Body Before Books

Why getting ready to study starts with noticing how we feel.

Do you remember sitting at your desk, textbook open, reading the same paragraph for the third time and realising that absolutely nothing was going in? You were looking at the words. You might even have been highlighting a few sentences, just to feel like you were accomplishing something. But if someone had asked you what you’d just read, you probably wouldn’t have had the faintest idea.

Sound familiar?

Now, have you ever noticed something similar happening with your teenager?

The books are open, the stationery is ready, and technically there’s absolutely no reason they can’t get started.

Except that concentration seems to have left the building.

It’s easy to assume that they’re distracted, unmotivated or simply not trying hard enough. But what if the problem isn’t necessarily their willingness to study?

What if their bodies are trying to tell them something?

Your body comes to the desk, too

In our previous article, Before You Open the Books, we spoke about preparing more than just textbooks, notes and timetables. We also need to consider the person who’s about to do the learning.

And I think a good place to start is with our bodies. Because sometimes, before we even begin worrying about our thoughts or emotions, there are much simpler things going on.

Perhaps your teenager didn’t sleep well. Maybe they’re hungry, exhausted or physically uncomfortable. Perhaps they’ve spent the entire morning rushing from one activity to another, or you’ve had a weekend filled with so much activity that Monday arrives before anyone has properly recovered.

Sometimes they’re overwhelmed by noise, movement, people or everything happening around them.

And sometimes, they simply feel a little off.

There’s a reason this matters.

Our bodies and brains are constantly communicating. Sleep, physical activity, stress and our general physical condition can all influence how alert and ready we feel to concentrate. And concentration matters when we’re trying to learn.

After all, studying isn’t simply about getting information in front of our eyes. We need to pay attention to it, work with it, understand it and remember it.

So perhaps, before we ask our teenagers, “What do you need to study today?” we could start with another question.

“How are you arriving at your desk today?”

Learning to recognise our state

Now, I don’t want to turn this into another complicated task. The last thing a teenager needs is a fifteen-step preparation routine before they’re even allowed to open their Science textbook! But I do think there’s value in learning to recognise how our bodies feel.

There’s actually a term for part of this awareness: interoception. It describes how our nervous system senses and interprets signals coming from inside our bodies, such as hunger, breathing and heartbeat. We don’t need to understand all the science to begin noticing those signals. We can simply become curious.

Am I feeling heavy or light? Restless or settled? Tense or relaxed? Is my breathing comfortable? Do I feel alert, or am I struggling to keep my eyes open?

To make these experiences a little easier to recognise, I like using four familiar elements: ground, wind, water and fire.

They’re not four scientific categories, and they certainly aren’t personality types. They’re simply pictures that can help us describe different experiences. And here’s something interesting: each element has qualities that can be useful for learning. It’s when those qualities become difficult to manage that we might need a little support.

As you read through them, perhaps you’ll recognise something from your own school days. Or maybe you’ll suddenly understand something you’ve been noticing in your teenager.

Ground — When everything feels heavy

Think about the feeling of being grounded. There’s something lovely about it, isn’t there?

Feeling secure, settled and steady. You’re comfortable where you are. You’re not being pulled in every direction. That’s a wonderful quality to bring into a study session.

But now imagine that same sense of heaviness becoming a little too heavy. Your shoulders droop. Your arms hang loosely beside you. You find yourself slouching in your chair, resting your head on your hand or practically melting onto your desk. Even walking feels like an effort. You know that “sleepvoet” feeling, when you’re almost dragging your feet instead of properly lifting them off the ground? That’s the kind of heaviness I’m talking about.

You might feel sleepy, sluggish or disconnected from what’s happening around you. You know you need to get started, but even reaching for your textbook seems like a rather ambitious undertaking.

Perhaps you’ve noticed your teenager sitting at the table with their head resting on their arms, responding to every question with a long, exhausted sigh. Sometimes this happens because we’re tired. Sometimes we’ve been sitting too long, haven’t eaten enough or simply need a change of activity. And sometimes we genuinely need rest.

We want the steadiness. The security. The feeling of being present and settled. But what we don’t necessarily want is that overwhelming heaviness that makes participating in a task feel like hard work before we’ve even begun.

Wind — When everything is everywhere

Wind is interesting because it can be wonderfully expansive. Think about how a breeze moves through an open space. There’s freedom, movement and possibility. And those qualities can be useful when we’re learning. We want to be curious. We want to explore ideas, make connections and think creatively.

But what happens when that wind has absolutely no direction?

