#studyblr-community-challenge

[lady-academic]

| Day 16 |

I fall off the horse, but always get back on it. It may take a while, but the goal will be accomplished.

Source

[indigomistudies]

notes from another coffee shop and a rainy day in nyc ☕️🌧️

[equinesandeducation]

Final weekend of january already! Making a big batch of pasta salad, so I have lunch for the week and don't have to spend time on that in the mornings. Spent a good chunk of Saturday afternoon just rotting and reading, recharging a little 🙌🏻

[wiststudies]

42 / 100 days of productivity

5th november

☆ got chem marks ( passed with a 19/35 - still upset over it )

☆ bio revision class + physics class

☆ best friend got me cinnamon rolls to cheer me up

☆ studied for biology test

☆ barely drank water

☆ walked 4.5 K cuz my leg is still healing

[nenelonomh]

re-starting 100 days of productivity

last time i made a promise to myself that i would do 100 days of productivity (march 9). i broke that promise, only posting consistently for 14 days.

and i think it was because of these things.

i had too many non-negotiables, which made starting each day overwhelming

i didn't let posting become a habit, and gave up when it got hard

i was focusing on achieving 100 days when i was still only a couple days in. i need to simply focus on the days around me--getting better than i was yesterday, and setting myself up for tomorrow.

and so, here are my new non-negotiables:

daily posts and that means posts that i write on the day! not scheduled posts!

eating wholesome foods that are good for my mind and body

maintaining the habits that i have built of: study, sleep, stretching and training

i'm going to begin today. good luck me, i guess.

(images are from pinterest)

[booksbluegurl]

Study Tip #2

How to not be overwhelmed by the vastness of your study syllabus?

I used to look at my one subject and get excited, but then I'd look at the another and another and another. And I'd get so excited to study that I wouldn't even want to study anymore. It felt like something that's too much to be done in the current moment. Or even in the whole day, week, month or year.

The way I fought through this is by sheer willpower. I do not exactly know of a hack. What I've done could be called a hack, because it worked for me perfectly but it takes a lot of will power that, let me tell you, you're definitely capable of.

Few steps that I used to not let myself feel overwhelmed before studying:

1: Let yourself actually feel overwhelmed. Don't get scared of it, don't shy away from it. Accept it. Whatever thoughts come to your mind, accept it. That's why I'm telling you to have some time set aside to analyse the syllabus. All of it. And when you do get overwhelmed, take a break, go for a walk and come back with the decision of doing what's in point 2.

Example:Lets say you have 15 chapters of English, 10 Chapters of Chemistry and 20 chapters of Biology. All of them are a little complex and lengthy. Go through the textbook, or the contents to atleast familiarise yourself with it all.

2: Now that you have good understanding of your syllabus, you must have atleast mentally broken it down into various parts. Now pick a part that you can do.

Example:Lets say you have picked up Cell Cycle from biology or you've picked up learning about particular poem from English or you've picked up Periodic Table from chemistry.

3: Often times we overestimate our boundaries specially if we're doing something for the first time, or after a long time. So, if you're panicking because you weren't able to finish the task you put for yourself (point 2), it's alright. You did great. Even if you have done is thousands times before, it's alright. Give yourself atleast 3-5 tries before judging yourself. That means, wait for the next 3-5 tasks. You'd likely be able to completely atleast 1 of them. How?

Example: Now, you realised that you weren't able to finish studying the whole chapter in a day. You're panicking but hold on, darling, let's take a deep breath, focus and will yourself to stay strong. Now, take one of these, let's say the cell cycle, break it down- 1. Read the contents of the chapter in text book.

2. Look at the diagrams, understand them, make them.

3. Read one topic at a time, let's say, Mitosis.

4. Do the questions of Mitosis.

5. Go to the next thing.

4: This time while setting how big or small that task should be, think about your last boundary: were you able to just scratch the line of the surface or were you far behind? And then set your next goal or task according to that.

One of the very important things to remember is that you shouldn't lose your hope. Everything is do-able. You just need to perhaps look at it for the 2nd or 3rd time. But you can do it.

- Tanishka.

Pictures from pinterest. Credit to the owners.

[chu-diaries]

100 days of mental healthcare: day 100/100

Well, it's over! I genuinely can't believe it's been 100 days since I started this challenge (even more than 100, since I skipped a day or two when I couldn't post).

For those who just arrived, I started this challenge in April, the day after my birthday, when I was really in bad health. I had severe panic attacks about 4 times a day, which made me unable to do anything. I dealt with constant suicidal thoughts, I barely slept anymore and I was spending everything I had on doctors, self-knowledge courses and therapies. I found myself with two options: the first was to invest in medications that would make me dependent and drugged, but that would fix my brain. However, there was a risk that I wouldn't get the dose or medication right in time and my situation would get worse. The second option was longer and more difficult: studying how my body, my brain and my limits worked, and then adjusting day after day what wasn't going well. You know that I chose this option and that I created the 100-day mental healthcare challenge to track my progress on this.

