stem tips by a nihilist.

I have something to prove. If this is the measure of knowledge, so be it.

[nihilistem]

this is a side blog; will be interacting from @nihilisting.

[anxiousdreamcore]

The truth is that chaotic academia is made for neurodivergents, and many of us use this specific aesthetic to romanticise our inability to study the ""proper"" way. The chaos of a 3am study session, or procrastination until you got one day to hand in an assignment, or hyperfixation so bad the need for knowledge on the subject fully consumes you is just our normal.

[nihilistem]

normalize just studying. Who cares if you’re pulling an all-nighter to do it? Who cares if you’e taking breaks every 5-10 minutes of studying? Who cares if you’re switching locations every 30 minutes? Who cares if you easily get distracted? What’s important is that you are studying. And if it’s not productive, it’s still important that you tried.

[nihilistem]

Hey! I read your study tips both posts regarding adhd . (Feel free to ignore )

I am still undiagnosed and I think it's adhd but i do not have the resources nor the environment or support system to do anything about it .I am a high schooler preparing for entrance exams and i really need to like get my shit together and i feel like i have wasted sm time already but i really do want to get better. When i sit to study i just can't focus if I keep my phone in some other room then also i would just sit and stare at my books without accomplishing something. I am trying really but it's feels like my brain is frozen and my body is moving .my brain keep screaming guilty and ashamed but i can't seem to do anything about it.your study post actually i related to a lot because pomodro kind of seems to be working for everyone but me and the you described the exact same things I do

I know this is a lot to ask for please feel free to ignore but how do I stop Letting my emotions take over and study consistently because I only have one chance at the exams

Oh my, first of all I’d like to say that, as cliché as it is, I know exactly how you feel. I was undiagnosed for so long (I was only diagnosed a few months ago) and I didn’t even know that the adhd things I experience on a regular basis wasn’t normal or neurotypical for so long.

first up : I know this is difficult, but please do not say such things about yourself. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing, (cuz I have done a post on that already) but it’s true that the more you drill that bad stuff into your brain, the more it’s gonna stick. We need our brains to be in the best condition possible to study efficiently and saying bad stuff about yourself that isn’t even true is just going to hinder your performance. You got this. I promise you’re not lazy. Your brain just isn’t motivated by the same things others are, but we can work with that simple difference.

I’ll make a separate post on how not to let your emotions take over, but for now …

adhd study tips for those trying to get into the habit.

— by a stem student with adhd.

here’s my first post on adhd study tips.

— don’t put your phone in a different room. Instead, download an app that prevents you from using other apps on your phone.

there’s plenty of apps that do this but the one I prefer is ypt because all its features are completely free and it stops your timer when you exit the app unless you enter ‘allowed app mode.’ I don’t know about you, but if I find that I’m just zoning out on my textbook then I end up stopping my timer and deleting the record because I know I didn’t actually study, and this motivates me to actually get some work done. The timer also gets me motivated to keep going for longer so I have physical proof of my focus time and studies. It will feel good to even have just 1 hour of study time on it, I promise.

— even if you’re not interested in your studies, try your best to find even one thing that interests you.

novelty, challenge and interest are some of the best motivators of the adhd brain, so use it. I know that sparking your curiosity for a subject you hate seems impossible, but hear me out.

ever since I was young, I was exposed to books and I drew everyday. This caused me to become very passionate about the arts, but since I had adhd and didn’t know, I failed all my classes and specifically hated chemistry because it was specifically designed to be everything that I can’t be good at due to my poor memory and the need to memorize a TON of concepts. Then during class one day, I was doing chemistry work with my friends and felt frustrated that they could easily balance equations and work out which compounds were acids or bases purely by its chemical formula. And that’s what sparked me to start reading my textbook to see what the big deal was. How was it possible for one to just know when something is a acid solely from looking at a bunch of letters? This started a chain reaction; I found my answer, and found that the process of finding my answer and learning this new information was fulfilling. So I looked at all the other chemistry topics, and it turns out chemistry was fun. I was supposed to be an art student but now I’m majoring in chemistry and biology, all because of that sense of challenge and curiosity I was given that day.

tdlr; I was bad at chemistry but I’m now majoring in it because I felt challenged by a friend and was curious to know how they could solve chem equations easily.

All it took was a bit of curiosity. It’s a very powerful thing to the adhd brain. And if you use this as a motivator for your studies it might even cause you to hyper-fixate on your work, which means you’ll naturally spend more time studying just to find all the answers you’re now dying to know.

