Edition 12: ‘You are enough here-and-now:’ your ideal study environment
Linden Thorp
Empowering Women to Escape the Overwhelm, Build Financial Freedom & Secure Their Digital Futures| Speaker | Author | Mentor
Hi Lifelong Learners,
Good to be back again. I hope you are enjoying our weekend time together and that, in some way, I can contribute to your Learning/Study Wellness/Well-Being in the week ahead. I am very grateful that you’re here so that I have the opportunity to extract all the insights of my long career in letter form. Btw, I love email—it’s just like speaking—but I am a writer through and through, so I’m sad that not many letters are written these days! Snail mail is almost redundant in Japan, so if I do send something outside by post, it takes forever and may not ever arrive! Long live newsletters!
Notice the leading images for this edition in which I’ll bring to your attention the importance of your study environment. It’s interesting that in all 4 environments, there is refreshment, both liquid and solid. Putting out your mental energy indeed needs to be balanced with inputting energy. However, based on previous editions, your studying and learning efforts are not just about the head. I believe that you can work on your body while you study which perhaps creates a new definition for the word ‘concentration.’ This means that your energy flows onward beyond ideas and theories, knowledge, and rhetoric. You are an organic entity, absolutely enough here-and-now as you are, so it’s crucial to keep your balance and move your attention between the subject matter you are acquiring and your living being.
Remember, we are not studying to fill up an empty shell! Instead, we bring things from our storehouse to the surface so we can use them in our daily lives. We are also making connections with our passions and our ancestral line when we study. Our ancestors? You may be surprised at the mention of this, but when you think about it, you are the most recent product of a very long line of people with your DNA! Also, your ancestors had incredible insights and knowledge, as well as courage and determination to survive against great odds, which are packed away in your storehouse.
It’s no mistake that we have an affinity with a distant ancestor because traits are left behind in our DNA. This can relate to anything about you that may be surprising to others. For example, my maternal family were Spanish minstrels and lace-makers. Long before I knew that, I had a deep passion for music. Later, I became a professional musician and lived in the High Pyrenean mountains between southern France and Spain, where the troubadour—medieval minstrels and poets—flourished. I also have always loved white lace especially for bedding. I recently wrote a novel about my time there which figures those medieval minstrels — ‘Never Stop Singing to Me’ — in case you need a good story to relax you before you sleep—which I also recommend, incidentally.
Your Senses
So, remember that your 6 senses are all involved in your studying/learning process: seeing, listening, smelling, tasting, feeling, and ESP or psychic intuitions. I have written many articles about this in my Working From Home series, which you can find on my website. Your outer eyes, inner eyes, your ears, your listening skills, your back and posture, etc. So, if you’d like to read more about how to balance your senses when you are working/studying online, they may be helpful. Above all, ensure you have good lighting, a view to gaze at occasionally, and a source of natural air. It’s also important to not stay in the same position for too long. If I’m working hard, I set a time to repeat my alarm every 20 minutes so I can remember to change or walk away from what I’m doing for a while.
Sitting Vs Standing
You may think that sitting is the most comfortable position to study/learn in, but it’s a challenging position to maintain when your mind is fully occupied. You need to have the right kind of chair, which is often difficult to find and expensive, so it’s better to vary your position between standing and sitting for many hours at your desk/table. As an Alexander teacher, I taught people how to sit correctly for many years, so I realise the hazards. In general, and briefly, keep your spine upright, the top of your head going up into the sky, and your feet flat on the floor, your legs hip-width apart. Your wrists should be lower than your fingers on your PC keyboard, and your upper arm hanging straight down from the shoulder. Here’s a helpful page from my e-Self-Study Guide.
I favour working in a standing position nowadays. It allows me to breathe correctly, which is challenging to do when you are sitting. I also find it energizing and airy. I can keep my neck free by occasionally looking from left to right, and I can even stand on one leg, as in the picture above, which is relaxing. I invested in a standing desk some time ago, which is a great help. IKEA has an excellent range at very reasonable prices.
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However, if you can’t afford that or you don’t have space in your study area, then a PC desk to position your PC at a tilted angle with the screen at straight-ahead eye-level is an excellent alternative. They are cheap and readily available on the Internet.
Plants are lovely study buddies. They live and breathe with you, providing a gorgeous, lush focus to relax your eyes from time to time.
Eye Health
I have written in great detail in my WFH articles on flourishwriteconsult.com, but here I’d like to mention a simple little exercise you can do from time to time, perhaps every 20 minutes when your alarm sounds, to keep your eyes from getting tired and dry. Of course, sitting in front of a PC for long hours is unnatural, and the radiation and signal traces they give off can unconsciously get you down. You may have been given drops to put in your eyes to keep them moist, especially if you wear glasses or contact lenses. But now, research shows you can easily stimulate tears, which contain oils to soothe your eyes. So, try this:
These 3 simple exercises will serve as safeguards while at the same time giving you a break in your focus.
Whenever you can, please walk outside in the fresh air and breathe.
Breathing while writing
We tend to breathe very shallowly when concentrating, especially when typing on the keyboard. So, standing up if possible, as you type each of your sentences, please breathe in gently through your nose as you write the capital letter of its first word, continue inhaling slowly until you approach the full stop at its end, and start to exhale slowly. Of course, take a break from this, perhaps limiting yourself to 10 sentences at a time and then resting, and of course, adapting this if you’re writing very long or short sentences.
Just think about where the breath starts at the tip of your nose and feel your shoulders/chest widening as more air fills your lungs and your rib cage lifts. You can also notice your diaphragm expanding.
On the out-breath, blowing through slightly parted lips, feel your shoulders dropping and your diaphragm moving inwards and up. Controlled breathing can stimulate the secretion of well-being hormones, too, so it will inevitably make you feel good.
If you go back to Edition 7 you’ll find lots of pointers to getting your environment perfect to make your studying smooth and efficacious.
Well, that’s all today. Next edition, I’d like to talk more about mindfulness, especially during the preparation phase of your study/learning activity, the benefits of standing on 1 leg while working, as well as the resource of meditation to use to balance your work/study/life continuum.
Have a great week sitting and standing well, and remember your DNA—you may become the most superbly well-adjusted version of your ancestral line if you take up my suggestions. Also, remember that happiness feeling, too. It’s so wonderful that we live at a time when there are so many opportunities for self-growth and fulfillment.
Yours in excellent posture!
Linden
ps: most images courtesy of Canva Premium.