You sit down to study Maths, remember something you wanted to tell your friend, notice a bird outside, wonder what you’re having for dinner and suddenly realise you’ve been staring at the same equation for ten minutes. And no, you still haven’t solved it.

Your thoughts aren’t necessarily frightening or stressful. They’re simply everywhere. One thought leads to another, and then another, until your mind seems to have travelled halfway around the world while your body is still sitting at the desk. You might keep changing tasks, reaching for your phone, looking around the room or struggling to stay with one thing long enough to finish it.

As a parent, you might recognise this as the teenager who has been sitting at their desk for half an hour but somehow hasn’t managed to complete the first question.

They’re not necessarily worrying about anything in particular. Their attention just doesn’t seem to have anywhere to settle.

We want the curiosity, creativity and ability to connect ideas, but we also want enough direction to bring those wonderful thoughts back to the task in front of us.

There’s a time to explore, and there’s a time to concentrate. Both are valuable.

Water — When everything feels fast and unsettled

I love the idea of water flowing. A gentle river moves around obstacles, follows its course and continues forward. There’s something peaceful about that kind of movement.

But water doesn’t always flow gently.

Think about a river after heavy rain, or a canoe moving through rapids. Everything seems to happen quickly. There are currents, unexpected turns and obstacles that require constant attention.

Now imagine that feeling in your body. Your shoulders might be raised. Your muscles feel tight. Your breathing becomes quicker or shallower. You might bite your nails, fidget with your fingers or keep looking around as though you’re waiting for something to happen. Perhaps your eyes feel wide and alert, and your body seems to be preparing for the next problem before the current one has even arrived. You might be worrying about how much work you have left, whether you’ll remember everything or what will happen if you don’t do well.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling of being constantly on the lookout.

Perhaps you’ve seen this in your teenager before a test. They keep asking whether they’ve studied enough, checking the time, going back over the same information and anticipating everything that could possibly go wrong.

And when we’re in that state, all that tension and anticipation can make it difficult to settle our attention on the information in front of us.

We want the ability to move, adapt and flow through a task. We want our thinking to move from one idea to another and our learning to progress. But we don’t need to feel as though we’re navigating dangerous rapids every time we open a textbook.

A gentler flow can be much easier to work with.

Fire — When everything feels intense

Fire can be wonderful. It brings warmth, energy and movement.

Think about the excitement of starting something you’re passionate about, the determination to finish a difficult task or that wonderful burst of motivation when you’re making progress.We need some of that energy when we study.

 But fire can also become a little too intense.

Perhaps you feel hot, restless or unusually impatient. Your jaw is tight, your muscles are tense and you feel as though you need to do everything immediately. You might rush through your work, become irritated when something takes too long or feel frustrated with anyone who interrupts you.

As a parent, perhaps you’ve seen your teenager become increasingly irritated when they can’t solve a problem immediately. They push harder, rush through the next question and become even more frustrated when they make a mistake. Or perhaps they’re so determined to finish everything that they refuse to take a break, even when they’re clearly exhausted.

It’s as though the energy that was supposed to help them move forward has started pushing them harder than they intended.

We want the drive, passion and willingness to take action. We want enough energy to begin, keep going and finish what we’ve planned. But we also want to recognise when we’ve done enough.

Because learning to stop and rest is just as important as learning to get started.

What if we brought the best of all four together?

Now imagine taking the useful qualities from each of these experiences.

From ground, we take steadiness and security.

From wind, we take curiosity and the ability to connect ideas.

From water, we take flexibility and a comfortable sense of flow.

And from fire, we take motivation and the energy to move forward.

What might that feel like?

Perhaps you’re sitting comfortably at your desk, without feeling as though you’re collapsing into your chair or holding your entire body stiff.

Your breathing feels comfortable, and there’s enough space to take a full breath.

You feel awake enough to participate, but not so restless that you need to jump up every few minutes.

Your attention can move between ideas, but you’re able to bring it back to what you’re doing.

You have enough energy to get started and enough flexibility to pause, change direction or take a break when you need to.

You’re not necessarily perfectly calm, wonderfully motivated or completely free from distractions.

You’re simply in a state that you can work with.  

And I think that’s a much more realistic goal.

What if we recognise more than one?

You might be reading this and thinking, “Well, I feel like ground and wind at the same time.”

Or perhaps you recognise a little water and fire.

That’s perfectly possible.

We might feel physically exhausted while our thoughts are jumping everywhere. We might be tense and worried but also feel determined to get everything finished.

These experiences aren’t neat little boxes that we fit into. And we certainly don’t need to analyse ourselves until we’ve identified the perfect combination.

In fact, please don’t!

