Tag: Focus

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Teen and Parent Wellbeing

Study Skills

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By Vihaan and Soven

We all know high school is really tough, and for many of us, focusing on work can be quite tough as well. There are many ways to improve your focus and study skills but the three that have been proved to be the most effective are meditating, taking breaks, and developing a plan for working that works well for you.

Meditation

Meditation can be used for a variety of things and it is most effective when used to combat overwhelming or stressing feelings. When you notice yourself panicking about anything, you should sit down and meditate for 5-10 minutes in order to obtain a calmer mind.

Meditation consists of sitting down and slowing down. You need to focus on your breathing. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. The goal of meditation is to clear your mind. Don’t think of the test you have tomorrow or the homework you have to do. All you need to focus on while meditating is your breathing. After you sit down and meditate for 5-10 minutes you should feel very relaxed and rejuvenated. Doctors suggest that after you meditate, you should walk into whatever you are doing with a clear mind and relaxed body.

Meditation helps you focus, and focus helps you improve your study skills. One of the main causes of not being able to focus is stressing too much about things that are not worthy of stressing out over. With improved focus and study skills, you will have even less stress which will allow you to focus better, which in turn will improve your study skills. It is a cycle that, over time, brings many positive outcomes.

Taking Breaks

Another important thing you can do when studying is taking breaks. While these should not interfere with your productivity, they are important. You should take a break, even if it is 10 minutes, every couple or so hours from your work. It can prevent your brain from being fatigued. Additionally, taking breaks can help to lower your stress by giving a few minutes of relaxation, so you can calm down before you get back to work. This can, in turn, improve your creativity, productivity, mental health, and more. Also, having breaks in between your work can make you more motivated to work as you have something to look forward to. 

One very popular technique for taking breaks is called the Pomodoro Method. This is a technique in which you study for 25 minutes and take a five-minute break. This helps to keep your mind aware, awake, and active. Some excellent ways to take a break include: going on a quick walk or getting some fresh air, reading a book, talking to someone, or even taking a quick nap. A short, 10-20 minute nap can leave you feeling refreshed and ready to work again. 

Work Plan

In high school, it is expected for a student to already have a solid studying plan that works well for them. If a student does not have one of these plans, they will struggle until they find one that works for them. There are many ways to develop a good plan but one of the best ways is to let the homework you get in middle school guide you. You should use this homework to figure out what works for you, so when the homework gets harder, you already have a plan. 

I can personally attest that having a work plan increased my ability to study by a factor of 10. Before I developed a study plan that worked well for me, I was struggling. There was a lot of work to manage and I could never seem to find the time that I needed to manage it. This all changed though, when I developed my work plan. My grades improved, I had a lot more leisure time, and my stress levels decreased a lot.

Active Improving

Although the items mentioned above will help you with your passive studying skills, you have to actively improve them as well. There are many things that you can actively do to improve your study skills. These skills include paying attention in class by putting all distractions away, managing your workload by dividing things up, managing time so you don’t procrastinate, making a schedule, paying attention to your homework, and double-checking everything that you have done to make sure that you have not messed it up. Even though these are all study skills that you have to actively think about, if practiced frequently and effectively, these can become passive skills that you would no longer have to think about.

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ADHD Interview

Having ADHD: Interview with Leah Anderson

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In this episode, Taarikas youth team members interview Leah Anderson, a high school student, about ADHD and her perspective.

Taarika Foundation (TF): What exactly is ADHD and how does it affect people who have it?

Leah Anderson (LA): ADHD is also known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and it affects the ability to concentrate and to sit still. It generally affects children and manifests itself in impulsive behaviors and being overly active. It causes people to have an inability to sit still for a long period and to focus on a task for more than a few minutes. 

How can ADHD make studying and school challenging?

LA: With school, obviously you have to sit through school for 45 mins. My classes are 80 mins which is even longer to sit still and focus. It is harder to sit down and take a test or sit down and study for a long period or to focus during school.

Is there a way to teach people to cope with their ADHD so that it has little to no effect on them?

LA: For mental disorders such as ADHD I have learned that the most important thing is coping skills. Coping skills in this context mean figuring out the ways to learn that work for you. Some people with ADHD can sit for 15-20 minutes while some people with ADHD can only sit for five minutes. The biggest thing for me is to have enough breaks so that I can walk around and move, and learn how to focus myself in a way that I can learn.

What help/treatment have you received for ADHD? Has it helped? 

LA: So I take medications to help with my ADHD, but unless there is an effort put in, for me to realize that I have this hindrance, the most important thing for me is to use my skills because the medication can only do so much. I have a learning specialist to help me with the things that I have issues with like essays and taking a test.

What advice would you give to the teens who have ADHD?  

