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Study tips

Study tips that actually work

Six habits backed by research, each with its sources.

The short version

  1. Sleep enough, at regular times7+ hours for adults, 8 to 10 for teens. No all-nighters.
  2. Eat regular meals and drink waterAnd move between study blocks.
  3. Put your phone in another roomGames, social media and TV are the reward, not the break.
  4. Small daily targets, every dayConsistent effort beats a last-minute push.
  5. Test yourself, don't just rereadThen study what you got wrong.
  6. Know your personality traitsPlan around how you handle stress.

1Sleep is part of studying

Sleep is when your brain files away what you learned during the day1. In one study, people kept awake all night were about 40% worse at forming new memories the next day than people who slept2. Pulling an all-nighter before an exam works against you.

It is the habit that counts, not one good night. University students who slept longer, better and at regular times got better grades, and the sleep in the weeks before a test mattered more than the night before it3.

Sleep experts recommend at least 7 hours a night for adults4 and 8 to 10 hours for teenagers aged 13 to 185.

Try this
  • Go to bed and get up at the same time every day, weekends included.
  • Plan your study so that it ends at bedtime, not at 2 a.m.
  • Stop coffee, tea, cola and energy drinks by early afternoon: caffeine taken 6 hours before bed still cut sleep by more than an hour in a lab study6. Health authorities advise adults to stay under about 400 mg of caffeine a day (around 4 cups of coffee), and less for teenagers7.

2Feed your brain

Your brain runs on the same fuel as the rest of you: regular meals, water and movement. You don't need special "brain foods".

Children and teenagers who eat breakfast tend to stay on task better in class, and some studies link it to better grades8. Even mild dehydration matters: losing about 2% of your body weight in fluid measurably hurts attention and harder thinking tasks9.

Physical activity helps thinking skills too, both regular exercise and single short bouts10.

Try this
  • Eat regular, balanced meals: plenty of vegetables, fruit, pulses and whole grains, and fewer sugary snacks and drinks11.
  • Eat breakfast, especially on exam day.
  • Keep a bottle of water on your desk and drink before you feel thirsty.
  • Take a 5 to 10 minute walk or stretch between study blocks.

3Remove distractions

Phones, social media, games and TV are built to grab your attention, and every glance costs more than it seems. Across many studies, students who use their phones more get somewhat lower grades12. Students who checked other things on a laptop during a lesson scored 11% lower on a test of it, and classmates who could see their screen scored 17% lower13.

Switching between tasks has a cost: each switch takes time to refocus, and the cost grows with harder material14. One study even found that a phone lying face down on the desk lowered working memory compared with leaving it in another room15. Not every later study found the same, but moving the phone costs nothing.

Try this
  • Put your phone in another room while you study, or at least out of sight with notifications off.
  • Use your phone's focus mode or an app blocker to lock social media and games during study time.
  • Study with the TV off and only the tabs you need.
  • Use games, videos and social media as the reward after you hit the day's target, not as breaks in the middle of it.

4Set realistic targets and stick to them

Almost everyone underestimates how long work will take. In a classic study, students expected to finish their thesis in about 34 days; it took them about 56 on average16. Ambitious last-minute plans fail for exactly this reason.

Focused, consistent effort beats a big push at the end. Spreading the same study time over several days leads to much better long-term memory than cramming it into one17. A plan you can keep every day is worth more than a perfect plan you drop after three days.

Deciding exactly when and where you'll study makes you far more likely to actually do it. Across 94 studies, simple "if it's 6 p.m., then I sit at my desk and do 20 questions" plans clearly improved how often people followed through18.

Try this
  • Count the days to your exam and work backwards to a small daily target, such as 30 to 45 minutes or one practice test.
  • When you estimate how long something will take, add a safety margin: you will probably need more time than you think.
  • Write down when and where you'll study each day ("After dinner, at the kitchen table").
  • Tick off each day you hit your target. If you miss a day, start again the next day: don't try to make it all up at once.

5Test yourself instead of rereading

Of ten common study techniques, the two that reviewers rated most useful were practice testing and spreading study over time. Rereading and highlighting, the methods students use most, were rated least useful19. Students who tested themselves remembered much more a week later than students who spent the same time rereading20.

Try this
  • Take a short practice test, check what you got wrong, then read up only on those topics.
  • Come back to your mistakes a few days later and test yourself on them again.
  • Close the book and write or say what you remember before you check.

Find a free practice test

6Know your personality, and how you handle stress

Some people find planning ahead hard, and some freeze under pressure. Personality plays a part. Of the Big Five personality traits, conscientiousness (being organised, self-disciplined and planning ahead) is the one most consistently linked to better grades21, and putting things off is strongly linked to lower conscientiousness, impulsiveness and being easily distracted22. Neuroticism, the tendency to feel stress and worry strongly, is the trait behind many cases of exam nerves, and test anxiety is consistently linked to lower test scores23.