The whole purpose of this is to make studying a little easier, not to give ourselves another thing to worry about. Sometimes all we need to notice is that we’re feeling a little too fast, too tense, too scattered or too sluggish.

And then ask:

“Is there something small I could do to help myself feel more ready?”

Sometimes the answer is surprisingly simple

If your teenager is feeling heavy and sluggish, perhaps standing up, stretching or taking a short walk could help them feel more awake.

If they’re restless and scattered, perhaps a little movement followed by sitting down with one clear task would help them settle.

If they’re tense and rushing, perhaps slowing their breathing, releasing some muscle tension or stepping away for a moment would help.

And if they’re bursting with energy, perhaps some physical activity would be useful before returning to a more settled pace.

But remember, not every feeling needs a special exercise.

Sometimes they’re hungry and need something to eat. Sometimes they need water. Sometimes they’ve had too little sleep and what they really need is rest, not another clever technique.

And sometimes? They’re absolutely fine. They sit down, open their books and get started.

Wonderful!

There’s no need to prepare for the sake of preparing.

The question is simply whether the state they’re in is helping them engage with what they’re about to do. And if it isn’t, whether there’s something reasonable they can do about it.

A little story from our home

I see this quite often when I’m helping my own children in our homeschool journey.

There are days when we sit down, check how everyone’s feeling and discover that we’re actually quite ready to begin. Everyone’s reasonably settled. We know what needs to happen, and we can get straight into the work. No special preparation required.

But then there are other days.

Perhaps we’ve had a particularly busy weekend, and Monday morning arrives with everyone feeling a little tired and disconnected. Or perhaps something happened earlier in the day, and one of the children is feeling frustrated, angry or overwhelmed.

And then we sit down to study.

The books are open, the work is ready, and technically there’s absolutely no reason we can’t begin. Except that concentration seems to have gone on holiday. I can explain the same thing three times, and somehow it still doesn’t seem to land.

And I’ve learned that sometimes, continuing to push through isn’t the most helpful response. It’s almost like trying to invite someone into a house when the doors are still closed. You can keep knocking, but perhaps what you really need is to find out why the door isn’t opening.

Of course, our brains don’t literally close their doors to information. But when we’re exhausted, overwhelmed or under significant stress, paying attention and holding information in mind can become more difficult. And if we keep forcing our way through without recognising what’s happening, we may spend a lot of time working without getting nearly as much out of it as we’d hoped.

Sometimes a short break, a little movement or simply acknowledging how we’re feeling changes the way we approach the next part of the day.

Not every time. Not magically. But often enough that I think it’s worth paying attention to.

There is a better way

I don’t believe the goal is to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling before we study.

Life doesn’t work like that, even though we all sometimes wish it could.

There will be stressful days, disappointing moments, difficult exams and times when we need to do things even though we don’t feel particularly ready. And that’s part of learning, too. We don’t want teenagers to believe they can only study when they feel perfectly calm, comfortable and motivated.

But I also don’t think we need to teach them to ignore everything their bodies are telling them.

There is a better way.

A way that begins with curiosity rather than criticism.

Instead of immediately asking, “Why can’t you concentrate?” we can become curious about what might be happening.

Perhaps they’re tired. Perhaps they’re hungry. Perhaps they’re tense, overwhelmed or simply in need of a little movement. And as parents, we can help them learn to recognise these things for themselves.

Because ultimately, we don’t want to be the ones who always have to tell them when they need to rest, move, eat or take a break. We want them to develop that awareness themselves.

And the lovely thing is that this awareness doesn’t only belong at a study desk.

One day, it might help before standing on a stage, preparing for a sporting event, having a difficult conversation or walking into an important meeting.

Because we’re not simply helping our teenagers prepare for studying. We’re helping them learn to recognise what their bodies are telling them and how to respond with a little more understanding.

And like any skill, this takes practice.

before your teen begins their next study session:

Perhaps you could ask them one simple question:

“How does your body feel about studying right now?”

Not whether they want to study. Not whether they’re excited about the work. Just how their body feels.

Heavy? Restless? Tense? Comfortable? Alert? A little bit of everything?

And then perhaps ask:

“Is there anything you need before we begin?”

They might need a short walk, something to eat, a few quiet minutes, or they might look at you and say, “I’m fine. Can we just get started?”

And that’s fine, too!

The point isn’t to create another routine that has to be followed perfectly. It’s to begin recognising ourselves a little better.

Because sometimes the most useful thing we can do before opening our books is simply to pay attention to the person who’s about to do the learning.

There is a better way.

Inwards & Upwards. 🌱