Back Into Swing: Life-hacks For Adapting Your Lifestyle

Rest is necessary

Tedious work, be it in an office or on research projects, is the number one cause of stress, often followed by neurological conditions and heart diseases. For instance, a certain research shows that those who work more than eight hours a day have a 40% higher risk of suffering a heart attack. Also, workaholics perform worse in cognitive ability tests, for example, their speech becomes poor and dull, and they are bad at forming causal relationships. And, naturally, those who get less rest are more susceptible to depression and bad moods.

Rest is necessary, but too long a rest does not improve your performance, either.

After the start of the holidays, one reaches the peak of physical and psychological condition on the eighth day; then, the indications that have to do with performance return to normal. When one returns to work or studying, they continue to quickly decrease. The above was stated by scientists who tested 54 volunteers during their holidays and after their return to work. On average, the subjects rested for about 23 days; the researchers gathered data on their health condition and asked participants to report on it themselves. Passive rest and pleasant active rest enhanced the indications, yet after eight days they began to return to normal, and then rapidly decreased after the start of workdays. So, you shouldn’t be sad about the summer holidays ending: even if your rest had been longer, its quality wouldn’t have improved.

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Planning makes your life better

Surely, everyone has their own lifestyle: some never think of what they'll be doing the next moment, others plan for every minute. Yet, when one gets back from a long holiday, planning can be a great help, and that has to do with not just work, but rest as well. Understanding of the upcoming tasks, as well as expectations of pleasant activities, help perceive work as something rewarding, meaning a person knows in advance that tomorrow there's not just intensive labor waiting for them, but also their hobbies, friends, and relaxation. Thus, a schedule will help you restrain yourself from watching yet another series, as you will know that you have it planned for tomorrow. What is more, a detailed timetable structures your brain and does not let you loose, whereas jumping from one task to another decreases your productivity.

Short breaks improve performance

Have you ever thought why lectures last 90 minutes exactly? When our brain works on the same task for a long time, it stops reacting to incoming signals and perceives them as standard stimuli (which is the reason most don't feel the smell coming from their nasal cavities or their own bad breath). Scientists have conducted an experiment where participants had to work on a certain task for 50 minutes; one of the study groups took two short breaks, the other had none. The results were better in the former group. Another research involved special applications that reminded office workers to straighten up, stretch, or have a walk around the office. As result, those who participated in the experiment proved to be 13% better at doing their work than their colleagues who didn't.

Credit: hsto.org

Renouncing web-surfing doesn't help

It seems obvious that if a student or employee distracts himself by surfing through social networks or watching cat videos, that would have a negative effect on their work. Yet, research recently showed that suppressing the urge to do that has an even worse effect on one's performance than useless Internet-surfing itself! To prove that, scientists conducted a fun experiment with students aged 20 to 25. Two groups got a task: to count how many times some people on a video passed the ball to each other. Yet, one group had the permission to watch the Mr. Bean TV series if they wanted to, and the second group could hear their laughter and comments. It turned out that the second group that was tempted but could not distract themselves showed worse results. So don't blame yourself every time you check your favorite page, just don't do that every five minutes!

Focus on what you're good at, and do it more

Not everyone is so lucky that they get to do things they are good at all day long. Some have problems with lectures on machine learning, some - on the fundamentals of electronics; some are bad at presentations, others hate writing term papers. Yet, everyone has their strong sides, things they like and do with ease. According to an American study, the more a person does them, the happier they get. 52% of Americans who do tasks they are good at for less than a third of their workday reported high levels of stress and anxiety, and 38% of them even complained about physical pain. At the same time, only a third of those who worked using their fortes experienced stress, less than a fifth - pain, and even less - excessive aggression or sadness. So, during the first days of the new semester try to focus on tasks you're good at - this way you'll find it easier to get back into the swing of things and increase your motivation. And in the long run, try developing new skills. For instance, if you're not very good with lab equipment, why not spend an additional hour on learning that after studying? This won't be a waste of your free time - on the contrary, the many hours you'll then have to spend in the lab will become a lot more pleasant!

Credit: hsto.org

You can't fight bad habits by just saying "No more!"

In the course of the summer, you can develop many habits that might hinder your work or studies: getting up late, staying up until dawn, watching TV series until you drop. When the time to give up on them comes, most try to do that by sheer willpower; those who succeed are the lucky ones. Yet, most just continue being late or burden themselves with unfinished tasks. What's more, scientists found out that the very intention of giving up on a bad habit can tie the person to them even stronger, especially if he or she is aware of their bad consequences. So, what can you do? A good option is to replace your bad habits with different ones. For instance, instead of "snoozing" your alarm ten times over, motivate yourself to get up to watch your favorite YouTube channel. Gradually, you will learn to get up on time - just don't start getting late because you spend your morning surfing the Internet!