In these 100 days I learned a lot that I want to share here. As we are all unique and different human beings, you may not agree with what I applied in my life, but I ask for respect and empathy, because all of this saved me. Also, some points have a scientific basis in research I did and books I read.

1. mental health and nutrition

This was one of the first things I learned. I realized that when I was hungry, my body didn't give me clear signals. Probably due to my autism and ADHD, I was always disconnected from my body's needs and didn't know how to identify hunger (which I expected to be something like a growling in my stomach, but it never was that way). What actually happened was that, instead of hunger, I had a critical increase in my intrusive and suicidal thoughts, which made mealtimes much worse than they should have been. Our mind is more vulnerable when the body is not properly fed and hydrated, and many of us neurodivergent people will not feel hunger like neurotypicals do. Our body wants us to move to find food, so it sends us successive stimuli through our brains to fight for our lives and, well, eat. Some of these stimuli can be very negative and, instead of propelling us forward, they drain our energy and make us even more depressed, which also doesn't happen to the same extent with neurotypicals, who deal with this type of thing much better. To avoid this, I started eating every 3 hours, and not because a doctor told me to, but because I realized that my crises happened with this frequency. By eating regularly and preventively, my body stopped depending on this resource to nourish itself and I became more mentally stable.

2. mental healthcare and intestinal system

The gut is not our second brain for nothing. The health of our mind is completely connected to the health of our gut. You have certainly heard the phrase “you are what you eat” and it is true. What surprised me most in my studies was discovering that neurotypical and completely mentally healthy people develop mental disorders if their gut microbiota is altered. In other words, we must nourish our gut to maintain our mental health. The more diverse our microbiota is, the better our mental health will be. This means eating various foods per week, as colorful and natural as possible, because food industrialization is also partially responsible for the number of mental disorders that exist today.

3. mental healthcare and eating meat

This is a difficult topic, since I was a vegetarian for many years, but I want to share what I learned with you. The incidence of mental disorders is directly associated with the levels of omega 3, taurine and tryptophan. Omega 3 is a good fat and essential not only for maintaining memory, but for all of our cognitive functioning and, although it can be supplemented in a vegan way, it is not as accessible to everyone in the appropriate dosage as fish. Similarly, meat has high levels of taurine and tryptophan, which regulate anxiety and depression and improve sleep. For many years I did not eat meat, supplementing protein with vegetables and whey, and for all those years I suffered from anxiety and depression. I never imagined that my blood type would also suffer more from this lack of protein: blood type O struggles more to maintain mental health and ideal mood levels with vegetable proteins. It is a blood type that needs animal protein. Going back to eating meat was not an easy decision, but I decided to test it out: even though I ate a small amount of animal protein per day, my cognitive function improved a lot in these past 100 days. I became more mentally stable and stronger, my mood improved, my gut responded positively and suddenly the things that haunted me were no longer so big. I never thought that mental health and animal protein had any connection, but I was very surprised to discover that eating meat (or not) influences our mind.

4. mental healthcare and intrusive thoughts

Well, I studied psychology, but it was a theory that didn't deal with intrusive thoughts. In these 100 days I discovered this term and delved deep enough to understand that we all have intrusive thoughts. Neurotypicals deal with them better, while neurodivergents deal with them much worse. Unfortunately, I suffered a lot with these thoughts and suffered even more trying to understand why this was happening in my head. If you suffer from intrusive thoughts, start by understanding that they are not real and that they do not come from you consciously. An intrusive thought is something that crosses your mind and is similar to a scary radio station that you accidentally connected to. It does not belong to you. I learned to think (and I like this theory) that this is a way for the brain to prepare itself for various possibilities, even the most absurd and impossible ones. We are animals and our body wants to survive, so I understand that the brain explores various probabilities to always be prepared, no matter what happens. Of course, for anxious and depressed people this has the opposite effect and makes us want to die. Over time, you learn that you can’t control when these thoughts appear, but you can control how much power you give them. I deal with obsessive intrusive thoughts every day, but each day I’m becoming more and more able to not get emotionally involved with them. “It’s just a glitch in my brain,” I think, taking a deep breath.

