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Top 6 Healthy Homework Habits

By Grace Fleming, About.com

Your homework habits might be affecting your grades. Are you feeling tired, achy, or bored when it comes to homework time? Are you arguing with parents about your grades? You can change the way you feel by taking better care of your mind and your body.

1. Communicate With Parents

Parents are concerned about your success. It sounds simple enough, but students don't always realize how much parents can stress out about this. Whenever parents see a small sign of potential failure (like missing a homework assignment), they start fretting, unconsciously or consciously, about its potential to become a big failure.

2. Get the Sleep You Need

Studies show that teens' natural sleep patterns are different from those of adults. This often causes sleep deprivation among teens, since they tend to have trouble going to sleep at night, and have trouble waking in the mornings. You can avoid some of the problems that come with sleep deprivation by changing some of your nighttime habits.

3. Improve Your Eating Habits

Do you feel tired or dizzy a lot of the time? If you sometimes avoid working on a project because you just don't have the energy, you can increase your energy level by changing your diet. One banana in the morning might increase your performance at school!

4. Improve Your Memory

A great way to improve your homework habits is to improve your memory with brain exercise. There are many theories and ideas about improving memory, but there is one mnemonic method that has been around since ancient times. Ancient accounts show that early Greek and Roman orators used the "loci" method of remembering long speeches and lists. You may be able to use this method to enhance your memory at test time.

5. Fight the Urge to Procrastinate

Do you get the sudden urge to feed the dog at homework time? Don't fall for it! Procrastination is like a little white lie we tell ourselves. We often think we’ll feel better about studying later if we do something fun now, like playing with a pet, watching a TV show, or even cleaning our room. It's not true.

6. Avoid Repetitive Stress

Between text messaging, Sony PlayStations, Xbox, Internet surfing, and computer writing, students are using their hand muscles in all new ways, and they're growing increasingly susceptible to the hazards of repetitive stress injury. Find out how to avoid pain in your hands and neck by changing the way you sit at your computer.

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