Habit is a behaviour you do regularly (有规律的). As a professor who studies how to help students become better readers and writers, I can tell you that research shows habits have a loop (循环). Here are the things you need to make a studying loop:

●A set time to study every day.

●A cue (提示) to start studying.

●An environment that helps you stick to your studying routine (常规).

●A prize for studying.

When you do things at the same time every day, it is easier to remember to do them. To determine how much time you should set aside each day to study, multiply (乘) your grade level by 10 minutes. That means if you’re in third grade, you would plan to spend about 30 minutes per day studying. Spending more time than that on a regular basis can cause stress, anxiety and possibly destroy healthy sleep habits.

Studying at the same time every day is one cue. but you may need something more specific when first forming your habit. This can be a calendar reminder you set on your phone. or something as simple as a card with the word “study” printed on the front.

To help yourself study, you need a place set up for work and not for doing other things. Do not study on your bed— 4that’s for sleeping— 4or in front of the television, or anywhere it’s difficult to hold and use the materials you need. Best option: a table or desk with good lighting. Your study place should limit distractions (干扰). That includes other people’s conversations and all media: TV, video games, social media, texts or music.

The prize. That said, after you finish studying, you can give yourself a little gaming or social media time as your prize. With time, the studying itself will become its own prize. Improving your knowledge and skills will give you a sense of achievement and make you more confident and happier at school. But while forming your study habit, a really fun prize will help you stick with it.

When Veronika Scott was a student at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Michigan, she received a task to “design to fill a need.”She dreamed up an idea for overcoats that would double as sleeping bags, made 25 of them, and handed them out to people living in shelters on an abandoned city playground. While her efforts were greeted mostly with enthusiasm from those braving Detroit's cold winters, one woman voiced dissatisfaction. “We don't need coats; we need jobs.” she told Veronika. Then she had her second inspiration.

After graduating from college in 2012, Veronika founded the Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit organization. She hired two homeless women to sew the coats and paid them with donations she received through her blog. Now, the Empowerment Plan employs about 20 people and has produced more than 10,000 coats and distributed them in 30 states, Canada, and elsewhere abroad.

“We don't require previous employment,” Veronika says. “We’re looking for people who are motivated." The Empowerment Plan provides free classes and lends money to those who qualify. Nearly all the employees eventually move into permanent housing, and some get jobs in the auto industry and construction.

Veronika has bettered the coat's design by making its outer layer of a lightweight material that resists air, wind, and water and its inner layer of a material that stores body heat. Still, Veronika is less focused on the coats than on the workers who make them. “At the end of the day,” she says, “the coat is a vehicle for us to employ people.”

The Simple Trick Can Help You Sleep

For those who can't sleep easily, prepare for the best night’s sleep ever. No more tossing and turning into the early hours of the morning. No more counting sheep on Sunday evenings. And no more lying, wide-eyed, in the dark after waking up in the middle of the night. 【小题1】 This all-natural solution is called the 4-7-8 method, and yes, it’s as simple as it sounds. First, get settled into a comfortable position on your bed. Then, simply breathe in air through your nose for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and then breathe the air out slowly through your mouth for eight more seconds. 【小题2】

That's all there is to it! Don't believe us? Just ask Harvard-educated medical doctor Andrew Weil, who adopted this exercise from a centuries-long Indian yogi meditation practice. The yogis use this method to achieve a state of complete relaxation, reducing stress and anxiety. Slowing down your breathing forces the rhythm of your heart to slow down, too. 【小题3】 In other words, it’s a natural way to make you calm for your body and mind.

“The theory is that by putting certain rhythms on the breath with your voluntary system, gradually these are made into the involuntary nervous system," he said. 【小题4】So it's the regularity of doing this over a period of weeks, months , years that produces the changes that you want.”

There you go! 【小题5】 If you're still tossing and turning, don't miss these tips from sleep doctors which are almost guaranteed to give you a better night's sleep.