 So today we were talking about habits and specifically five habits that can completely change your life. Let's get into it. Alright guys, welcome to the MD Journey channel, completely dedicated, helping students succeed on their journey with less stress. My name is Lakshman, internal medicine physician and resident in training and I've been making helpful videos and tips and studying and productivity for people just like you. So if you enjoy the message, make sure you hit the like button to support the channel in the video as well as the subscribe button, putting out two videos just like this one. So make sure you hit that notification bell as well to know when a video goes live. Today I wanted to talk about five effective habits that I've taken on as a student in college and in medical school that have completely kind of helped me level up as an individual and have played a huge role in my personal growth. And if you stay tuned to the end, you'll learn one of my favorite techniques to get more done in a short amount of time. Let's get into it. Now one of my favorite habits that I took on especially as a medical student was waking up 30 minutes to an hour earlier each day. And I know there's some of you are watching like somebody else that's recommending to wake up earlier. I get it. I promise you, you know, it's not always easy, but simply finding whatever your wake up time is and asking yourself if you can wake up just 30 minutes early. So if you wake up normally at 730 or 9am, ask yourself whether you can make it 7 or, you know, 830 respectively. Simply finding that extra 30 minutes can do a lot for your life. They find that individuals who wake up earlier tend to be less stressed, actually be more energized, more productive, and happier and fulfilled in their life. That's not surprising. If you think about the fact that having an extra half hour to an hour in your day, one allows you to kind of ease into your day without the stresses of waking up and suddenly having to feel like you need to go to your first activity, whether that be school or work. And in addition, you can use this extra time to get started on the first thing on your to-do list or work on a personal project. Personal example for me is I would use that 30 minutes to an hour to get my workout done in the day. That way it was just kind of done with and out of the way or to work on personal projects like working on blog posts and videos for the day, which I otherwise wouldn't have time to do as a busy med student. And if you think you don't have what it takes to become a morning person, I'll link down a blog post where in medical school for about three weeks, 20 days, I forced myself to wake up at 430 each day just to see what's happened. So if you want to see the results I was getting during those periods in medical school, go ahead and check out the link. Now, the second habit that's really made a huge difference for me as a student, especially in medical school was learning how to speed lesson. Now, many of you may have already heard the concept of speed reading, which is essentially using how our brains and our eyes read something naturally and using that to our advantage to get through a book faster. But as you're going higher and higher in your education, whether that's in college or in med school, the material still becomes excessive and you have to find a better way to process it. So one of the first things that I was doing in medical school was I was training my brain to listen to things at two, three and even four acts, the natural speed. And then I know after hearing that many of you guys are asking, you know, how are you able to do that? Are you even able to remember what you hear? And while it's understandable, you have to remember that our brains listen much faster than we read. So while you may read at 150 words per minute, you actually can listen upwards to 300 plus words per minute. And then when extra training, you can definitely get your speed even higher and higher. I'll link down below both a video and a blog post explaining the different techniques and methods that I use to really train my brain to make, you know, two, two and a half to three acts same natural and still be able to process a lot of information. But as you can imagine, if you can listen to something at three acts, you can cut down a 16 minute lecture into 20 minutes and somehow be able to get to three hours of lecture within an hour and give yourself an extra two hours to spend doing other things such as reviewing for the class or for the upcoming exam. Speed listening has definitely helped me save a lot of time, but it's also helped me become more effective on doing things to help my personal growth. This includes things like listening to audiobooks or just listening to a podcast episode where if you're able to listen to it at two and three acts, you can easily finish a few books a week versus a few books a month or a year. And if you're interested in learning how to read more books and how to read them faster, I'll link down below a video that I made that showing how I'm on pace to reading 100 books in 2020. Now habit number three, we are finally going to start talking about food because food is both a good and bad thing. You obviously hear about the habits of eating healthy, so I'm not going to bore you with that on this tip. But instead, one of the habits that I've adapted is to eat smaller meals. I love this concept that's discussed by both researchers as well as dieticians known as the rush hour. Phenomenally, this idea that if you take on the typical eating schedule, a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, each of those moments you're giving yourself huge amounts of food and energy, but your body also has to divert a lot of energy elsewhere to go into your digestive system and actually break it down. So if you've ever experienced that two to 3 p.m. afternoon slump, it may simply be that the food that you ate at lunchtime is still being processed and some of that energy that you otherwise would have to stay mentally sharp is now being used to