Ep. 8 - Essential Tips for Staying Active for SLP Praxis® Exam Prep

Tips for Staying Active for the SLP Praxis Exam === Elgato Wave:3: [00:00:00] Hello. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Praxis Speech Sister Show as part of the Pediatric Speech Sister Network. I am your host, Melanie y Evans. I am a certified speech language pathologist and praxis strategy coach here to help you build up the confidence that you need to pass the Praxis exam and beat it at its own game. So today we are talking about tips for staying active. While preparing for the practice exam now, you might be listening to this and watching this, rolling your eyes at me like, okay. Now first of all, I did not sign up for a fitness course or whatever. How am I supposed to even fit in fitness with my busy schedule? Do you see my coursework? Hear me out. Okay. Staying fit has so many benefits. Number one, staying active allows you to increase your energy and alertness, which is very necessary when taking the exam. I, myself and also many of my Praxis coaching clients self-diagnose themselves as having adhd. They say they have [00:01:00] undiagnosed H adhd. And so if that is something that you really struggle with, staying fit and building a consistent schedule will really help you build that alertness that you might need. Second stress reduction now. First of all, I will say that I am someone who has been active. I was an athlete in high school. I was a cheerleader. I was a cheerleader in college. I did volleyball, and I maintain that athleticism. Even if you do not consider yourself an athlete. Today I'm going to be talking about just some ways that you can get around maybe the cardio or the high intensity stuff and just make sure that you're still just staying active, even if that's just stretching, staying fit is so necessary. I remember I was watching the news with my mom and there were these 70 year olds, this like 75 year old on those pull up bars. Okay. She, and they pretty much, they were talking about how important it is to stay active, so a lot of us are [00:02:00] young. Even if you do not consider yourself able-bodied, there are still so many different things that we can do, and I will be sure to put out a separate episode for that. So, staying active, increase energy and awareness, stress reduction, enhanced brain health. A lot of us experience a lot of brain fog, better sleep quality. Increased motivation and confidence and overall wellbeing. I will be happy to put out a whole other episode on benefits of staying active. But let's get into the nitty gritty of finding some tips. Some tips for staying active while preparing for the practice exam. Set a steady schedule. So this might feel like it's separate from staying active, but setting a study schedule will really help you make sure that you are blocking out your time so that way you won't give up on yourself so quickly. I recommend setting a study schedule so that way not [00:03:00] only you can stay consistent, you'll keep yourself accountable and even when you feel like giving up, you're already in the habit of doing that task. 10 Outta 10 recommend develop a study schedule that includes time for physical health or physical activity, such as going for a walk, yoga, doing a fitness class. Make sure that you are adding some level of activity within your study schedule. This really also allows you to give your brain a break. A lot of us are in our clinical fellowships already and we are doing those hard IEPs, or we're in really busy workplace settings, and even if you're not graduate programs or busy in it of themselves, so you really wanna give yourself a break. Second, choose an activity you enjoy. So at the beginning of the episode, I talked about not stressing yourself. Don't push yourself or force yourself to do something that you don't actually want to do. Of course, you want it to be authentic with yourself and your values [00:04:00] and what aligns with you. I know that I had a friend. And she's really fit. Her name is Jasmine. She's a yoga instructor, and I asked her why she wanted to do yoga, and she said she didn't wanna do cardio. She said she knew she wanted to be fit, but she hated cardio. And that's something that's really authentic with who she is. Second, mix it up. Don't just choose yoga. Don't just choose running on the treadmill. Don't just choose weightlifting. Eventually, you might get bored and burn out of that. I recommend mixing it up by adding some fit, some dancing in your routines. I really like going on YouTube and looking up my favorite fitness influencers. Chloe Ting, she's like my favorite. I meet my girl every single day. There's Chloe Ting. There's yoga with Adrian, yoga with Nico, and also I was really huge on going out and going dancing. I loved dancing and that's just a good way to separate yourself from the anxiety of the test. Next [00:05:00] use activity as a study break. So this means setting out time blocks when in the passing the practice program. I talk about setting out time blocks. You don't wanna study more than 90 minutes at a time. Don't be trying to study four hours just straight. Okay? Definitely plan. A study break and use that time to stretch yoga, even if that means just going to the grocery store really quick. That's a great way to move around. Or doing the dishes, doing the laundry chores, watering the plants, gardening. This is ultimate self-care. Lastly, go outside. Go outside that is necessary. You might be watching this during the summertime, or if you're blessed enough to be in really warm months, go outside. Take advantage of the sun. There are so many benefits to the sun, including cognitive function, overall mental health. So [00:06:00] if you have some beautiful green grass, Go out there barefoot even, and meditate, stretch, do some nice lawn yoga movements, do your quick plan, challenge, whatever that might mean for you. And the last one, last but not least, make it social. So I remember when I was in graduate school, my friends and I, my co, no, not colleagues anymore, but my cohort members and I, we would go out to Planet Fitness after class and that was a great way to make us accountable and it really just felt like some sort of social club. It didn't feel like anything that was a dread. It was fun. We got to go to the gym. Also in college, I really loved going out with my girl Robin. We would go to hot yoga and then grab some drinks after, which might seem counterintuitive, but when we're talking about studying for the Praxis exam, make it fun. That's the biggest thing. You just wanna make sure that it's fun, you, and the biggest way to make it fun is to incorporate. Fitness. [00:07:00] Thank you all so much for listening to this episode. If you like this episode, give me a thumbs up, like share, subscribe, send it to your speech bestie. Be sure to click the link in the show notes. Download the free self-care strategies guide, and then I also have passing the Praxis 1 0 1 coming out. Until then, I'll see you next episode. Bye fam.