Ever since we were in preschool, people have been telling us that practice makes perfect. The more we do something, the more integrated it becomes in our minds right? Well you can end up over-practicing, which is not good for your mental or physical health.
Over-practicing is when you excessively try to perfect a certain skill. You can over-practice at anything whether it be sports, academics, or any other hobby. I’m a strong believer that everyone has their limits. You can’t force yourself to do too much of anything at a given time. As a student who has taken a numerous AP classes, I understand why my peers feel like they must study for hours on end to understand concepts better. However, there is a limit. Teachers even promote over-practicing at times, by assigning multiple loads of work on their students at one time, forcing students to try to maintain a pace they may not be used to. If you force yourself to study everything all at once, you actually retain less compared to a person who studies in sections throughout the week.
Researchers from UCLA have stated that while studying is vital to academic success, getting an adequate amount of sleep is just as important. UCLA conducted a study where they asked students to keep a diary and record how many hours they studied. From the diaries, they were able to deduce that longer study hours resulted in less sleep, and more importantly,the students who studied for longer periods of time ended up facing more problems on their tests and performed lower than those students who consistently had 7-8 hours of sleep.
When teachers constantly assign lots of homework, because “practice is important”, I ask myself, “what’s the point?” Why did I keep throwing more work on to myself and sacrificing valuable hours of sleep and time to relieve my mind of stress? It doesn’t make sense to give up my health to do thousands of math problems and read a hundred pages of assigned reading all at once.
My junior year, I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I started to ease up on my studying, only spending around 3-4 hours on homework a day. I tried to sleep as much as I could and as early as possible. It was hard considering I had 5 AP classes, but I noticed my grades started to raise and I wasn’t fighting the urge to sleep during class.
Students need to understand that if you are not taking care of your body, it will rebel against you. Sleep and rest are just as important as studying. Even if you feel like you need to study as much as possible, you don’t need to binge study or pull an allnighter. Your brain is an organ and it has its limits. Even though it feels like you need to do as much as possible, it will never be worth it to risk your health.
Over-practicing is not efficient studying.
Over-practicing is when you excessively try to perfect a certain skill. You can over-practice at anything whether it be sports, academics, or any other hobby. I’m a strong believer that everyone has their limits. You can’t force yourself to do too much of anything at a given time. As a student who has taken a numerous AP classes, I understand why my peers feel like they must study for hours on end to understand concepts better. However, there is a limit. Teachers even promote over-practicing at times, by assigning multiple loads of work on their students at one time, forcing students to try to maintain a pace they may not be used to. If you force yourself to study everything all at once, you actually retain less compared to a person who studies in sections throughout the week.
Researchers from UCLA have stated that while studying is vital to academic success, getting an adequate amount of sleep is just as important. UCLA conducted a study where they asked students to keep a diary and record how many hours they studied. From the diaries, they were able to deduce that longer study hours resulted in less sleep, and more importantly,the students who studied for longer periods of time ended up facing more problems on their tests and performed lower than those students who consistently had 7-8 hours of sleep.
When teachers constantly assign lots of homework, because “practice is important”, I ask myself, “what’s the point?” Why did I keep throwing more work on to myself and sacrificing valuable hours of sleep and time to relieve my mind of stress? It doesn’t make sense to give up my health to do thousands of math problems and read a hundred pages of assigned reading all at once.
My junior year, I was exhausted, mentally and physically. I started to ease up on my studying, only spending around 3-4 hours on homework a day. I tried to sleep as much as I could and as early as possible. It was hard considering I had 5 AP classes, but I noticed my grades started to raise and I wasn’t fighting the urge to sleep during class.
Students need to understand that if you are not taking care of your body, it will rebel against you. Sleep and rest are just as important as studying. Even if you feel like you need to study as much as possible, you don’t need to binge study or pull an allnighter. Your brain is an organ and it has its limits. Even though it feels like you need to do as much as possible, it will never be worth it to risk your health.
Over-practicing is not efficient studying.