actually break down that food. So to overcome the rush hour phenomenon, I basically split my meals over the day versus just three meals like many of us will do. So instead of having a lunch at 12, I may split that serving into two and have one at 12 and then have another one at 3 p.m. This way I can keep a natural course of energy and stay mentally sharp. Now I have three more habits to share with you guys and as I mentioned, number five is one of my favorites to get more done. Before we get to it, make sure if you haven't done so already, you find that like button, go ahead and hit it and support both the video as well as this channel. And while we're at it, go ahead and comment down below one of your favorite habits that you feel has made the biggest change in your life. And one of the biggest things that I teach on this channel for students who become overwhelmed, especially in medical school, where they feel like their old life, things that they enjoy to do is no longer, you know, able to fit in with a busy medical school schedule. So instead, one of the things I recommend on the channel is to go ahead and find the things that are most important to you, whether that's working out or the people that you love interacting with and make sure that they're scheduled into your time before you're studying and other obligations kind of take a hold. And for many people working out or staying mentally and physically fit is a huge part of their life. So for me, I knew that I wanted to make sure that my fitness was at least stable, if not improving day by day, week to week. So as I mentioned earlier, one of the things I did in medical school was I made working out the first task that I did every single day. And this didn't matter if I had an upcoming test or a boarding exam, I made sure that my exercise was part of my daily routine. And even if that workout was just 15 minutes instead of the hour that you normally spend, the ability to go through the workout and finish allows you to have two things. One, you feel a sensation of momentum. You know, if you get your workout done, especially at the start of the day, you can feel like you did something for yourself. So you get an instant win. And number two is you start to actually see progress, whether that means you're getting faster or you're getting stronger depending on the exercise that you choose. Working out daily not only helped me in a physical sense, but the idea of staying progress kept me motivated to do other things like study and make sure that I was also a solid student. And now let's get into habit number five, which I mentioned is one of my favorites to improve your productivity. And this is focusing on simplifying every single task. Now this habit came initially about a semester into medical school where I was studying on average eight to 10 hours a day. If that sounds crazy, it's because it is. And I asked myself, how can you make this four to five hours? And really what that taught me is I had to evaluate every single step that I was doing in my studying and every single step I was doing in every other kind of task that I wasn't short. And so if I wanted to make my workouts faster or I wanted to read a book faster or if I wanted to make a video faster for you guys, I would basically list out all the steps and cross out the things that either weren't necessary or could be done faster. Now the simple habit of evaluating a common task like working out or studying every month to every three months allows me to do a few things. One, I can start identifying things I'm doing just because I think I have to, but realize in hindsight, it's not giving me much benefit. So if there's an element of your studying routine or studying system, you may realize you may be doing it because you think it has benefits. And when you think about your last exam, you probably notice that your grade probably wouldn't have changed much if you didn't or didn't use that resource or that technique. And so this habit of simplifying everything in my life allows me to be more productive as well as fulfilled and I don't feel like the things that are ineffective or useless are part of my life as much as I used to. So definitely give this a shot if you feel like you're kind of low on time, stressed out, maybe one of the first things you need to do is ask yourself if you really need to do everything you're currently working on and getting finally into habit number six. This is huge, especially if you wanna feel more fulfilled in your life is limiting work right before bed. So especially if you're a student, it's very normal to go straight from studying to crashing and then waking up and repeating the whole process. But if you wanna feel like you are not a student 24 seven or not involved in your work or your business, one of the things that I would recommend and one of the things that I do is I give myself a cutoff time when I'm done with all work and then usually I have an extra hour, hour and a half to unwind whether that's watch TV or read or just lay in bed and think and brainstorm or it may simply be spending time on social media but it's a time where you don't feel like you're obligated to work or be in the mold of a student or an employee. But that guys wraps up of the six healthy habits that have changed my life for the better. Hopefully you guys can adapt some if you haven't so already to help you on yours. Let me know again in the comment section what habits you're already taking on. Maybe use some of the similar ones that I do that mentioned in this video or maybe use something completely opposite I love to kind of know your perspective as well. And before you leave, make sure you go ahead and don't forget to hit that like button as well as subscribe button. If you wanna join the community then make sure to also remember to hit that notification bell so we're putting out two videos just like this one on a weekly basis. But thank you guys so much for being a part of this video, being a part of my journey. Hopefully I've been allowed to you on yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.