— use the pomodoro timer, but think about the things that you have to do that seems a little impossible to do under 25 minutes.

This fulfills the ‘challenge’ category I mentioned in the previous tip.

Let me explain; I subconsciously started doing this to myself without anyone telling me this and it’s helped me a LOT. Here’s an example;

“This chapter’s too long, it’s impossible to read through everything and understand the key concepts in just twenty five minutes.”

is it, though?

So I was off to the races, genuinely reading through every page and taking note of every single heading or bold or italicized word so I will be able to summarize the entire topic by the time the twenty five minutes is up.

And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t make that twenty five minute mark, because you’ll feel a sense of defeat and try it again with another chapter/topic.

this accomplishes two things; one, the work you’ve been putting off or zoning out on is now probably 20% - 50% completed and now you feel motivated to continue. Two, this method will train you to be faster in learning or studying new material or even just completing work in general, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.

— dress up, do your hair, study at a library or cafe you love (and possibly make pretty notes.)

I’ve talked about interest, I’ve talked about challenge, and now I’m gonna talk about novelty.

Do this with purpose! But what do I mean by that?

I’m sure you’ve come across studious girls in media or even people on social media making videos and taking pretty photos of their day out to study. Usually they’re dressed the part and even if they’re not, there’s a certain vibe, aesthetic or aura about them that is just so desirable that it makes you wish you were doing what they were doing. And if you don’t feel this way, find content creators or media that do make you feel this way.

How will this help me? Well, there are actually a few reasons but the first one that comes to mind is that this is also an adhd tip used outside of studying. Combining a task you don’t want to do with a task you’d like to do is a faster and more efficient way of convincing yourself to do long, difficult or even tiring tasks. Another is that doing this would also mean you’ve technically gotten yourself to desire studying, something more commonly known as romanticizing studying. If you make studying look fun, glamorous or even desirable for yourself then you’re sure to get to the hideous parts of it. Think about being a straight A student, someone who’s always wearing nice clothes with great hair and such a focused work ethic. Once you desire to be that person and you dress like that person, you’ll start to do the things that person will do.

— use the pomodoro timer but set it to even shorter bursts instead. (e.g. 15 minutes work, 5 minutes break.)

Or hell, on my worst days I set it to 5 minutes work, 5 minutes break.

The whole point of this exercise is to just start, because that’s arguably the hardest part about studying, you can’t get yourself to actually start or to actually focus. So promise yourself a five minute break after a very short amount of time of reading.

— skip straight to the questions of a topic, try to do them and identify the information you need to get the answer right.

For example, I came across a bio question that was rather simple but I didn’t know the answer to because I haven’t revised the topic for a while, and the question was, what is needed in the body for anaerobic respiration to take place? And the answer was simple, but I didn’t know because again, I didn’t study the material before answering the paper.

one’s brain can have the habit of being complacent especially when you don’t wanna do work, so diving head first into the questions and realizing that you don’t know jack shit would be a good wake up call for you and your brain—and this can connect to the second point that I made because you might find that you’d be eager to get the answer right all on your own, and become curious as to what the answer is.

important to remember …

erase everything bad that you were told or led to believe about studying. I promise that if you look for ways to make it engaging for you and form a habit, studying can be something you don’t dread or worry about everyday. You are capable. This is the start of your journey. Yes, the question of ‘what if I get distracted again’ will always be there but think about what could happen if today is the first day you’re not distracted. If you don’t at least try to start now, you will have zero chance of being able to actually focus and study. But if you try, the worst that will happen is that you tried. If you keep trying, it will happen. I promise.

If you need any more tips regarding adhd, (or being undiagnosed,) please do let me know. I’ll do my best to help.

[pancake-tries-college]

This is something I will have to read later however I’ll givr the suggestion of the app focusplant, been using it a while, plus you get little plant friends!

[nihilistem]

Hey, upon seeing this I decided to download it and I love it so far!!! It’s so cute and it really does motivate me to study <33 lmk if anyone would like to be friends! Tho I’m not sure how that part of the game works yet, so do be patient with me :>

[joytri]

the incandescent glow of your soul

[nihilistem]

I love dead poet’s society <33

[nihilistem]

hey! I am from the previous ask

Thank you for responding and honestly i tried two of the methods and the all too over the pas two days ! I cannot say that I started concentrating 100 % but i did complete this one chapter (topic ) which was simple but it was so boring and it was proving to be an obstacle and whenever I studied anything else it would be on my mind but when i actually started doing it i would fail ! So yeah I did complete that so thank you .😭🙏

I’m so glad to have helped ♥️ I’m so sorry for my late reply, I hope you’re doing okay now anon <33

[nihilistem]

10.09.23. tuesday.