LA: The most important thing is getting tested, and knowing that you have this diagnosis. If you know you have this diagnosis you can go to your school and talk to them about accommodations which for me, have been very helpful in the past. Another thing is to take breaks and learn about yourself. It is not about how well your classmates learn and how your teacher teaches you, it is learning how you can best take in information and sit for longer periods of time. Talking to a psychiatrist is also helpful because they can prescribe medications to you that can help lower some of the effects of ADHD.

It is not about how well your classmates learn [or] how your teacher teaches you, it is [about] learning how you can best take in information and sit for longer periods of time.

Leah Anderson, Harker High School

TF: Today, we interviewed Leah Anderson, a senior at Harker High School. We learned a lot about ADHD and how it can affect study habits and skills. We also learned how you can cope with your ADHD to form good study skills and to be mindful. Again, special thanks to Leah Anderson for helping us with this podcast. We are from the Taarika Foundation, and you are listening to Mindful, Beautiful, and Thriving. Be sure to stay safe and stay home.

Categories
ADHD Interview

ADHD and its Treatment: Interview with Child Psychiatrist

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In this episode, we interview Dr. Leena Khanzode, a child and adolescent psychiatrist on the Adjunct Clinical Faculty at Stanford University. She explains what ADHD is and about its treatments as well.


Taarika Foundation (TF): Hello everyone, and welcome to Mindful. Beautiful, and Thriving. Today’s podcast is about the treatment of ADHD. With us is Doctor Leena Khanzode, a child psychiatrist in private practice in the Bay Area. She is also an adjunct clinical faculty member at Stanford University. 

TF: Hi Dr. Leena! Thanks for being with us today.

What is ADHD? How common is it?

Dr. Leena Khanzode (DLK): ADHD stands for “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.” We classify it as if somebody has ADHD predominantly inattentive type, they have symptoms that are related to low attention. ADHD predominantly hyperactive type is when people are really hyper and fidgety, they have impulse control. In general, girls have the inattentive type and boys have the hyperactive type. It is extremely common, 1 in 7 kids have ADHD. It is a neuropsychiatric condition. This can run in families, this means that you can be born with a differently wired brain which can give you ADHD. Some people tend to outgrow ADHD but some people also have to stay on meds that help them with it for the rest of their life. 

Is there more than one way to treat ADHD, and if so can you tell us a few of them?

DLK: ADHD is treated in a more holistic way. There are three domains of intervention. Biological intervention is when medicine comes into play, psychological intervention when therapy comes in, and social intervention where we look at school and home. We understand that ADHD affects the child’s life everywhere, not only in school. A combination approach works best, using both medicine and working on changing habits. ADHD makes kids feel like they are the problem child. 

Does the type of treatment a person gets depend on the level of ADHD that they have? 

DLK: Yes, it does change with the level of severity. If someone has mild ADHD, then we would often avoid medication. If someone has severe ADHD, we use medication, aids at school, and tools that help the person to study and focus.

Which way of treating ADHD is the most effective?

DLK: A combination of Bio/Psycho Intervention. Having tutors to work with and aids in school work best and sometimes we can avoid medication. Sometimes a lot of classes can be hard for even a bright kid to support and in these instances is when we would use medicine to help the kid focus. Medicine used to combat ADHD is called stimulants. These stimulants release dopamine which helps our brain to be alert and to focus on one subject for longer. These stimulants can work from 8 to 10 hours. There are other types of medication called non-stimulants. These medicines take weeks to build up in your system but unlike stimulants, these medicines work 24/7 because they are working to combat your ADHD. Non-stimulants take time to build, but long-term they will work to help you focus. Both of these types of medications are very effective. 

To treat ADHD, does the person getting the treatment have to put their own effort along with the medicine?

DLK: You need to actively try to focus. Even though medicine does a lot of work, a lot of the work comes from the motivation of the person trying to focus and trying to finish all the things that they have to do. 

Can someone outgrow ADHD? How does that happen?

DLK: Yes, someone can outgrow ADHD. There was a study that was done following kids with ADHD for 10+ years and they found that ⅓ of these kids were able to outgrow ADHD.

Why is it important to treat ADHD and what would happen if someone left it untreated?

DLK: It is important to treat ADHD because kids develop anxiety as they are not doing well in school and they are constantly getting in trouble. This anxiety can lead to other mental disorders such as depression. A lot of teens are prone to abuse substances due to their lack of impulse control. Treating ADHD is important because the consequences of not treating it can be very detrimental. 

TF: Today, we interviewed Leena Khanzode, A child psychiatrist, an Adjunct Clinical Faculty at Stanford. We learned a lot about the treatment of ADHD and how the person getting the treatment has to put effort into it. Again, special thanks to Leena Khanzode for helping us with this podcast. This is the Taarika Foundation, and you are listening to Mindful, Beautiful, and Thriving. Be sure to stay safe and stay home.