100 Tips to Get a RANK, an article by Yandamoori

TUNING THE BRAIN

1. The word meditation sounds big, when you do not understand the real meaning. Meditation means enjoying the current experience in depth, both mentally and physically. Concentrate on hair while combing, relish the taste of food while eating and enjoy the lesson while reading.
   
   
2. Anger, Laziness, Sensitiveness. Fear, Tension, Inferiority complex, Insecurity about future, Failure to speak public, Lack of Attention and Memory are the problems normally faced by students.
   
   
3. Look at the last again. Are they problems or weaknesses? Suppose a student meets with an accident before his exam. It's a problem. Loosing hall ticket one day before the theory test is a problem.  Problems many not be solved, but weaknesses can be fought upon.
   
   
   
   
   MOOD CONTROL
   
   
4. Be careful of what you do just before your studies. Don't get involved in gossip, arguments, phone conservations and long discussions prior to your studies. This may launch you on the course to daydreaming.
   
   
5. Ask your friends not to ring up after six in the evening. Request your parents not to invite guests during your study hours.
   
   
6. If your mind wanders, don't sit at your desk starting into a book and mumbling about your poor self-control. Stand up and go away from your books.  Take a breath of fresh air. Never talk to friends on phone or with family members during these intervals. Don't even try to look in the direction of TV.. not even for a second.
   
   
7. Before you start your study, stand for a few moments before your study table ( or mat ) silently. Close your eyes and try to think of nothing. This is called CLEANING the SLATE. In the beginning, you may find it impracticable. It tests your patience.  Many give up at this stage. After practicing for three to four weeks, you would begin to enjoy the results.
   
   
   
   
   FOOD, LAZINESS AND SLEEP
   
   
8. Laziness is of two types, Physical and Mental. Tiredness of body called 'fatigue'. Mental laziness is 'boredom'. Don't confuse fatigue with boredom.
   
   
9. Do you eat to live or live to eat? Eat to live for six days and live to eat for one day. Normally you require 2500 calories per day. It is unpleasant to know that a hundred grams chips packet, butter cookies and a chocolate bar give you 450, 480, 300 calories respectively. Idly is good with 50 calories but a tea spoon of coconut or groundnut chutney adds up another 50 calories.
   
   
10. There are 22 amino acids of which body cannot produce nine and are to be supported from outside. Soya bean is a highly recommended food for students. Add it to your chapattis.  You can mix Soya powder in water, fruit juices or buttermilk and drink twice a day.
    
    
11. Soon after eating a heavy meal you feel sleepy, as the intestines drains more blood and oxygen from the brain. Reduce the volume of your lunch and dinner to 25% and have large breakfast and evening snacks. Lunch, Evening snacks and Dinner in the ration of 30:25:20:25 keeps your alertness constant throughout the day.
    
    
12. Normally people eat rice for lunch and chapattis for dinner. It is advised the other way around. Chapattis keep you fit and light for the entire day and though easily digestible, rice is heavy on stomach.
    
    
13. Hypersomnia means early to bed and late to rise. It includes excessive daytime sleep and napping at inappropriate times. To fight hypersomnia, perform some sort of physical activity for ten minutes in the morning. Throw a Frisbee with your friends or just go for a jog. It eases your hypersomnia.
    
    
14. After dinner, walk 'alone' for ten minutes in the night and return to studies. Sandwich the uninteresting subject between two interesting subjects while studying in the nights.
    
    
15. Saturday Night Fever: Never watch late night movies on Saturday and compensate your sleep on Sunday afternoons. The effect continues on Monday also, disturbing the biological clock.
    
    

TIME MAPPING

16. The main reasons for unsuccessful time management are incapability of arranging the tasks in preferential order, getting attracted by more powerful unbeneficial deeds, irregular habits like excessive sleeping, and unnecessary gossiping and late night-outs.

  Look at the right lower part of the table. A student in the month of June feels that there is a lot of time to begin his studies. He is unconscious about the urgency and importance of the exams. Slowly, as the half-yearly examinations approach, he feels the urgency, but he is not yet interested to start, as he thinks it is not that important. With that over-confidence, he ignores the subject and becomes lazy. Later as the examination date advances, he settles down to his studies. At this juncture, he finds certain subjects difficult and tough.  He gets confused. He postpones studying those subjects. In March, suddenly, everything becomes important and urgent. In other words, as flood water from all small streams join to make a hell out of it, all works flow to the left upper block of he above table (Urgent and Important), creating tension to the student.