Knowing your traits is useful because you can plan around them, and because traits are not fixed: a review of over 200 studies found that personality, especially emotional stability, can change with practice and support24. If you score low on conscientiousness, lean harder on the fixed daily targets and the phone in another room. If you score high on neuroticism, practise under exam-like conditions so the real thing feels familiar.

Take a free personality test

The Big Five test on our sister site NineTraits has 50 statements and takes about 10 minutes. Look at your conscientiousness score (planning and self-discipline) and your neuroticism score (how strongly you react to stress). It is for self-awareness, not a diagnosis.

Take the Big Five test
Try this
  • Before an exam, spend 10 minutes writing down what you're worried about. In one study this simple step raised the scores of anxious students25.
  • Do at least one timed practice test under exam conditions before the real thing.
  • Curious how you manage emotions under pressure? Try the free emotional intelligence test on NineTraits too.

Sources

Every number on this page comes from the studies below, last checked 1 November 2026. This page is general information about study habits, not medical advice. If sleep problems, low mood or anxiety are getting in the way, talk to a doctor, school counsellor or another qualified professional.

  1. Diekelmann S, Born J (2010). The memory function of sleep. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11, 114–126. 10.1038/nrn2762
  2. Yoo S-S, Hu PT, Gujar N, Jolesz FA, Walker MP (2007). A deficit in the ability to form new human memories without sleep. Nature Neuroscience 10, 385–392. 10.1038/nn1851
  3. Okano K, Kaczmarzyk JR, Dave N, Gabrieli JDE, Grossman JC (2019). Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students. npj Science of Learning 4, 16. 10.1038/s41539-019-0055-z
  4. Watson NF et al. (2015). Recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult: a joint consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 11(6), 591–592. 10.5664/jcsm.4758
  5. Paruthi S et al. (2016). Recommended amount of sleep for pediatric populations: a consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 12(6), 785–786. 10.5664/jcsm.5866
  6. Drake C, Roehrs T, Shambroom J, Roth T (2013). Caffeine effects on sleep taken 0, 3, or 6 hours before going to bed. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 9(11), 1195–1200. 10.5664/jcsm.3170
  7. EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (2015). Scientific opinion on the safety of caffeine. EFSA Journal 13(5), 4102. 10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4102
  8. Adolphus K, Lawton CL, Dye L (2013). The effects of breakfast on behavior and academic performance in children and adolescents. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7, 425. 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00425
  9. Wittbrodt MT, Millard-Stafford M (2018). Dehydration impairs cognitive performance: a meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 50(11), 2360–2368. 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001682
  10. Donnelly JE et al. (2016). Physical activity, fitness, cognitive function, and academic achievement in children: a systematic review. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 48(6), 1197–1222. 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000901
  11. World Health Organization. Healthy diet (fact sheet). www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet
  12. Kates AW, Wu H, Coryn CLS (2018). The effects of mobile phone use on academic performance: a meta-analysis. Computers & Education 127, 107–112. 10.1016/j.compedu.2018.08.012
  13. Sana F, Weston T, Cepeda NJ (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education 62, 24–31. 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003
  14. Rubinstein JS, Meyer DE, Evans JE (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 27(4), 763–797. 10.1037/0096-1523.27.4.763
  15. Ward AF, Duke K, Gneezy A, Bos MW (2017). Brain drain: the mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 2(2), 140–154. 10.1086/691462
  16. Buehler R, Griffin D, Ross M (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(3), 366–381. 10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.366
  17. Cepeda NJ, Pashler H, Vul E, Wixted JT, Rohrer D (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: a review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin 132(3), 354–380. 10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
  18. Gollwitzer PM, Sheeran P (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 69–119. 10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
  19. Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh EJ, Nathan MJ, Willingham DT (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1), 4–58. 10.1177/1529100612453266
  20. Roediger HL, Karpicke JD (2006). Test-enhanced learning: taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science 17(3), 249–255. 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
  21. Poropat AE (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychological Bulletin 135(2), 322–338. 10.1037/a0014996
  22. Steel P (2007). The nature of procrastination: a meta-analytic and theoretical review of quintessential self-regulatory failure. Psychological Bulletin 133(1), 65–94. 10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65
  23. von der Embse N, Jester D, Roy D, Post J (2018). Test anxiety effects, predictors, and correlates: a 30-year meta-analytic review. Journal of Affective Disorders 227, 483–493. 10.1016/j.jad.2017.11.048
  24. Roberts BW et al. (2017). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin 143(2), 117–141. 10.1037/bul0000088
  25. Ramirez G, Beilock SL (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. Science 331(6014), 211–213. 10.1126/science.1199427
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