{"id":1178,"date":"2013-08-28t18:15:30","date_gmt":"2013-08-28t18:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2020-01-04t11:59:47","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04t19:59:47","slug":"how-to-relax-for-the-sat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/how-to-relax-for-the-sat\/","title":{"rendered":"how to relax for the sat"},"content":{"rendered":"

“i could do better on the sat if i didn’t lose focus so easily<\/i>”<\/p>\n

“i could remember more if i weren’t so stressed<\/i>.”<\/p>\n

do these sentiments sound familiar?\u00a0 it seems our electronically driven culture recognizes two basic human energy states —- manic and stressed while on task, and then completely blitzed and unfocused afterward.\u00a0 popular junk food serves to intensify this energetic dichotomy even further.\u00a0 of course, neither of these states is optimal for mastery on the sat.<\/p>\n

the best state both for learning & remembering and for performing under pressure is relaxed yet energized and focused.\u00a0 while this state was common in other times and places, it’s hard for modern americans even to imagine it.\u00a0\u00a0 suppose i told you there was a way to get into that state, totally organic, with only beneficial health effects.\u00a0 no, it’s not the newest thing — it’s closer to the oldest thing!\u00a0 for over three thousand years, throughout the world, people have practiced meditation, and over time, this practice allows people to build focus and mental clarity while reducing stress.\u00a0 trying meditation a couple times probably will not make a big difference, but if you could commit to this practice at this point in your life, the benefits over time would be considerable.<\/p>\n

suppose your sat is coming up soon.\u00a0 even if you start meditating every day, it probably won’t be long enough between now and your sat to have much effect.\u00a0 well, some of the beneficial effects of meditating simply come from deep breathing.\u00a0 when you breathe long, slow, deep breaths, this sends a message of relaxing and releasing stress to the body.\u00a0 (by contrast, if your goal it to make yourself as stressed as possible, it will help to make your breathing rapid and shallow.)\u00a0 you can practice this kind of silent deep breathing anywhere — in the car, waiting on a line, sitting in class, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 if the breath is particularly deep (i.e. both belly & chest expanding with air), then the increased oxygen in your blood will help to keep you awake and alert.\u00a0 experiment with this, and notice how it shifts both your energy and your state of mind.<\/p>\n

if you are even more ambitious about releasing stress, and building focus, i have some particularly challenging recommendations.<\/p>\n

(1) eat well.\u00a0 in particular, avoid high-sugar foods and anything with high-fructose corn syrup.\u00a0 make a habit of drinking lots of plain ordinary water.<\/p>\n

(2) get as much regular sleep as possible.\u00a0 in an eight-hour stint of sleep, the greatest rem<\/a> period is in the last hour, and that’s when the brain encodes memory.\u00a0 if you skimp on sleep, you can use energy drinks to feel awake, but you can’t replace the opportunity to increase what your brain remembers and knows.<\/p>\n

(3) avoid external excitement.\u00a0 you may recall a diminutive zen master<\/a> who said: “adventure, heh<\/i>!\u00a0 excitement, heh<\/i>! a jedi craves not these things<\/i>!”\u00a0 you see, excitement and stress run on more or less the same brain circuitry<\/a>, so the more you excitement you give yourself, the more stress you invite.\u00a0\u00a0 explore what it would mean to pursue appreciation rather than excitement.<\/p>\n

(4) minimize any entertainment that involves watching an electronic screen.\u00a0 believe it or not, the visual cues of such a screen stress your body.\u00a0 when you do relax, pursue non-plugged-in forms of recreation: exercise and stretching, creativity and the arts, or time in nature.<\/p>\n

yes, those recommendations would be hard to put into practice.\u00a0 they are out of the ordinary.\u00a0 here, i would remind you of the great law of mediocrity: if you do what everyone else does, you will probably wind up with the results that everyone else gets.\u00a0\u00a0 if you want standout, extraordinary results, say, on the sat, then you have to pursue extraordinary preparation such as these.<\/p>\n

the most fascinating thing about all of this — meditation, deep breathing, and the other recommendations — these will help you not only on the sat, but in most other academic endeavors in your future.\u00a0 and, you’ll be happier!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“i could do better on the sat if i didn’t lose focus so easily” “i could remember more if i weren’t so stressed.” do these sentiments sound familiar?\u00a0 it seems our electronically driven culture recognizes two basic human energy states —- manic and stressed while on task, and then completely blitzed and unfocused afterward.\u00a0 popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[36,44,64],"ppma_author":[24884],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nhow to relax for the sat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/how-to-relax-for-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"how to relax for the sat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“i could do better on the sat if i didn’t lose focus so easily” “i could remember more if i weren’t so stressed.” do these sentiments sound familiar?\u00a0 it seems our electronically driven culture recognizes two basic human energy states —- manic and stressed while on task, and then completely blitzed and unfocused afterward.\u00a0 popular […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/how-to-relax-for-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh blog | high school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-08-28t18:15:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-01-04t19:59:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"mike m\u1d9cgarry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" 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m\u1d9cgarry","image":{"@type":"imageobject","inlanguage":"en-us","@id":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/aeee4d169422815834319b0ae96b32e1","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/838ad50074be3626e952d02f3922ace4?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contenturl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/838ad50074be3626e952d02f3922ace4?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"mike m\u1d9cgarry"},"description":"mike holds an a.b. in physics (graduating magna cum laude) and an m.t.s. in religions of the world, both from harvard. beyond standardized testing, mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. in his free time, mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the ny mets. learn more about the gmat through mike's youtube video explanations.","sameas":["https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/magooshgmatchannel\/featured"],"award":["magna cum laude from harvard"],"knowsabout":["gmat"],"knowslanguage":["english"],"jobtitle":"content creator","worksfor":"magoosh","url":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/author\/mikemcgarry\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":24884,"user_id":26,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mikemcgarry","display_name":"mike m\u1d9cgarry","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/838ad50074be3626e952d02f3922ace4?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"m\u1d9cgarry","first_name":"mike","description":"mike served as a gmat expert at magoosh, helping create hundreds of lesson videos and practice questions to help guide gmat students to success. he was also featured as \"member of the month\" for over two years at <a href=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/mike-mcgarrys-gmat-experience\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gmat club<\/a>. mike holds an a.b. in physics (graduating <em>magna cum laude<\/em>) and an m.t.s. in religions of the world, both from harvard. beyond standardized testing, mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. in his free time, mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the ny mets. learn more about the gmat through mike's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/magooshgmatchannel\/featured\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">youtube <\/a>video explanations and resources like <a href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/gmat\/whats-a-good-gmat-score\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">what is a good gmat score?<\/a> and the <a href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/gmat\/gmat-diagnostic-test\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gmat diagnostic test<\/a>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}