Sorry, it’s been a while. Stuff has happened since I last logged in here and I’m considering making a youtube channel, but I’m not sure if I wanna link it to this tumblr straight away. But, if I do make a youtube channel, it will be about

taking care of one’s mental health as a neurodivergent student (bonus if ur in stem, cuz I am, hehe)

MORE adhd studying tips

my other passions that don’t include studying (before stem, I’ve always been more inclined to art.)

If that sounds like your cup of tea, I hope you’ll like my channel! I might even start a podcast about these things as well, as I think having a talk about mental health especially as someone with depression and anxiety who’s trying really hard to do right by her studies is something many can relate to.

[nihilistem]

thank you so much for 100 followers! (Celebrating with a bit of a q&a!)

+ a little update on those asks …

Aghh I haven’t really posted much but I’m so glad for all of you for getting me here so quick!! Thank you so much again, I’ll try to post more often since next month is when my exams will be going on back to back and these few days will be my last shot at posting.

to celebrate, I’ve reblogged an ask post here so if you’d like, do swing by my ask box with the question numbers and I will answer you honestly!

Okay so, onto the elephant in the room …

I got a few asks about more advice on various parts of studying with adhd and I will answer them, so sorry it took me so long to see them!! I really want to answer each of them with all the help I can offer which is why I haven’t answered them all now. My heart goes out to each and every one of you and I hope you guys know that I’m so glad a small number of you trusted me enough to share your struggles with me and that I will do my best to help.

[azure-cherie-deactivated2025011]

100 questions for whoever wants to ask themselves or answer:

How have you been ?

Do you have a dream journal?

If you could dream about something all your life what would it be ?

Are you taking care of your mental health?

Do the people in your life take good care you?

Have you left the toxic people in your life ?

Did you eat well today?

What's your dream job?

What's your favourite emoji?

Where do you want to astral travel ?

If you could see only one colour, which colour would it be ?

What is your favourite thing about yourself?

Would you like to colour your hair?

Do you have tattoos or piercings ?

What do your tattoos represent?

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Who is your favourite movie character?

If you could marry a fictional character who would it be ?

Who is your idol ?

What are your main niche's here on Tumblr?

What is your favourite astrological sign except yours and why ?

Are you good academically ?

What are your views on the education system?

What is your favourite subject ?

What is your favourite planet & element?

What's your favourite piece of clothing?

What's your favourite makeup product?

What are the main themes of your best life?

How many languages do you speak?

Who is your favourite historical figure?

What's your favourite unproved theory?

What's your favourite conspiracy theory?

Do you believe in law of attraction ?

What is the best thing you have manifested?

Do you believe in love ?

Are you in love with someone?

Do you love yourself unconditionally?

What's your favourite season?

Who is your favourite poet ?

What is your favourite movie ?

Can your life be summed up in a song/ movie?

Who is your favourite person on Tumblr?

Who is in your irl favourite person?

Do you write or make art?

Where do you wanna travel?

Do the flame coloured skies light your fire?

What is your favourite colour of the sky?

Do you know anything about your past life?

What do you think your soul is really like?

Is there someone you have deep talks with?

Who is your favourite deity?

Are you a religious , heathen or spiritual person?

What are the other cultures except yours that you admire ?

What are your views on ongoing world crisis right now ?

What do you fear ?

Would you be someone else if you could?

Who would you like to be ?

What would you like to do with racists and homophobes ?

Have you ever caught a butterfly?

Beaches or mountains?

Describe chocolate .

What do you like to eat the most?

Are you into spirituality?

What do you like about being spiritual the most?

Do you think you are intimidating?

Are you a sweetheart or a baddie ?

What do you find easy , forgive or forget ?

Something you really want to do for your parents .

Are you in your soul community right now ?

Are you a starseed ?

Did you ever have an OBE ?

Would you like to time travel?

If yes past or future?

What's your favourite aesthetic?

Are you a hippie or a home person ?

What's your favourite flower, fruit &animal?

Have you ever travelled in a boat?

What is the best thing a stranger has done for you ?

Do you believe in the kindness of strangers ?

