I know, I know…the semester ended only 10 weeks ago and your college kid is still ‘recovering’ from the semester. Waking up in the early afternoon. Hanging out with friends in the evenings. Between the nocturnal lifestyle and lack of stimulation, your kid’s brain actually is losing some of the intellectual ground gained from last Spring and Fall. Reading, math and memorization have all been found to decline in as short a time as a summer break. Unfortunately – most of the research targets children and adolescents but can possibly be generalized to young adults.

Before I give you the top 5 list, I want to explain a bit about why preparing for Fall semester is so important. I’ve written this as if I was talking to a client.

Decreased Anxiety: When you exercise your brain, when you read, when you challenge your memory, you are preparing for the start of the semester. When you arrive back on to campus and first hit your classes, despite not knowing all the information in specific courses, you will feel more confident and be able to process the new information much faster. This leads to great confidence and…lower anxiety.

Planning: When you exercise your brain before the start of the semester, you are also more likely to find the motivation and inspiration to do some good planning. Planning like putting all your classes and scheduled events into your calendar. Planning like figuring out where your classes are before the first day of classes. Planning like figuring out a good nutrition, exercise and sleep schedule.

Communication: When you exercise your brain, you are more likely to map out daily and weekly schedule. When you are proud of your daily checklist, you are more likely to provide regular updates to your parents which creates a feedback loop – when they hear positive updates about structure and accomplishment, they are more likely to give you more space.

Ok, now let’s talk about how to exercise your brain throughout July and August. Some of these are painfully obvious but non-the-less important.

1. Read: Read 60 minutes every day. Fiction, non-fiction – doesn’t matter. I don’t really care if someone is reading on a Kindle, iPhone or one of those book things with paper. Loads of research has found that reading decreases anxiety, increases mental stimulation, improves creative thinking skills, contributes to healthy sleep and helps.

2. Math: You don’t need to do calculus problems every day but using your brain rather than your phone is a super simple way to get some exercise. Examples: when you go out to dinner, figure out the tip in your head rather than your phone. Start working on your personal finance – figure out a budget for yourself for the school year. Anything that you use your phone for, use your brain first.

3. Planning: Put some life back into your calendar. I recommend students use either the google calendar or iCal. Put all your meetings, doctors appointments, work schedules, and social things into one place. Start now not only so you get used to regular interaction with your calendar, but also so you exercise the part of your brain that’s associated with imagination – yes, imagination. Another way to think of it is future thinking. Imagination is how to engage with the future and our calendars are ways to organize and imagine things we want to do that need a specific day and time.

4. Sleep: Start getting to be at a regular time. Whether it’s 11:00pm or 2:00am – make it regular. The brain cares more about regularity than about a specific time for sleep. Good sleep habits take time. The worst time to start is after you’ve already gotten back on to campus.

5. Wake Up!: Same thing on the back end – start waking up at a regular time even if you have nothing to do.

That’s it for now. Summer is a great time to rejuvenate but should be used cautiously. Summer is also a great time to level up and build a solid foundation for the Fall.