sarahsather

Just curious to see all of your study habbits and whether or not you are able to listen to music or use noise generators like white noise, etc while doing textbook readings for comprehension. I am looking into trying this out but I just do not want to end up reading an entire chapter or two and not comprehending anything.

Thank you. That is good to hear. Anyone else have a comment about this? I am curious to hear others study habits in regards to music/noise generators online/ etc.

Alright everyone I have one more question. I am not finally adjusting myself to studying in my room and I am starting to use my noise cancelling headphones and listening to: SimplyRain - The Best Free Rain Generator on the Internet. every time I study. Now, I am just curious if any of you are able to study without that dead quit or are you able to put headphones in and listen to music or noises like the rain link I sent? I just want to know that other people can do the same thing so I do not feel nervous about doing this. I am using this while reading nursing textbooks where I need to comprehend everything and I just fear that with this constant rain noise it will not allow me to fully comprehend my reading. I am just curious what is the "norm" here.

Just an FYI - that set up is exactly how I have it now.. lol.. I share a room with a girl and it is so small it just fits beds and a desk and then we share a small bathroom area with two other girls who live next door, and I mean very close next door. I am not in some high quality dorm where I have my own room and then my roommate has another room but I still consider her my "roommate." I am in a place where the maximum distance between my roommate and I can be about 5 feet lol so yeah.

Thank you for all of your posts. Do not worry about seeming as though you are "ganging up" on me, it actually is beneficial for me to see people's thoughts on this from an outsider's perspective because I know very well that my thoughts right now are very skewed from reality. I appreciate all of the advice and words of wisdom, I have favored some of what you all said and am using it as inspiration to get myself out of this rut. I apologized to my roommate and we seem to be on a lot better terms. I told her how appreciative I am of her using her headphones to watch TV and she said it is not a big inconvenience to her so it is working out well. I am trying to make studying in my room work because this is where I recieved my 4.0 GPA last year, and I feel so much more comfortable here. When all else fails, I will resort to my study room on the floor above me and lock the door where no one else can interrupt or else take the walk to the library. Thank you all for reminding me of my options and my strengths which have gotten me into this program. I appreciate all of your advice.

Pecanpies - I appreciate your post. Hearing from all of you on this site has made me realize that I really need to be more optimistic about things. Earlier in the year, I was actually able to deal with these things and just shrug them off, but as you know, they have now become essentially the "end of the world" for me. Last night I turned around from my desk and told my roommate that I do not want to have this odd tension between us because it makes me being in the room feel really uncomfortable and I just want there to be nothing weird in between us. I believe that helped a little. I still cannot control her ever move, but I feel that my room in this dorm is probably quieter than a lot of the ones I could get stuck moving in to - so I will keep reminding myself that. Do you, pecanpies, think that I should spend the majority of my time studying in there? I am doing it right now and I am not having too many issues or stressful bouts, so I am hoping that maybe I am on the road back to my old self. I do only have one more semester left of this, and I guess it is not going to be perfect, but I will have to make use of a lot of stress-reduction techniques and make use of my alternative sites to study such as the study room in my dorm or my library, no matter how not so "ideal" they are in my mind. In addition, yes, I have visited the counseling center. To be honest, it was kind of "lame." They gave me a sheet with muscle relaxation techniques and told me to get an apartment off campus after I had told the woman three times I did not have a car.. haha, so it was not the best experience.

SimplyRain - The Best Free Rain Generator on the Internet. Do you think this could help me study? Or is it more distracting?

Okay thanks I appreciate that advice. I will do that then. I will stop using my ear plugs and then just put on my headphones which are these: http://www.howardleight.com/images/media/0000/0241/leightning_L3_main.jpg?1345620849 to cancel out some sounds without having to worry about it giving me swimmer's ear. I will put ear pods in with white noise too to see if that works for me. Are you guys able to say.. read a completley new reading in the textbook that you really need to understand WHILE listening to music or white noise? I just am so accustomed to needing complete silent when doing things like that, but I do not know if many others are able to have music while doing so - just wanting to see if it is worth giving a try or if it will end up being a mistake because I won't comprehend anything. I kind of just want to "train" myself to be able to study and read with music because I feel it may help my scenario a lot.