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

How often do you get compliments?

Do you generally compliment people ?

What's your favourite space entity?

If you could inhabitate one planet where would you choose?

What are your favourite essential oils ?

What are your favourite crystals?

What is your favourite tarot card ?

Do you find it easy to express your sexuality?

Are your right brained or left brained?

Have you tried third eye awakening ?

Do you usually channel your creativity?

What's your favourite phase of the moon?

Is there someone you would really like to do something for ?

Are you a charitable person?

If you could add one more colour to the rainbow what would it be ?

Which fragrance do you think represents you ?

Do you own stuff toys?

What is your favourite quote/poem of all times?

Do you believe in afterlife?

What do you want be reborn as ? What are your characteristics?

That's all have a great day ✨

[nihilistem]

Hey! I read your study tips both posts regarding adhd . (Feel free to ignore )

I am still undiagnosed and I think it's adhd but i do not have the resources nor the environment or support system to do anything about it .I am a high schooler preparing for entrance exams and i really need to like get my shit together and i feel like i have wasted sm time already but i really do want to get better. When i sit to study i just can't focus if I keep my phone in some other room then also i would just sit and stare at my books without accomplishing something. I am trying really but it's feels like my brain is frozen and my body is moving .my brain keep screaming guilty and ashamed but i can't seem to do anything about it.your study post actually i related to a lot because pomodro kind of seems to be working for everyone but me and the you described the exact same things I do

I know this is a lot to ask for please feel free to ignore but how do I stop Letting my emotions take over and study consistently because I only have one chance at the exams

Oh my, first of all I’d like to say that, as cliché as it is, I know exactly how you feel. I was undiagnosed for so long (I was only diagnosed a few months ago) and I didn’t even know that the adhd things I experience on a regular basis wasn’t normal or neurotypical for so long.

first up : I know this is difficult, but please do not say such things about yourself. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing, (cuz I have done a post on that already) but it’s true that the more you drill that bad stuff into your brain, the more it’s gonna stick. We need our brains to be in the best condition possible to study efficiently and saying bad stuff about yourself that isn’t even true is just going to hinder your performance. You got this. I promise you’re not lazy. Your brain just isn’t motivated by the same things others are, but we can work with that simple difference.

I’ll make a separate post on how not to let your emotions take over, but for now …

adhd study tips for those trying to get into the habit.

— by a stem student with adhd.

here’s my first post on adhd study tips.

— don’t put your phone in a different room. Instead, download an app that prevents you from using other apps on your phone.

there’s plenty of apps that do this but the one I prefer is ypt because all its features are completely free and it stops your timer when you exit the app unless you enter ‘allowed app mode.’ I don’t know about you, but if I find that I’m just zoning out on my textbook then I end up stopping my timer and deleting the record because I know I didn’t actually study, and this motivates me to actually get some work done. The timer also gets me motivated to keep going for longer so I have physical proof of my focus time and studies. It will feel good to even have just 1 hour of study time on it, I promise.

— even if you’re not interested in your studies, try your best to find even one thing that interests you.

novelty, challenge and interest are some of the best motivators of the adhd brain, so use it. I know that sparking your curiosity for a subject you hate seems impossible, but hear me out.

ever since I was young, I was exposed to books and I drew everyday. This caused me to become very passionate about the arts, but since I had adhd and didn’t know, I failed all my classes and specifically hated chemistry because it was specifically designed to be everything that I can’t be good at due to my poor memory and the need to memorize a TON of concepts. Then during class one day, I was doing chemistry work with my friends and felt frustrated that they could easily balance equations and work out which compounds were acids or bases purely by its chemical formula. And that’s what sparked me to start reading my textbook to see what the big deal was. How was it possible for one to just know when something is a acid solely from looking at a bunch of letters? This started a chain reaction; I found my answer, and found that the process of finding my answer and learning this new information was fulfilling. So I looked at all the other chemistry topics, and it turns out chemistry was fun. I was supposed to be an art student but now I’m majoring in chemistry and biology, all because of that sense of challenge and curiosity I was given that day.

tdlr; I was bad at chemistry but I’m now majoring in it because I felt challenged by a friend and was curious to know how they could solve chem equations easily.

All it took was a bit of curiosity. It’s a very powerful thing to the adhd brain. And if you use this as a motivator for your studies it might even cause you to hyper-fixate on your work, which means you’ll naturally spend more time studying just to find all the answers you’re now dying to know.

