Why?

Because short form content has been shown in many studies to decrease sustained attention and causes symptoms that mimic attention deficit. How do you expect to get through a whole RC section if your brain is being hijacked to expect instant dopamine releases every 30 seconds?

So… delete all forms of short form content from your phone. Like right now. Seriously. If it really needs to stay on your phone (like you use instagram for business purposes or something), maybe use an app like ScreenZen or BePresent to lock yourself out of it.

Ok, I’ve deleted the social media apps on my phone. Now what?

Now you need to fix your attention.

• Meditate: A study by UCSB found that meditation, specifically focused attention meditation, can actually increase standardized test scores.

• Read long books: these don’t have to be “serious” books at first, especially if you aren’t an active reader. If you haven’t read anything in a while, maybe try a more “light” series like Dungeon Crawler Carl.

• Work out: being active and getting your heart rate up a few times a week will release neurotransmitters that help regulate focus. I prefer yoga because it kind of double dips into the meditation benefits, but literally any form of regular activity is better than no activity.

If you’ve been struggling with RC passages, getting through full sections of LR, etc, try these interventions for a few weeks (while also studying) and let me know how it goes!

Also, this is part of how I just pted a 179 after 2 months of studying.