A brain fitness expert list ways to enhance junior's focus on his tasks and studies...

Enhance your child’s study skills: Focus

Boosting junior's focus will help your child ace their exams, along with good memory skills and an ability to think critically, states brain-fitness expert Cheryl Chia. She elaborates...

A) Exercise

* Exercise likely improves mental focus through increased blood flow to the brain.

* Research shows that a short 10- to 20-minute burst of exercise can lead to an immediate boost of concentration and mental focus after that.

B) Manage technology

* Too much screen time can make it hard for your child to sleep at night and raise your child's risk of attention problems, anxiety and depression the following days.

* For children 0-2 years old, the recommendation is no screen time! For children above 2 years old, less than 2 hours of screen time per day is recommended.

C) Avoid multi-tasking

Our brains simply cannot focus on two things at the same time. Multi-tasking creates frantic switching in the brain as you focus on each task for a few seconds at a time, preventing the brain from strengthening its attention span.

Remember The 80/20 Rule

Neuroscientists recommend that this optimal level for building neural connections is where the student is able to accomplish 80 per cent of the task but is challenged to complete the remaining 20 per cent. This 80/20 rule allows the student to experience success and yet challenges the brain to build new connections over the 20 per cent of the material that they are learning to master.

Check out our next two exam-ace reminder stories as they come up...

Cheryl Chia is the director of BrainFit Studios.

Photo: SmartParents

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