— use the pomodoro timer, but think about the things that you have to do that seems a little impossible to do under 25 minutes.

This fulfills the ‘challenge’ category I mentioned in the previous tip.

Let me explain; I subconsciously started doing this to myself without anyone telling me this and it’s helped me a LOT. Here’s an example;

“This chapter’s too long, it’s impossible to read through everything and understand the key concepts in just twenty five minutes.”

is it, though?

So I was off to the races, genuinely reading through every page and taking note of every single heading or bold or italicized word so I will be able to summarize the entire topic by the time the twenty five minutes is up.

And it doesn’t even matter if you don’t make that twenty five minute mark, because you’ll feel a sense of defeat and try it again with another chapter/topic.

this accomplishes two things; one, the work you’ve been putting off or zoning out on is now probably 20% - 50% completed and now you feel motivated to continue. Two, this method will train you to be faster in learning or studying new material or even just completing work in general, depending on what you’re challenging yourself to do.

— dress up, do your hair, study at a library or cafe you love (and possibly make pretty notes.)

I’ve talked about interest, I’ve talked about challenge, and now I’m gonna talk about novelty.

Do this with purpose! But what do I mean by that?

I’m sure you’ve come across studious girls in media or even people on social media making videos and taking pretty photos of their day out to study. Usually they’re dressed the part and even if they’re not, there’s a certain vibe, aesthetic or aura about them that is just so desirable that it makes you wish you were doing what they were doing. And if you don’t feel this way, find content creators or media that do make you feel this way.

How will this help me? Well, there are actually a few reasons but the first one that comes to mind is that this is also an adhd tip used outside of studying. Combining a task you don’t want to do with a task you’d like to do is a faster and more efficient way of convincing yourself to do long, difficult or even tiring tasks. Another is that doing this would also mean you’ve technically gotten yourself to desire studying, something more commonly known as romanticizing studying. If you make studying look fun, glamorous or even desirable for yourself then you’re sure to get to the hideous parts of it. Think about being a straight A student, someone who’s always wearing nice clothes with great hair and such a focused work ethic. Once you desire to be that person and you dress like that person, you’ll start to do the things that person will do.

— use the pomodoro timer but set it to even shorter bursts instead. (e.g. 15 minutes work, 5 minutes break.)

Or hell, on my worst days I set it to 5 minutes work, 5 minutes break.

The whole point of this exercise is to just start, because that’s arguably the hardest part about studying, you can’t get yourself to actually start or to actually focus. So promise yourself a five minute break after a very short amount of time of reading.

— skip straight to the questions of a topic, try to do them and identify the information you need to get the answer right.

For example, I came across a bio question that was rather simple but I didn’t know the answer to because I haven’t revised the topic for a while, and the question was, what is needed in the body for anaerobic respiration to take place? And the answer was simple, but I didn’t know because again, I didn’t study the material before answering the paper.

one’s brain can have the habit of being complacent especially when you don’t wanna do work, so diving head first into the questions and realizing that you don’t know jack shit would be a good wake up call for you and your brain—and this can connect to the second point that I made because you might find that you’d be eager to get the answer right all on your own, and become curious as to what the answer is.

important to remember …

erase everything bad that you were told or led to believe about studying. I promise that if you look for ways to make it engaging for you and form a habit, studying can be something you don’t dread or worry about everyday. You are capable. This is the start of your journey. Yes, the question of ‘what if I get distracted again’ will always be there but think about what could happen if today is the first day you’re not distracted. If you don’t at least try to start now, you will have zero chance of being able to actually focus and study. But if you try, the worst that will happen is that you tried. If you keep trying, it will happen. I promise.

If you need any more tips regarding adhd, (or being undiagnosed,) please do let me know. I’ll do my best to help.

[nihilistem]

20.09.2023. wednesday.

sorry it’s been a hot while since I’ve posted anything for studyblr! I keep forgetting to take photos. In any case, I’ve been studying with some friends online and it’s been super helpful <33 today I’m doing math bc it’s been a while. How are you??

