How to ensure the cold season doesn`t impact your studies

Winter is almost upon us, and for many people that means snuggling up indoors with a warm, fortifying snack and comforting drink. With the days getting shorter students may find it hard to get motivated to complete assignments - but the work still has to be completed, whatever the weather. The following tips may help you stay productive during the cold season:

During the winter months daylight is limited: by four pm sunlight will be waning, and with it your motivation to work may also decline. It is a well known fact that sunlight boots serotonin levels in the human body, a neurotransmitter that acts as a mood stabiliser, enhancing feeling of happiness and well being. It is certainly easier to be productive when you are in a good mood, and because of this it can be harder to work during the dark evenings. For this reason try to ensure you get a good start on your assignments around morning or midday, when your environment will be at its brightest. On school days this may prove more difficult, as you may be disinclined hit the books the moment you arrive home; but if you can at least try to get a start on your homework while the sun is still up you will probably get much done, and find yourself with more free time in the evening.

The following may seem to be rather basic advice, but make sure you are warm enough! If your body temperature is too low you won`t be able to fully concentrate on your work. Most of your metabolic energy will be expended just trying to raise your body temperature, leaving less available for cognitive tasks. Numerous studies have shown how prolonged exposure to cold will impair mental ability - so if you want to produce your best work make sure your study area is well heated!

Don`t put off doing exercise during the winter months. Most of us will snap up any excuse not to go and do exercise, and a temperature in the single digits will certainly seem like a valid reason to put off going for your daily walk. Before you settle back down onto the sofa though, you should know that studies have shown as little as 20 minutes of exercise just before studying can help improve your concentration, and facilitate learning.
During exercise your body manufactures a protein called FNDC5, which `modulates dopamine release relevant for neuronal plasticity and increased neuronal survival as well as learning and memory` according to a 2016 study by the National Library of Medicine. Exercising just before a period of academic work can prep your brain for learning and development, the proteins released during the period of physical activity increasing blood flow in the hippocampus, an area of the brain thought to be involved with retaining information.
The good news is that you don`t need to carry out a full two hour gym session to achieve these results - just a brisk 20 minute walk can get your body and brain in gear, and make your study session that much more productive.

Make sure you are getting enough sleep. The correlation between a good night`s sleep and cognitive ability are definitively established. If you want to be at your best, both mentally and physically, you need to ensure you are getting enough sleep. This can be harder to achieve during the winter months because of the decrease in the amount of daylight hours. Less sunlight can lead to a disruption of your circadian rhythm, an internal process that regulates your routine of sleeping and waking. The cycle is `calibrated` by a number of factors, such as meal times and patterned phases of activity - but the main factor governing the cycle is the appearance and disappearance of natural sunlight.
During the winter the circadian rhythm can be disrupted by the lack of available sunlight, and also by environmental factors such as daylight saving times, where jarring changes to the clock with the end of Daylight Saving Time can affect people`s quality of sleep.
To combat the effects of the shorter days, and the changes to the clocks you may wish to try going to bed an hour or so earlier in the winter, to ensure you still receive an adequate amount of sunlight during the day.