17. Maintain a fixed time for 'eat-intervals' in case you cannot hold your hunger for two or three hours. Don't visit the Kitchen in between.  Keep some fruits or other eatables near your study table, but never eat there.  Treat it as a holy place not be disgraced.
    
    
18. Developing speed with which you should read is also an art. It depends on whether you are reading a lesson or a non-detail. Again, first reading should be slow to underlining, revision should be fast. It is not important how fast you read and complete a lesson, but how you retain it is.
    
    
19. You should be able to say 'no' to any person who demands your time unnecessarily. You can learn to stop people, who are your time killers. They are the persons who pop into your study room for a chat. You have every right to politely postpone the conversation (unless you like it and nobody can help you then).
    
    
20. Next time when you talk to your friend on phone, ask one of your family members to record it without your knowledge. Note down how many urgent and important points that you have discussed in that one-hour conversation whom you are any way going to meet the next day. There will be none.
    
    
21. Arrange all necessary items like books, water, etc., before settling for studies. Don't waste your precious early morning time, searching for the above.
    
    
22. Start your study every day exactly at a given time and according to a timetable. If you examine your day carefully, you'll find that you tend to lunch and dine at predictable times. 'Time controlled behaviour' is fairly easy to start.
    
    

KEY NOTING

23. While studying (or listening to the lecture), note down the points in your own simple language. This is called keynoting. Suppose you are studying (or teacher is explaining) Ramayana. You should note that the key points like Ram - wife - kidnap - War. 
    
    
24. You should be able to expand the entire Ramayana by holding these four words in your active neurons. All other incidents and names like Lakshmana, Vibhishana, Ravana etc., should be kept in passive neurons. At a later stage when you try to recollect the subject, the active neurons wake up the passive neurons.
    
    
25. Condense the entire subject to simple keywords. Use diagrams and colour pens, whenever necessary. Expand the subject in your words, with the help of the keywords.  
    
    
26. Compare your script with the original notes. If the variation is more, try to write it again.
    
    
27. Original text books and notes contain much unnecessary matter. Your keynoting filters it. At the time of revision you need not choose between important and unimportant sentences. You are not straining the brain with unnecessary pulp matter.
    
    
28. You are not straining your eyes with the stereotyped letters of printing. You love your hand writing. Studying your own script reduces the strain of the eye.
    
    
29. The entire syllabus of ALL the subjects can be condensed into a 100-page notebook just by keynoting. Once you are thorough with this, then you will not.. be afraid of the dooms day i.e., examinations, spend sleepless nights in March and experience sweating while entering the examination hall.
    
    

DEVELOPING CONCENTRATION

30. A Student lacks concentration due to tow reasons: Having no interest in his studies or.. more interest in other things. Conquer your unwanted desires that take your time and come out of your magnetic fields.
    
    
31. Hunger, noise, visuals, sounds and odour are the five disturbances to our five sensory organs respectively. Ask your elders to watch TV with low volume.
    
    
32. Loud reading certainly helps you to concentrate better, but silent reading is advisable particularly when you are in a hostel or at a postgraduate level.
    
    
33. If you are in the habit of reading with some audio on, go for mono instrumental music. Never go for songs with lyrics.
    
    
34. Don't discuss your next day's interesting programs like going for a movie or sight seeing or picnic, just before starting your evening studies.
    
    
35. Set aside a fixed place for study and nothing but study. After a while, study becomes part of your behaviour and whenever you sit down in that particular place, you'll feel like going straight to work.
    
    
36. Some students have the habit of studying while resting on the bed or even in the kitchen. Never change your place of study. At times, when you feel for a change, you may go to an open place like upstairs, balcony or garden in front of your house, but never study in your bedroom or in kitchen.
    
    
37. Cultivate the habit of reading in libraries. Get habituated to reading alone. Combined study is normally not suggested, for it may promote unnecessary gossiping.
    
    
38. When you shift from one subject to another, allow yourself a five-minute interval. When you are bored with a dry subject, change to mathematics or any other favorite subject of yours.. or begin writing.
    
    
39. Desire  control is the best mantra to develop concentration. Suppose your friends invited you to your most favourite hero's movie. Say 'no' to it or postpone it. Same way, control your urge to talk.
    
    
40. Place your most favourite sweet on your study table and read. Plan to eat it after completing your day's studies. After completing your studies, put it back in the jar without tasting it. Difficult, but when you practice it, an are able to win over 'you', the kind of confidence you gain gives you more satisfaction than yielding to your sensory organs.
    