[nihilistem]

adhd study affirmations + tips to stray from discouragement by a stem student with adhd.

you’re not always going to be consistent. you’re not always going to be motivated. you’re not always going to be efficient. and that is okay.

edit : thank you so much to whoever blazed this post. It means the world to me.

and the fact that you even got this far is an accomplishment in and of itself. In this line of work, people aren’t always the kindest to neurodivergent people especially since our symptoms can often hinder our performance academically.

if you’re good to go after reading the above, I’ve also made a post regarding adhd study tips that I haven’t seen anywhere else. (Part 2 is here!) But, if you’re burned out like me, feel free to keep reading.

honestly, these might serve a bit more as reminders because they’re kinda simple but even I needed this, so, here we go.

do not seek advice from anyone neurotypical unless it genuinely helps you. I cannot tell you the amount of time and tears I could have saved if I just considered the fact that just because popular self-improvement tips or study techniques didn’t work for me, it doesn’t mean I’m stupid or useless. It simply means our brains isn’t motivated by the same things neurotypical ones are, and therefore a lot of popular self-improvement videos or study tips aren’t going to work for you because 90% of the time, they’re not designed to work for neurodivergent people. So if you’d like to seek help in this area, look for tips and videos that ARE for neurodivergent people.

you might experience burnout a lot more than others. again, that is fine. if this doesn’t apply to you, great! Feel free to skip to the next tip/affirmation. If this does apply to you, read this carefully; if you’ve had any sort of streak in studying right now, chances are you know at least a portion of your studies were led purely on interest, curiosity or even novelty, as these are what keep us engaged in our studies. Knowing this, it is natural for you to experience burnout more frequently than others due to the possible hyperfixations that have been forming around your work. If you get burned out, please remember to take a break for a day and make sure it is efficient. Like your studies, your breaks are the key to having efficient study sessions in the future. So please treat yourself, especially if you’ve been working extra hard!

do not admire studious fictional characters unless it genuinely helps you or they too are neurodivergent. I know this technically could have been thrown in with tip number 1 but I felt like this tip alone is so important, because nowadays I see a lot of study tips with the title, ‘how to study like (insert studious fictional character here)’ and when I look at the post it kinda repeats the same few study tips I see all the time like ‘stay organized’ or ‘time block your day’ and I feel like admiring fictional characters who do things that don’t work for you can be damaging for your mental health, because we’re already told by neurotypical people all around us that we’re slow or lazy just because we don’t do things the way they do, and I think idolizing neurotypical people that make us feel bad at the end of the day just further promotes that kind of toxic thinking.

expect that a routine/schedule/technique that has been working for a while now may not continue to work in the future. things will always have to be new for us to be interested or engaged, that being said, if you expect this in the future you won’t be frustrated with yourself because you already had this in mind. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart. It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It doesn’t mean you’re useless. It just means that you’ve done what you could, and now it’s time to move on to another routine/schedule/technique.

keep doing the things you love alongside work. I find that because our symptoms may cause us to fall behind on our studies, we tend to neglect our other needs as human beings just to make up for the fact that we simply do not learn or pick things up the same way neurotypical people do. Your hobbies and interests need to be part of your day, just as your studies do, even if you may take longer to learn things or remember important concepts in your studies. Neglecting your hobbies or interests can lead to even more frequent burn outs and even a relapse in depression and anxiety, so please take care of yourself and recognize that you need and deserve these things just as much as anyone else.

regularly discover what works for you on your own. here’s the thing; neurodivergent or not, no two brains work the same. Of course it is good to try out advice or tips you find online because they’re backed up by experience, but they’re backed up by that person’s experience with working with their own brain. So naturally, you need to find what works with your brain. Be open to trying everything, even the tips that are discouraged like listening to lyrical music while studying. That was the only way I learnt that this tip actually does help me at times, even when many people have said that it negatively affects your focus.

that’s all I have right now guys, I think I’m experiencing burn out or probably falling back into depression again so more than anything this also served as a reminder for me, but I really hope it also helped you guys nonetheless.

As always, tell me if you guys would like more posts like these and I’ll be happy to make more <33 please take care of yourself guys, and remember that your studies is just one aspect of your life. There are other aspects that need your care and attention too.

[nihilistem]

08.08.2023. friday.

Aghh forgot to post something for thursday but I did study then as well!! I plan to test myself on bio chem and math by the end of the week so I can gauge where I am in my studies right now.

[trilobyteme]

Is that a 2011 MacBook? How are you keeping that running?? I have two of those that I take care of really well and both are in their final days.

[nihilistem]

my mother actually did all the work of taking care of if and only recently passed it down to me. I don’t know how she did it either, but needless to say it’s seen better days.

[nihilistem]

08.08.2023. friday.