Thank you for your postings. So with this Swimmer's ear what do I do to get rid of it? I need my ear plugs at night for sure due to the snoring, but I suppose I will have to stop wearing them while studying. I have visited the counseling center at my school and they did not do much to help me besides suggest "muscle relaxation" techniques. I really agree with what you said though - I cannot expect someone to be completely quiet and I think I have somehow convinced myself that this girl needs to be that way, and anything that is deviated from 100% silence I find to be "so annoying" and it just sets me on edge. Do you think I should just leave my room altogether and study somewhere else all the time, or learn to cope with this environment since it is definitely a lot more convenient for me to study in and it really is not that loud since she does watch TV often and that makes the room noiseless.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I am going to try to take away all of this negativity and hope my dorm room can just work, because it is definitely the most convenient. I have another serious question. I have been using ear plugs now to study and sleep ever since the past probably 3-4 months, and now I am experiencing quite a lot of pain because of them. It is really worrying me because in a way I "depend" on them with my roommates snoring and to cancel out sounds while studying. I have started to use a very small drop of water inside of my ear canal to ease insertion of the earplugs since I have a small ear canal and now I fear that is maybe causing all of my pain. What do you think is the issue here? Right now I am sitting up at my computer and I just am dreading taking out the ear plugs because it drives me to the point where I am almost to tears.

Thank you for all of your help. It really is good to hear advice from fellow nurses/nursing students. I needed to know how to best handle this and I appreciate all of the options you have all given me. I will try tomorrow for one last time to make this work in my room and try to just avoid even thinking about this girl being in the room, and if that does not work, I will be off to the library and hope that it works out for me there. This next semester will be a tough one, and even finishing off this one with my finals will not be the easiest for me since I am so used to just having my room as a set place to study, but I hope that I am able to push it through and make it through this semester so I can just have my place next year with my 3 bedrooms and one for me and be in peace. Also, how many of you use music to study? I have tried to listen to "gray noise" on SimplyNoise.com and I just cannot seem to focus on what I'm reading.

Okay, I will look into that. I tell myself to stop obsessing over it every day, and I just always end up in the same predicament. I don't get what has gotten into me. I usually am really on top of my game. I have over 100% in all of my classes right now and now that this is really starting to stress me out, I just don't know what is going to happen. I just hope the library is what saves me.

Yeah, if this really continues to be bad, I may consult my hall director and see what girls are looking for roommates. I just do not get what kind of girl who has a room to herself would want someone else. I mean if I had a room like that, I sure as hell would never have someone else live in it with me haha. You know? I guess my plan for now is to just go to the library and see how it works out. There is hopefully some spot I can find there where I can get things done. I am someone that makes nonstop flashcards and really just needs a big space to work, and my dorm desk is pretty great for that so it is a shame that I cannot do work here.

I think you both are right. I just need to hear the truth of the matter and have somewhat of a reality check. I think it is a combination of the stress, how I have been somewhat up and down in regards to my hopes of getting a single room, and now that it isn't happening, it just adds to my anxiousness. My dorm has study spaces on three floors, but they are all really poorly lit and also they are right on the guy floors where people walk by all the time and yell and talk and and doors open and close and it is rather distracting. I feel that I will just have to try the library. The thing is, there a few girls I could try out as a roommate next semseter but it is because their roommates are leaving them this semester. Usually, there is a reason for that. I do not want to move into another place where I come across new problems or worse ones where I have now. Do you think I should take the gamble and move with someone else?

I have 33DB noise reduction earplugs and then I have shooting muffs and I wear them. They seem to block out a good amount of noise (I wear them together.. lol it is crazy) but it still doesn't cancel out everything since her and I are in such close proximity. It is a small dorm room. I should have never moved in. That brings up another topic, I am SO used to studying with absolute quiet that I have tried "brown noise" and it sometimes works, but I am always nervous I am not retaining what I am reading. As you all know, nursing requires us to read these textbooks like crazy and really grasp the info. Is brown noise like known for helping a person concentrate?