    
41. Avoid falling in love at your age. Infatuations are common but a little effort, you can avoid. There is lot of life further for a better choice.
    
    
    
    

CONTROLLING THE SENSORY ORGANS

42. EYES: Face the wall to avoid distraction. Never sit facing the open window. Read under a table light and keep the other part of the room dark, to help create soft surrounding and elevate your mood. It is always advisable to keep the entire room dark, even in daytime, by closing the windows and reading before a table light.
    
    
43. Use tube light for your table light. This way you can avoid the unnoticeable flicker of a normal bulb and consequent damage to your eyes. Arrange the light in such a way that the rays don't fall directly on your eyes.
    
    
44. Use 'Yellow' coloured table cloth. If you are used to sitting on a mat and read, use yellow cloth on your mat. Your eyes are more comfortable with a yeallow backdrop.
    
    
45. Your attention deteriorates after an hour's study. Never read for more than one hour at a stretch. Take ten minutes rest in between. This concept is called Mind Holiday.
    
    
46. Keep a bowl of water and a cloth near your study table. In the first interval of ten minutes, sit erect and raise your head slightly upwards. Cover your eyes with the wet cloth. Close your left nostril and breathe through your right nostril and release it slowly from your left nostril. Continue the exercise in reverse for another five minutes. This exercise eliminates the residual carbon (dioxide) from your lungs and you notice the freshness, newly generated energy and the difference.
    
    
47. Between second and third hours of study, go to our balcony or an open space, or stand near your window, close your eyes and feel the fresh air. During the ten minutes interval, try to recollect what you have studied during the previous two hours.
    
    
48. If you feel sleepy and tired on a particular day, go to sleep.  Don't force yourself to stick on the schedule. If you feel eyes getting strained, place cucumber (keera) or wet cotton.
    
    
49. MOUTH: It is your first enemy as far as your studies are concerned. To keep your mouth engaged, place a clove or cardamom (Elaichi) in your cheek. Whenever your concentration lapses bite it once.
    
    
50. Drink as much water as you can while studying. It constantly keeps you fresh. For 'every' one-hour have a glass of buttermilk or carrot or orange juice or water with Soya powder.
    
    
51. When you consume negative foods like chocolates and coke, simple carbohydrates are immediately being released into the bloodstream. Mirchi bujji, Pav-bhai and Pani poori have a chemical called Capsocysin. Burning them and conversion into glucose requires heavy amounts of oxygen and it leades sleapiness. Never eat the above items before or while studying. It is also better if you can reduce eating these products a month before exams.
    
    
52. If you are a non-vegetarian eat fish instead of mutton. The adrenaline released in the body of a dying animal is harmful to your body and mind.
    
    
53. NOSE: Sit in cool and fairly fragrant room and study, and you will find the difference in your concentration level.
    
    
54. Before preparing for study, smell 'mint' (Pudhina) for a few seconds. The aroma of mint increases your attentivenes.
    
    
55. Light an incense stick near your table while you study. Associate your studies with the smell of an incense stick.
    
    
56. If you are allergic to the smoke, apply any one of the following powder/paste near your neck: Kasturi, Punugu, Goroochanai, Javvadhi, Aragatha and Athar. Tehy are available in any grocery market. Their smell is differently pleasant being spicy, warm, slightly camphor based or sweet and penetrating. Choose one of them according to your taste. Apply them only when you study.
    
    
57. SKIN: Cultivate the habit of taking a mildly hot or cold-water bath before you start studying in the evening. It will make you feel fresh and new. For better results, steam your face for few minutes with turmeric water. It revitalises, refreshes and keeps you young.
58. EARS: Some students are habituated to read while the music is on. Try to get out of that habit. Classical music is supposed to aid learning in some cases, but music other than that tends to be distracting.
59. To avoid external disturbances consider using earplugs or cotton. If possible, record the lesson on a tape and listen to your own voice by keeping it by your bedside as you go to sleep.
60. Immediately on waking up from the bed, put on Surprabhata (or Bhoopala Raaga) and go ahead with your daily routine. In other snese, once you complete your dairy routine. In other sense, once you complete your studies in the night, try to minimise your talking till you take your bath. It enables you to be in the meditaion mood. This strengthens your neuron bonds and what you studied the previous night becomes permanent.
61. GENERAL: After completion of reading one subject, don't jump to another. Give a gap of 5 minutes.
62. After completion of your studies, move out of your house or go upstairs of your flat for five minutes to enjoy the quietness of the night. It refreshes you and ensures good sleep. The feeling that you are awake when the entire world is sleeping makes you feel 'on the top of the world'.
63. Never read during late nights. Never use drugs to stay awake. Before sleeping, try to recall the keynotes prepared by you.
64. Keep discussing your subject with your parents and friends. Get your doubts clarified immediately. When you don't understand a particular point, never hesitate to ask your teacher/parent.
65. Read daily. Even if you are on a holiday.. or at your grand pa's village.. or uncle's house.. read at least for half an hour.
66. Read the above once more. Before starting your studies.. bathing, lighting an incense stick, applying Javvadi and finally, the two minutes pray.. You have created a temple atmosphere in your study room. This preparation is the best to achieve concentration.
    
