| JAN 2023

Mindfulness Newsletter
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WHY NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS DON'T WORK

It’s the same story every new year, if you are a student you probably distilled your hopes and dreams for
self-improvement into a gleaming set of new year resolutions. These goals range from simple ambitions
to unrealistic pursuits of perfection. However, if you have experienced this phenomenon you probably
know that eventually after a short period of time you would sweep those resolutions under the rug and
forget all about them until the next year. Nevertheless, despite our best intentions, why is it so difficult to
stick to resolutions?

1) Setting unrealistic resolutions or goals: Most

people usually either establish excessively
difficult objectives that quickly become
unreachable, or they set relatively easy goals
that they quickly become bored with. A
resolution is all about what you would like to do
or achieve as an in individual rather than what
you ‘should’ do. Remember that in order to
keep a resolve, you must change your
behavior, so make sure your goals are
reasonable.

2) Overlooking the importance of planning: Failing to plan is planning to fail. Plan the action steps
around the resolution, break them down into smaller pieces, and schedule them on the calendar.
Weekly or daily objectives and plans that are bite-sized create a sense of accomplishment rather
than spending the entire year saying “Oh, I will start tomorrow or next week, or next month."
Planning ensures that all necessary adjustments are sketched out ahead of time, along with an
understanding of potential challenges. This boosts your chances of success.

Remember to consider resolutions as a marathon, not a sprint: People most often uphold an “all-
or-nothing” mentality, which new year resolutions tend to encourage and that success is
measured as either a complete win or a complete failure. The problem with this is that it doesn't
accommodate for even the slightest slip-ups, which makes it easy to get discouraged and give up
entirely.
 HOW TO MAKE RESOLUTIONS THAT WORK
In order to create resolutions that work, an individual must avoid making the mistakes
mentioned above. In addition, a person must make meaningful, value-driven resolutions,
sticking to a resolution is far easier when it aligns with your priorities. While you might have a
long list of potential New Year's resolutions, it's easier to focus on one goal at a time, achieving
even one small goal can boost your belief in yourself. For larger goals, consider breaking them
down into manageable chunks to work on one at a time. Taking on too much all at once can
be daunting. It can be particularly difficult because establishing new behavioral patterns
takes time and sustained effort. Focusing on one specific goal makes keeping a resolution
much more achievable. This is also why it’s easier to start with small steps, taking on too much
too quickly is a common reason why so many New Year's resolutions fail. The most important
part is to remember that change is a process, it's important to be patient with yourself.
Understand that working toward your resolution is a process. Even if you make a misstep or two,
you can restart and continue on your journey towards your goal.

TIPS FOR UPCOMING EXAMS

VARY YOUR LOCATIONS TAKE REGULAR INTERVALS

Many people might think that the place where you
study doesn’t affect productivity, but it actually
does. First, don’t study in places where you eat or
sleep because your brain is conditioned to do
these tasks in these specific places, so your brain
will always be distracted, affecting your
productivity. In addition, varying your study
locations has many benefits such as creating more
memory prompts. In other words switching
locations establishes a reliable network of memory
cues that will aid the ease of recall, it also helps
boost long term retention. Frequently changing
study spots can positively impact your ability to
retrieve the information you are trying to learn.
DO NOT EVALUATE POST EXAMINATION
After most exams, students rush and stress about
discussing the answers to see if they did well.
However, when you realize that you have given one,
two, three… wrong answers, it may cause anxiety or
disappointment, and this could affect how you do in
your next exam. So avoid evaluating your question
paper because, at that point, you will be able to do
nothing to change your answer or score. Instead,
FIND OUT MORE
prepare for the next exam to ensure you do not
repeat the same mistake.
The belief that studying for more hours may
result in more productivity is untrue, and in fact
it's the complete opposite, and it might just
wholly drain you out, leaving you with no energy
to study and retain knowledge. It's essential to
take regular breaks for longer retention of
information and to freshen up the mind. These
breaks shouldn't be for too long, between 5 - 15
minutes is optimum.
LEARN HOW TO DO IT YOURSELF
It is no surprise that our phones are a major
distraction, we spend most of our time during the
day on them, and this affects productivity while
studying. If your phone is next to you while
studying, you will keep getting distracted either by
using it or keep looking at it expecting maybe a
text message or a call…The best way to do this is to
let your phone act as a reward- keep your phone
away from you and don’t allow yourself to use it
until you spend a specific time studying or finish
a number of units, this will motivate you to study
faster and more efficiently.
 Dopamine Detox
MAKING THE BRAIN WORK IN YOUR FAVOR TO
IMPROVE FOCUS

Have you ever noticed that you don’t have a hard time spending hours doing something that you
enjoy? Whether it was browsing social media, playing video games, watching television…I have no
doubt that you could do these activities for hours without breaking your concentration, but what
about doing more productive activities such as studying, working out, cleaning…you probably found
difficulty concentrating while doing these tasks or finding the motivation to do them. Let’s face it,
nobody enjoys doing boring activities. There is a reason you despise studying a particular subject in
school, sit through a 'boring' session or meeting at work or for that matter follow a healthy activity,
such as exercising or dieting. So why is it difficult to do boring activities? It turns out that it greatly
depends on something called dopamine.

Dopamine is a chemical messenger produced in the brain that helps nerve cells to send messages
to each other. It is responsible and essential for the experience of pleasure, reward, and motivation.
When you feel good that you have achieved something, you have a surge of dopamine in the brain.
When you come to associate a certain activity with pleasure, mere anticipation may be enough
to raise dopamine levels, and it's that desire and anticipation that gives us the motivation to get
up and do it. This is why you could spend hours browsing social media, playing video games,
watching television…without breaking your concentration, because these activities are stimulating
and release large amounts of dopamine so you come to anticipate doing them. While it is hard to
find the motivation to do boring or tasking activities because they release little amounts of
dopamine. In today’s digital society, everything is made to give you a boost of dopamine, but
because of that your brain gets used to having high levels of dopamine and those levels become
your new normal, essentially making it harder for you to feel the effects of small releases of
dopamine making you seek activities that release high level of dopamine. This makes you less
motivated to do boring activities.
So Is there a way to trick yourself into making a boring activity 'fun'?

The answer to this question is dopamine detox or dopamine fasting. It is essentially a way to trick
dopamine levels in your body, this happens when you stop flooding your brain with high amounts
of dopamine and letting your dopamine receptors recover. Set aside a day where you're going to
avoid all the highly stimulating activities, the most common being emotional eating, excessive
internet usage or gaming, socializing, thrill seeking, listening to music…or anything that you enjoy
doing. Essentially, embrace boredom. You can however to go for a walk, meditate, and be alone
with your thoughts, reflect on your life. Now how will this work? Dopamine detox starves you of all
the pleasure you usually get from the unproductive tasks and in turn makes those less satisfying
activities more desirable, in other words you become so bored that boring stuff becomes more fun.
Give it a try!

WRITTEN & EDITED BY: AHMAD HAMMOUD

CLUB SUPERVISOR : MUNAZZA NAUSHEEN