I have talked to my roommate. I have asked her to do many little things to make it easier on me. I feel that some of the things I ask her are unreasonable though, because I am so stressed that everything is getting to me. She snores at night, and it kills me because I really enjoy studying late at night in my dorm room, and since the library closes at midnight, that will suck. I have told her how important school is to me and how I need like absolute quiet while studying, and I don't know. she does not seem to really understand. I feel like I have bothered her so much that I cannot ask her anything else. I am to the point now where her opening and closing drawers loudly all the time and her flipping back and forth her notebook pages constantly when she attempt to study is bothering me, when I do not think it should. I am not sure though if those are rational things to be bothered by.

Thank you for your comment. I will try the library this Monday and hope that it makes things a lot better for me. The one other problem is that, I have become to dependant on my ear plugs that I almost cannot study without them at all. Is that bad? I feel that using headphones all day to sleep and then study is not healthy for my ears, I am starting to have ear pain and it makes me scared because I am starting to think I wont be able to use my ear plugs anymore and I am like dependant on them. I hope you guys can understand, I am just having a rough time and I really need to get through this. My grades are dropping and it is unlike me. I really am dedicated and I just cannot believe what has gotten into me.

Every single day? Because that is what I will be doing. The thing that makes me feel weird about it, is that I just like having one single constant spot to study where I know I can be for an unlimited time. In my room, I do not have to leave at midnight because it is closing, I do not have to worry about not being in the same spot. Is this weird? I feel I am starting to over-obsess over things because I am just under too much stress.

Thank you for both of your comments. Yes - I have met with people. I actually had an arrangement to get a single room, but to my luck, one of the girl's changed her minds and was going to keep her room so that got ruined. Obviously, that made me very sad. I just wish I could study in my room without having so many issues, because it really is what is best for me. Having to go to the library will be inconvenient, but I will have to adapt big time and just make this next semester work. I really care about my education and my grades, and I just do not know if it is "normal" for a student to have to go to the library every day to student, or if I should just stick it out and put music on or something like gray noise or whatever to just focus and try it out in my room. What do you guys think?

Hello. This problem I am having may need quite a long introduction, but I will summarize as best as I can. What I need is genuine advice. Last year I was a very hard working student and I got a 4.0 GPA and go accepted into my university nursing program. Now this year, I ended up having to get paired up with a random roommate in a dorm room because I do not have a car. This first semester has been a downhill spiral for me. Last year, my roommate, who ended up having to transfer schools for her major, was perfect. She was never in the room really, and when she was, we were friends and she was quiet as could be, so I could STUDY. Now this year, I thought that getting assigned to a random roommate in a small dorm room would not be horrible, but it has been. My roommate is not that bad of a person. She initially started off watching TV all teh time in the room and it was hard for me to adapt to since last year I was able to study without any problems. We ended up working out it out where she uses headphones while watching TV now, but I still find way to get distracted, like when she is opening and closing drawers she is really loud and just kind of careless where my roommate last year was always courteous as can be and dead silent. Also, she does not care about school and it is hard for me to be in this environment. I have tried and tried to switch room and it has gotten to the point where I feel I NEED a single, but there is not a single room available on campus. I have no car, so I cannot go anywhere off campus. Now it is to the point that whenever I go and study in my room, or do anything, I just cannot do it. I get so much anxiety inside of me and I just have a panic attack. The library is a 10 minute walk from my dorm every single day, and I just fear that I will be unhappy there. My roommate snores each and every night too and it keeps me up and I have to use ear plugs and ti still does not blcok it out. What do you suggest I do to cope with this situation? I really need advice because I can see my grades and motivation slowly but surely slipping through the palm of my hand. Next year I have plans already to life with 3 people and I will have my own bedroom, but I just fear I will not be able to get through this one more semster with this girl and I feel that things will go downhill to the point where I have too many issues where I may have to just go home. Please, I need genuine advice here.