5. mental healthcare and joy (which is worth more than solving problems)

I've always had a very fast-paced mind, cluttered with things and addicted to solving problems. In recent years I thought I should focus more on relaxing and opening up spaces in my mind, but I discovered that an empty mind can be treacherous for neurodivergent people. Our mind is, in fact, addicted to solving problems. That's how our species evolved and prospered. Our mind has an organizational structure that seeks, through connections and associations, to process past and future events, resolve pending issues and find solutions for what was left behind. We do this with everything, even with things that are not in our control. I spent a lot of my life trying to solve what was going on in my head and I was unsuccessful because I wasn't the one who created this situation. Although solving problems is a pattern of the mind, it is a sweet illusion. Many things are not actually solved, we only think they are. I discovered that the time I invested trying to solve mental problems that I did not create could be used to create happier foundations to strengthen myself. I learned that it is actually joy that heals, not obsessively thinking about the problem until it is solved. Every time I focused my energy on doing something good, laughing or contemplating nature, I became a little stronger and remembered who I am. I won't deny that I felt guilty - the cognitive rigidity of autism screamed at me that I was ignoring my problems and that I was creating a silly fantasy world. Even so, I fought to break out of this pattern. It is still difficult. But today I believe that I’m meant to be happy and that cultivating moments of joy makes life worthwhile.

6. mental healthcare and feeling useful

Feeling useful is essential for mental health. We all want to be part of something and be recognized as necessary. In these 100 days, I decided to resume some volunteer work within my community and I also opened a new company, with handmade products, so that I would also have the opportunity to produce something that was not only in the intellectual field (handicrafts are very good for those who suffer from anxiety). Having a dynamic routine in which you have an important role is great for mental health and your sense of self-authority. Also, getting in touch with other people's personal stories helps to decentralize our gaze from ourselves, which is very useful if you suffer from OCD. As tiring as it may be, the more diverse activities we do, the better our cognitive function becomes.

7. mental healthcare and moving the body

It's interesting that to take care of your mind, you need to get out of your head and move your body. Many of the tensions accumulated in our minds can be released by running, walking or playing some sport. It doesn't matter what it is, but move your body. We were not designed to stay still, but to do various strength, balance and endurance exercises. Our ancestors walked for days in search of shelter and food, and that's how our bodies evolved. Especially for those who suffer from anxiety, high-impact exercises not only help regulate your mood and release neurotransmitters, but also generate a stress spike that will do your body good for the rest of the day. When we trigger these spikes, our body answer quickly and creates new pathways to respond to stress, which helps us better deal with anxiety, depression, instructive thoughts, etc. Our sleep also improves, as we use our stored energy and tend to think less before going to sleep.

8. mental healthcare and sleep hygiene

I have always tried to force myself to be silent. I forced myself to meditate for many years, without much success, but after the panic attacks returned, meditating and being silent were torture. It was as if I made room for all my inner demons to dance in my mind and I always felt worse. I recently discovered that neurodivergent people struggle more with silence and that it does them a lot of good to distract their minds with sounds, images and other stimuli that allow them to emotionally engage with something real and outside of themselves. I see that it is a controversial topic, but I no longer believe in sleep hygiene without screens and complex content. My best nights of sleep were those in which I distracted myself with something until I fell asleep or listened to someone talking until I fell asleep. So if you want to test what works best for you, know your limits and do not blindly obey the orders that someone has set. Maybe you work better at dawn, maybe you only need 6 hours of sleep, maybe you are different from the average. Your life's work is to discover yourself and be true to it.

9. mental healthcare and developing self-authority

This was very important to me. I have always had low self-esteem and I have always believed in others more than in myself. I sought answers and cures for what I suffered from various doctors and therapists, but all of this only made my situation worse. I became dependent on diagnoses, consultations and sessions that never really helped me. At a certain point I decided that I would educate myself on the subjects that bothered me. I studied, and studied a lot, about psychology, neurology, neuroscience, nutrition and about the functioning of the body as a whole. Today I no longer accept any diagnosis about myself because I have developed my own authority. I am the authority when it comes to myself, you know? I don't need others to tell me what I am feeling because now I know what it is and where it comes from. I also know, fortunately, how to solve it. When I go to a doctor or have an exam, I know what I am investigating and what I need to achieve. It is very sad that today medicine is just a search for money and that you only get good care if you pay a lot for it, so it is important to get educated about yourself so you won’t fall into standardized speeches that will lead you to the ever-increasing consumption of pharmaceuticals and drugs without, in fact, looking at the cause of the problem.

10. mental healthcare and time

There are things that only time can heal. There is nothing like letting time pass. A few months ago, all I could think about was how I wanted to end my life and it was tormenting to think about living for even one more day. Waiting for time to pass was difficult, but I was rewarded. Time has a way of overcoming some things if you allow yourself to create new memories, new connections and new laughs. If you are suffering a lot, wait a few more hours. Live one more day. Let time pass and life bring you better things.