    

MEMORY

67. Memory is the link (bond) between various active and passive neurons. When more space is provided for unnecessary bonds, valuable neurons pertaining to education go to the passive part of the brain and that is called 'Mind Decay'.  Total destruction of these neurons is called 'Forgetting'.
68. Lack of memory and Forgetting are different. Unless you are suffering with Alzheimer's disease, you cannot say that you have insufficient memory.
69. You can talk, chat or watch TV but complete everything before you start your studies. Never watch TV in between or after studies. It unsettles your neuron bonds. It is called 'Memory overload'.
70. After completion of your studies go to bed immediately, without talking or watching TV, not even for ten minutes.
71. If you plan to go to a movie or see a favourite programme on TV, you can never concentrate on your study, unconsciously looking forward to the forth-coming event.
72. While talking, the electro magnetic pathways vibrate ten times more than in 'silent mode' and during arguments they are up by fifty times, leading to loss of memory. When an issue is discussed, disputed and argued. (say.. whether a particular movie is good or bad) you recall some points to strengthen your argument and stimulate the unnecessary neuron bonds, thus asking the brain to provide much garbage space. Hence never argue.
73. After an exciting conversation with friends or a heated argument at home, when you begin to study again, those over-riding neurons, with the support of already released adrenaline, dominates the attentiveness. This disturbs the study. This is called 'lack of concentration'.
74. Never gossip either in person or on phone at bedtime. The electro-magnetic pathways are comparatively still and passive during your sleep and this would help the bonds grow stronger.

THE PRE-EXAMS REVISION

75. It is not the load that breaks you down, it is the way you carry it. During the preparatory holidays, sleep for half an hour in the afternoon, take a bath, close the doors and create an 'artificial dawn'. Read before a table light though it is the evening time. This is called 'one day-two dawn theory'.
76. As examinations approach, you spend twelve hours on reviewing and still feel that there is a lot to study. Don't get tensed up. No person in the world feels hundred percent prepared for his exams.
77. Never try to revise one subject for too long at any one time. One hour is just enough. But note that revision means not just reading a chapter and vaguely remembering a few sentences immediately afterwards.
78. During revision, you may surprisingly find some of the subject matter missed your attention completely. Don't panic. You might have some-how missed it. Glance through it and decide whether it is necessary to read it at the eleventh hour. More particularly don't try to do last minute cramming standing outside the exam room.
79. Some of your friends may be telling you that they stay awake till the crack of dawn. Don't be depressed. It may work out to them. Stick on to your healthy habit of sleeping before midnight and ensure that you are fit physically and mentally.
80. Avoid sweets, oily foods and cool drinks a month before exams. If you do not have a regular coffee/tea habit, don't make it a habit now to stay late hours.
81. After completion of your studies in the night, don't get tempted to call on your friend even for few minutes to know about his studies. Your intentions are good but the late night conversations won't stop there.
    
    