Aghh forgot to post something for thursday but I did study then as well!! I plan to test myself on bio chem and math by the end of the week so I can gauge where I am in my studies right now.

[nihilistem]

adhd study tips.

by a stem student with adhd.

disclaimer!!! I’m by no means an expert in mental health or adhd but I do happen to have it. My intention with this post is to help others with adhd get more comfortable with studying so the process will be smoother for them!! At the end of the day, despite having the same disorder our brains will still work differently so do keep in mind that these may or may not help you, but are something you can try out if you’re stuck on not being able to study efficiently.

here’s some adhd study affirmations + tips on straying from discouragement if you’re experiencing burnout.

(And here’s part 2 of adhd study tips.)

I’ll start this off by listing more commonly known study tips that also work well with adhd.

change up your environment every now and then. we seek novelty even more than neurotypical people already do so switching it up will definitely help in our studies, especially if the place is well lit!

try some questions of the topic you’re trying to learn even when you know nothing about it. both neurotypical and neurodivergent brains are hardwired to remember things when we are proven wrong, and this is a great way of utilizing this neurological response!

take walks, exercise or stretch during your breaks. this tip is very effective at satiating our hyperactivity and also keeps us energized throughout our study session.

keep a notebook for your brain dump / ideas. we always either think of really stupid things or the most brilliant ideas in the middle of our study sessions and it almost always leads to distraction, but writing it down somewhere lets your brain know that the idea isn’t going anywhere and you can continue studying.

now, onto the tips that have personally helped with my adhd (and I haven’t seen many others talk about.)

alternate between various study plans, routines, schedules and techniques and always be open to finding more of them. majority of the time people always say ‘have a routine that works for you and stick with it’ but our adhd brains get bored very quickly, especially when it comes to repeated routines and schedules. I personally never stick to the same routine or plan more than three days in a row and sometimes I even make a plan on the spot and I’ve been more productive doing that than when I had only one or two study routines to switch between.

do not time yourself at the very beginning. Instead, focus on something in your studies you’re interested in and start there. what do I mean by this? well, since starting is always the hardest, when we begin our very first pomodoro we might find ourselves spending the first 25 minutes zoning out on a textbook just to get that ‘study time’ in even though you didn’t actually learn or recall anything. So to combat this, begin with something you’re genuinely curious about, or ask a question you can’t help but wonder the answer to. Once you find the answer, you might find you’re more in the zone and can continue from there. If not, take a short break and begin the pomodoros afterwards.

if you’re zoning out while reading up on a topic, try walking around while reading, looking at different sources on it or do some questions on that topic. again, novelty always gets us every time. sometimes the problem may be that the explanation in front of you isn’t making sense in your head and other sources may phrase things in a way that is better for your understanding. perhaps the problem is that you’re staying too still and you need to satisfy the hyperactive part of your adhd. or maybe your brain subconsciously believes that they already know what needs to be known about this topic, and there’s no better way to test that by trying out some questions on it.

switch between lyrical and non-lyrical music playlists, but make sure the lyrical music inspires you to excel. this definitely won’t apply to a lot of people but I found that when I constantly listened to piano, lo-fi or just non-lyrical music while studying in general, it actually promoted my likelihood of zoning out. but recently I found a playlist I deeply resonated with that was related to my studies called, ‘pov : a try-hard mid student who wants to ace everything’ and because I related very deeply with both the title and the lyrics of the songs, I was actively being encouraged to study as I was studying. but I also recognize when I really need to think in certain areas and that’s when I switch back to the non-lyrical music.

this is all I have as of right now but please do lmk if you guys want more of these!! I really wanna help out as much people as possible because my studies suffered greatly due to both my adhd and my late diagnosis of it and I’d love to help out others going through something similar.

[nihilistem]

08.06.2023. wednesday.

I swear I’ll try to take better photos eventually, agh. In any case, I have about 3 adhd studying tips I’ve never seen in even adhd-based content creators so I hope it helps someone <33 I’ll also be testing myself with topical papers at the end of the end of the week, with 2 topics for each subject. Wish me luck.

[nihilistem]

06.08.2023 tuesday.

sorry, this is my first post on studyblr, and my place isn’t very aesthetically pleasing but I did wanna make my first post on this. Soon I’m gonna post some study tips for students with adhd that have personally helped me. I was able to complete a mindmap on mole concept yesterday and while I never usually do that, I had trouble understanding the topic so I thought maybe making something visual would help and it did. Goodluck to those just starting out school!! <33