See you guys again on my next challenge (maybe a productivity one?). Thanks to everyone who liked and reblogged my previous posts! 💕

[legal-poppy]

thursday 10.3.2024. kinda tired of business law after spending 2 solid days outlining/revising, but i'm almost halfway done with my outline for the first 7 weeks! i also had my meeting with the school's accommodations coordinator and put some accommodations in place for lectures and exams. it was terrifying tbh to meet with a stranger and talk about all of that because until my diagnosis this spring, every doctor/psychiatrist/therapist/school counselor ignored it because i wasn't "bad enough" to them. i did cry after the meeting bc i'm still not used to being heard i guess.

total study time- 7 hours 30 minutes

1 hour 15 minutes in class

5 hours 15 minutes on business law

30 minutes planning spring 2025 courses

30 minutes reviewing supplements

[nodalstudies]

sunday, april 21, 2024 | day 21/60 ᯓ★

reflections:

i’ve been learning a lot from my program despite the stress. i love how comprehensive the curriculum is��i really get to understand how to serve people’s health needs.

my reality is shaped by what i repeat.

it’s normal to feel dread about my responsibilities sometimes. what matters most is how i respond—will i dwell in the dread or will i ground myself then take action?

habit tracking 🎧 academics: submitted a discussion post + my final paper fitness: 30 min pilates. it hurt so good spiritual growth: visualization meditation, journaled

[lady-academic]

| Day 14 |

After a long break, I am back at it!

Source

[the-0ther-mother]

25/100 days of productivity

Tuesday, 15 October, 2024

Today was mostly the result of me being sleep deprived. I was just sooo sleepy the whole day.

🪐 went to my Microeconomics lecture

🪐 went to the library

Honestly, the desire to wear cute autumnal outfits is the only thing getting me out of my bed and carrying me through the day these days.

🪐 finished my notes for microeconomics ch. 2

🪐 finished my notes for calculus ch.1.2

🪐 finished my notes for calculus ch.1.3

So, this week will be spent catching up on my last week's material and all the homework. It's a lot but I'll manage. I'm really excited about my micro notes though. I'm going to print them out tomorrow. They'll be very useful.

I've missed two days of my Italian lesson on Duolingo though :(

Breathe in and out. Don't lose track of the big picture.

Arrivederci <3

[wiststudies]

27 / 100 days of productivity

20th october

☆ progressed more on physics assignments

☆ doodled on my friend's hand

☆ helped said friend with his physics assignment

☆ did english homework

☆ worked on physics ppt

[jennyyyeeettt]

I found this on pinterest and it's really helpful and effective and it's so obvious that I usually forget about it ✨

[roughdraftmonth]

november is here! + new website features

November is here! We're so looking forward to the month ahead, and we wanted to drop by and let you know that we're here to cheer you on.

We’re also excited to announce the launch of our website, as well as some features that you can find there such as...

Locked In - a writing game to help meet your daily goal!

Let Me Cook! - a pomodoro timer to help you focus with writing, art, and all creative endeavors.

Sticker Book - a unique way to collect achievements along the trails!

And, finally, we want to thank you for being here. RDMO is a passion project for our admin team. We have been working around the clock since September to create a challenge that gives you a fun, collaborative, and rewarding experience. We will continue to update the website and social media throughout the month, but we’re writing our novels as well! Follow rdmoHQ on instagram to see us live blog our #RDMO24 experience (and don’t forget to tag us in your updates everywhere, too!)

Good luck this month! We're rooting for you! Rough Draft HQ

[indigomistudies]

2 weeks into summer: more journalling and reading! 📝📔

[chu-diaries]

100 days of mental healthcare: day 67/100

It was a lovely day. I woke up early and had a slow breakfast, then I cooked lunch and did laundry. After lunch I cleaned my kitchen, did dishes and cleaned my oven. I still had some time until the sunset so I planned a picnic! I went to a farm near my house and bought some Camembert, cinnamon bread and kombucha. It was really nice to walk around the olive trees. I felt relaxed and happy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my self knowledge as something that is part of my mental health. As a people-pleaser I realized I’ve been wearing a lot of masks to keep myself socially safe. I really want to remember who I really am so I asked ChatGPT to come up with 40 questions about myself for me to answer in the remaining days of this challenge.

💥: day 14/28 (ovulation day!)

💧: 1 L

🏋🏻‍♀️: 🚫

🏃🏻‍♀️: 🚫

📝: 🚫

🎧: coroa de marabô - aldeia de caboclos

🎮: 🚫

📺: one piece ep. 404-415

📚: hp and the half blood prince

🛑: 8 days pick-free

💊: 🚫