports leagues and more. Check out the Sheridan Athletics and Recreation for more information!

Watch the video below to learn more about how exercise can affect and enhance your learning.

Sleep and memory go hand in hand. While not completely understood, studies suggest that the quantity and quality of sleep have a profound impact on learning and memory.

Being constantly over-tired reduces our focus and attention and —without adequate sleep and rest—over-worked neurons can no longer function to coordinate information properly, and we lose our ability to access previously learned information.

Watch the video below to learn more about how sleep affects our memories.

A healthy diet goes a long way! Check out the following videos for a better idea of foods to include for optimal studying, as well as foods to avoid.