FIVE 'D' TECHNIQUES

82. Tranquility : After completing your studies go to bed, turn to a side and close your ears and eyes with a pillow. By sealing two important sensory organs, you are being engulfed into a stage of quietness. Feel that your mind is transforming into calmness. Watch your breath for a minute. It's like cleaning the slate before writing. Now adjust your pillow and settle in your habituated comfortable position. Slip into sleep while recollecting what you studied that day. This is called 'Recall'.
83. The early morning proceedings : As you wake up, stay on bed for another few minutes to continue the following exercises: Think of the mistakes that you have done during last twenty-four hours! Have you quarrelled with your brother or sister over a particular TV channel of your choice? Have you thrown the food plate accusing your mother? This daily evaluation and self - criticism helps you to develop better personality.
84. Scheduling : Before rising from the bed, divide your day into small compartments and plan your timetable, even though it is a holiday. How much time are you going to watch TV in the evening? Which Channel? It is called Time Management (TM). Once you are habituated to TM, the word 'busy' would wither away from your dictionary. Instead of chatting for one hour at lunch time, plan to cut it to half and take rest in library, to conserve your energy for the next lecture session. Choosing your friend for lunch also matters. Vagabonds sit with vagabonds.
85. Compare and Consume : As you are resting with a blanket, over ten million children of your age in this country are already on their work. A ten-year-old boy is serving tea to lorry drivers on the roadside dhabas, a small girl of tender age is sweeping your house, and a twelve-year boy is climbing the up-hill on his cycle to give you the morning newspaper. Think how fortunate you are compared to them. God has given you some clothes, food, health and above all 'parents'. This gives you a feeling of compassion and positive thinking towards life.
86. Look at you in the mirror and smile for a few seconds. Looks funny but neurotransmitters like Dopamine (pleasure) and Serotonin (feel good) in turns stimulate your Acetylcholine, which is the source for your attention, learning and memory.
87. Exercise : After brushing the teeth, bend ten times touching your toes with your fingertips. The blood circulation to the brain converts the short time memory into semantic memory. If you  have no neck problem, spend a minute staying topsy-turvy (Seershasana) by the side of wall for another minute.

        Let suprabhata continue while you are doing the above exercises.

88. Can we fight fear? Certainly yes if you know the Four Noble Truths sermonised by Buddha philosophy, first being the Reality (of the problem), Second the Cause (for the problem), Third the Effect (by the problem) and lastly the Solution (to the problem). It is as simple as that. In physician's terms, it would be like: Disease, the Cause of disease (Diagnosis), the Treatment (Prognosis) and the relief (solution)
89. There are six stages of tension before exams. One: Three months prior to the actual exams certain sense of unease, a sense of lonely feeling, insecurity, catch you up. Two: One fine morning you wake up and suddenly reminded of your exams. Three: A week prior to the exams, it gradually turns into anxiety. Suddenly from nowhere the worry erupts. Anxiety causes troubled sleep, depression.  You begin to fear the worst and indulge in unnecessary thinking.  Four: The day before exams you are almost panicky. Panic includes sweaty palms, shivering fingers. Slowly you cease to grin and smile. Five: As you receive the question paper, your 'tension' peaks. Your memory fails you. You experience lapses in your thinking process and mental blocks. Six : The nervousness peaks during the exam. Rapid heartbeats, loosing self-confidence are the indicators at this stage Uneasiness continues for sometime even after exam.
90. Stay relaxed and confident before answering. Spend the first 2 minutes previewing the question paper. Allocate time in proportion to the marks. Just because you know the answer in detail, don't write beyond the requirement.
91. Have the entire picture of the answer. Determine the length, time to be spent answering depending on the marks allotted to it.
92. Focus on how to start, elaborate, reach a climax and end it. The answers should be brief but should cover all the points.
93. Before starting, close your eyes for 30 seconds, take a deep breath, calm down and be pleasant and start answering.
94. Improve on your grammar and spellings.  Think in English while writing in English. Don't write 'Rama Ravana killed' which may be be correct in your colloquial language. Say 'Ram killed Ravana'.
95. Be careful with construction of sentences and particularly with pronouns. If you write, 'Rama killed Ravana as his wife was kidnapped by him', the examiner confuses to understand who kidnapped whose wife. If you write, 'Ravans kidnapped Sita and then got killed by Rama', it gives a meaning that RAvana made Rama to kill his wife.
96. Don't get confused with words like 'accept/except/expect', 'affect/effect', 'its/it's' etc.,
97. Avoid repeating the same words in a sentence or paragraph. Know exactly  when to use a simple or a compound sentence. Don't use more commas. Divide paragraphs correctly.
98. Last but not least.. Write to communicate. Not to electrify. Comprehend a fact.
99. Finally the exams come and the exams go, you will be there, sane, smiling and ready to enjoy the summer. Cheer up.
100. Did you ever realise that life would not have been so cheerful for some people in this world including your parents, had you not been there and 'you' made that difference? Who knows?  You may be the person who would change the history of the country..world..er..univese! Implement at least 50 percent of the above, you will be in the process!! I promise.. And I challenge!!!