One Simple Technique to Elevate Your Academic Performance
Time and Time again, we as students, teachers, and/or parents try to figure out if there is a way to lower the stress level of a student today. The average student surely finds himself/herself overwhelmed by the amount of information he or she needs to soak in order to first pass school/college examinations and then to land a job in today’s competitive job market. Apart from studies, students need to juggle extracurricular activities, personal responsibilities, peer pressure, and sexual issues, etc. Amid such chaos, it is important to find ways to combat and manage stress, improve productivity and creativity and live a harmonious life. One practice that has gained popularity in recent years is Yoga Nidra. Yog Nidra is a scientifically proven, powerful technique that promotes relaxation and reduces stress.
The
Benefits of Yoga Nidra for Students
Getting
up Early: As students
juggle many responsibilities, time becomes scarce, and the only way they can
create more time is by waking up early. Yog
Nidra is a great way to program your mind to help you get up early. One of my students, Mark, goes through a
session of Yog Nidra just before going to bed.
He feels it helps him to sleep faster and improve his quality of
sleep. Thus even if you sleep for about
5-6 hours, Yog Nidra will compensate for the lack of sleep and help you get up
early. Getting access to those extra two
hours can help you beat your competition and achieve your goals.
Goal
Setting: Yog Nidra is a great
tool to aid in focusing your mind on your goals. The goal may be as simple as getting up early
every day or studying 8 hours a day. Every
evening before going to sleep a 20-minute session with an affirmation to get up
early or hit your target of studying 8 hours can encourage you to get up the early
the next morning and/or meet your target of studying 8 hours a day. One can start by doing this for a month and
then once the habit starts to form, you can reduce the frequency of Yog Nidra.
Reducing the Fear of Exams:
Yog Nidra can help you mentally prepare for your exams by reducing fear, anxiety, and stress associated with it. So, everyday you can go through a Yog Nidra session where in you simulate sitting in the examination room of that very paper which you dread and coming out of the exam room looking confident, happy, and content. This simulation will help you to reduce anxiety on the day of exam. The mind does not know what is real and what is not. So, the more you visualize a positive outcome for your exam day and simulate the exam experience in your mind, the better you will be able to manage your anxiety.
An instance comes to my mind, when my wife was
taking her law exams and on exam day when we reached the examination center,
she froze. She stated that she had
forgotten everything and that she was stressed out and very anxious about the
result. She still had half an hour
before the exam and so we decided that she go through a quick 15-minute Yog
Nidra session. Post the Yog Nidra
session, she felt relaxed and to cut a long story short she cleared the exam
with good marks. So, such sessions can
be extremely beneficial in reducing stress and anxiety at the time of exam.
Improving
Confidence through Self awareness: Yog Nidra sessions allow you to become aware
of your innermost thoughts and feelings.
This introspection can help you understand your strength and weaknesses. Students can work on their weaknesses and
turn them into strengths. This boosts overall
morale and one can find great confidence in dealing with difficult situations.
Enhanced
Concentration and Focus: Yoga Nidra sessions will help you calm your mind
and reduce mental chatter. This helps to
improve concentration and focus. Students
can particularly benefit from this as they need to study for exams and write assignments
that require long hours of continued attention.
Increased Creativity and Problem-Solving:
Emotional
Balance: Yoga Nidra makes
you calmer and helps you to better understand and manage your emotions. Moreover, it helps you becoming more aware of your
inner experiences. Consequently students
can learn to approach and respond to stressful situations in a detached manner
and can come up with better solutions compared to an average individual who may
fail miserably at that.
The
happiness Pill: Yoga Nidra promotes a sense of overall
well-being, including feelings of happiness and enthusiasm. It is said that if you are miserable and
grumpy all the time your life is bound to be miserable. So, the first thing is to learn to be
happy. Here, Yog Nidra plays a
significant role. Apart from reducing stress
and anxiety another positive side-effect of Yog Nidra is that it promotes feelings
of joy, contentment, and happiness. When
students feel good about themselves and their mental state, they are likely to
perform better academically and in all their extracurricular activities.
Positive
Feedback Loop: Generally, students are living life on the
edge wherein their emotions tend to sway them from one extreme to the
other. They can be euphoric one day and
depressed the other. Consequently, a
young man or woman may not take kindly to any sort of feedback, no matter how
honest. Yog Nidra brings tranquility and
detachment from such feedback. They are
able to take feedback and criticism constructively and can work towards improving
themselves.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Yoga Nidra is a powerful tool that
can help students sail through the challenges of academic life with greater
ease. By incorporating this practice
into their daily routines, students can experience reduced stress, improved
sleep, better concentration, and increased creativity and productivity. As with any new practice, it may take some
time to find what works best for you, but the potential benefits are well worth
the effort.
