I have always had a lot of trouble finding the perfect spot to study or do homework. Whether your environment has distractions or is just uncomfortable, it can be difficult to complete assignments when the space around you is badly lit, noisy, cold or all of the above.
Finding the study habits that work for you can be difficult, but knowing the habits that don’t is easy. Everyone has their own different places and ways they study most efficiently but for me, I cannot study or do homework in bed.
Don’t get me wrong, doing school work in bed seems like the ideal situation. It is comfy, you do not have to move and if you’re doing homework at night, it is very easy to just go to sleep right after. I used to be the kind of student who got home from school and would hop into bed to do homework and then just go to sleep. I only discovered this was not the best way to go about doing homework towards the end of junior year of high school. I noticed that when I studied in bed, I would have a lot of trouble focusing because all I could think about was how tired I was. I would also do the bare minimum and study a lot less than if I studied at a desk or in the library. Even when I would do the bare minimum, it would still take me a long time to finish because I was tired. I would also have trouble falling asleep because there was no transition from work to sleep.
A study conducted at the University of Southern California shows that standing up increases brain power.
“Our data suggest that simply standing up causes a heart-rate increase of about 10 beats per minute and an increase in neural stimulation-resulting in improved cognitive functions,” Max Vercruyssen, an ergonomist and assistant professor at USC, said. Although this doesn’t have much to do with studying in bed, it does show that standing up, even for a short time, improves thinking. Lying in bed for hours doing homework, and then hours after sleeping cannot be good for your body or focus. From personal experience, studying at a desk, on the floor or in a chair allows me to be more efficient with my time, and separates the place for sleeping from the place for homework.
I like to compare being in bed while doing homework to eating while watching television. If you are doing homework in the place associated with sleeping, then being tired is perfectly explainable. If you eat when you watch television, then every time you watch it you will want to eat. Of course I am not telling you to give up the popcorn and snacks during a movie or television show, but when I stopped doing homework in bed and started using my desk and going to the library, I put in more effort into my assignments, I was able to focus better and, overall, I attained a better sleep schedule.
If you are like I was and study in bed, try to find another spot to study. It might help your academic performance and improve your sleep schedule.