What to eat when you, like, really need to study

Taking good care of yourself is important if you want your brain to be in tip-top condition and help you reach your study milestones, and eating is a big part of that. But what the best foods are can vary based on how far away your goal is. Here is an honest, experience-based account of the foods and drinks that help and those that hinder productivity, whether you have a couple of months… or a couple of hours!

DISCLAIMER: Always consult a medical professional for nutrition advice.

If you have a month or more

Congratulations - you are thinking ahead and have not left it till the last moment to get to grips with that exam revision/essay/proposal/application (delete as appropriate). Your task is therefore to power your body for the medium-term run. You will probably still end up having a couple of high-intensity study sessions the day before the exam or the night before the submission deadline, but you are in a good position to keep these stressful events to a minimum.

Follow the common-sense nutrition advice for everyday wellbeing, making sure you get enough protein to keep energy levels high. Now is not the time to cut out anything other than junk from your diet, no matter how desperate you are to fit into that prom dress! Instead, focus on slow and steady: beans and pulses are an excellent and inexpensive way to get healthy, slow-release protein. Go for lots of nuts if you can afford them. Add a lean meat, such as chicken breast, for taste and variety.

If you are a snacker, like me, you will appreciate that many protein-rich foods lend themselves well to being prepared as snacks for your study sessions: think ‘protein bombs’ such as mixed nuts, hard-boiled eggs, cheese cubes, or strips of spiced chicken breast that you can keep by the side of your laptop and nibble on as you work. Add some fruit or vegetables (whichever you prefer) to keep things balanced - a smoothie you can sip on while looking through your notes is a convenient and delicious choice.

If you have a week

OK, so you may have lost some time to study anxiety - but hey, a week is seven days, and a lot can be accomplished in this time frame. Since your other commitments aren’t going anywhere, a week is actually more like three or four high-intensity study workouts that you will need to carve out the time for. So you will have to up the ante and develop razor-sharp focus practically on demand. What are you going to feed your body to make that happen?

Full disclosure: I started my A-Level revision pretty late. Very late. So late I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. Luckily, I found a good ingredient that helped me to stay focused and positive through some high-intensity sessions at the public library. My secret was… KitKat Kubes. These tragically-discontinued bite-size portions of KitKat chocolate came in a resealable pack and were an inexpensive way of getting lots of sugar and dopamine into my panicked blood stream. They came into my life at just the right moment, and I let them go once the need passed.

But beware! When looking for a ‘fix’ that will allow you to stay focused for longer when you really, really need it, it’s important to avoid some common pitfalls:

• Too much caffeine: it will make you jittery and tired but unable to sleep. Your mind will be scattered and you will lie awake at night thinking about what you should be doing but can’t because you’ve drunk your weight in coffee. Stick to your usual amount and add one more, max: if you normally have two cups of tea a day, bring it up to three - but don’t start guzzling five daily cups of coffee, or you’ll explode without ever reaching your study goal.

• Energy drinks: like coffee, but add some serious heart palpitations.

• Junk food diet: I survived my KitKat Kube binge because it was accompanied by fairly healthy breakfasts and dinners, and lots of bottled water instead of Coke. If I’d switched to burgers, chips, and soft drinks instead, I wouldn’t have done well in my exams and got into my first-choice university - I’d have fried my brain and ended up in KitKat rehab.

If you have a few hours…

…then your body needs to get you through them! Have a coffee. Have a chocolate. Then spend the rest of the night on two things:

FRUIT and WATER.

You may be tempted to start pouring coffee and energy drinks down your throat, which will make your energy level spike sharply. The trouble is, it will then fall just as rapidly, leaving you dehydrated, disoriented, and exhausted - with much of the work still ahead of you. As an undergraduate, I learnt the hard way that there are only so many cans of Red Bull you can force on your body before it tells you to f*** off.

Fruit, on the other hand, won’t dehydrate you or send you on an energy rollercoaster. It will steadily feed you naturally-occurring sugar while leaving you feeling fresh. The same goes for vegetables. Think about it: no-one has ever said ‘fresh as a double espresso’, whereas cucumber is used in spas to reduce under-eye puffiness. So try cucumber sticks, or add cucumber slices to your water with a few peppermint leaves. Strawberries in summer, grapes in winter. And keep taking deep breaths… You can do this!

P.S. If you want to stop pulling all-nighters, you may want to check out my one-to-one study coaching programme - I’ll help you get organised so those frenzied marathons become a distant memory!