**Study related**

**Study related**

How do people focus for long periods of time without becoming ineffective?

Other students in my anatomy & phys course can study for hours and maintain composure.

How do I do this?

Is it genetics and upbringing?

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pomodoro technique

p.s. its a protip

Good breaks, knowing when too much is too much, and self motivation. Rome wasn't built in a day, you need to give it your all several times to see results.

Watch Mel Robbins' "How to stop screwing yourself over" TED talk. Good lecture on realizing you are constantly in your comfort zone and understanding that you have to break that comfort zone when you can't find motivation to do something.

As a med student I try to study a minimum of 5 hs per day, not straight beacause at some point everyone just starts to read the same paragraph over and over again.

Preferably I resume first (the worst part) taking small breaks whenever I need them, not to watch TV or play something, just standing up and walking for 15 min is enough (time depends on you) the idea of not doing something else while breaks is to maintain focus and avoid "wishing or waiting for the next break".

After I resumed (generally before exams) I use my resumes and draw in a white board till I remember what I need. After that having someone to ask me questions makes me realize what I don't know and generally those things are the ones that "stick" the most

Dame guy, everyone procrastinates at some point though. And everyone haves its days. One day I ccan go straight from 11am to 2am just standing for eating and shitting cuz im into it that day, and some days I can't even finish a chapter

I like the idea of not losing focus during breaks but still allowing yourself rest

Believe me, if you "distract" during breaks by watching TV or playng vidya, like me, you are not with the clock on your head all the time just thinking about how much time u have left.

Take ur time during breaks, if u just walk around like me, eventually I say well time to finish this shit, and start studying again. If u are not able to start by urself set an alarm but don't be watching it like a faggot, use ur time to rest

you don't.
life is short and studying for long time (not learning) is boring.
have some consistency and study small portions everyday.
better control and high probability you won't forget what you learn.

>Study for 20 minutes
>Game for 30
>Study for 20 minutes
>Watch stupid shit like Scrubs for 30
And so on. If I bother studying. I'm a shitty student.

There are some carriers that don't have something like small portions to study faggot

It's called Adderall, user. Essentially your peers take methamphetamines.

Study for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break to walk outside. Rinse and repeat. This works wonders for me.

I can study for over 24 hours straight only breaking for food and bathroom. I also absorb everything I study so it's like im just wasting time. I learned to do this because i procrastinated in highschool and undergrad and would be forced to study like this for tests the next day.

However, my wife (gf st the time) could not study productively for more than like an hour straight in grad school. We were taking the same classes so i would study with her and she just couldn't keep going. However, after a lot of practice, she was able to stay focused for over 6 hours straight of productive studying.

My point is that it's an acquired skill. Think of it like going to the gym: at first you're weak as fuck but you just have to keep pushing yourself harder and harder until you get better gradually. It helps if your friends srent fucking ADD fags that discourage you from studying.

Vut if you do have ADD, just get adderall. People swear by that shit at all the prestigious unis.

oh yeah also, keep thinking about the material during the break, try to internalize and remember what you were studying

this

but note that interest plays a huge role as well.

i am not interested in biology or chemistry, so i HAVE to use pomodoro technique whenever im studying or working on anything related to these classes.
on the other hand, psychology is my passion, and i can spend H O U R S working on it and it would feel like minutes...

Might actually be easier to study with ADD.
Just need to get into the hyperfocus mode.

What he meant was to have consistency and study everyday.

For me it was ritalin, but then again I'm a major case of ADHD. If your life is generally a huge mess then maybe you have it as well, for me it turned my life around completely to such a degree that I feel it's necessary to bring it up in case you're in the same boat as I was.

It really was, and still is, a silver bullet for all my academical problems.

I study 3 hours and a half, from 8.30 to 12, with 2 to 3 small breaks (1 to eat, 1 to drink a coffee) up to 10 minutes each

after that I take a LONG break to eat lunch, let's say from 12 to 14, if I'm tired even up to 14.30. Then I study from 14.30 to 16.30 or 17. If it's a good day until 18, but it depends also on the weather.

I think studying more than 5-6 hours is useless, especially if you are learning new stuff.

oh also, I drink a lot of water so that I'm forced to go to the wc every once in a while for a micro break

Can you help me to unlock my hyperfocus in my studies?
Please senpai

Trust me, it's not. Just because you hyperfocus doesn't mean your mind will drift. For me hyperfocus simply means I get stuck on something, not that I can effectively work with it. Now that I am medicated and have enough experience to realize I'm hyperfocusing it's somewhat useful.

ADHD is fucking shit though, there's no way getting around that, but medicine mitigates a lot of it for me.

How do i know if i actually have ADHD or not, all i know is that in the past i was brought to some private clinic to some psychiatrist who gave me some bullshit test to "not click the spacebar when the X appears on the screen, but click it when you see any other letters", I had a not too substantial anomaly for impulsiveness.
But that's not important, they gave me Ritalin and Concerta and charged me premiums for the drugs and even the consultations itself, I feel like they're jewing me, but i'm not sure. I find it hard to focus on a task for a long time, as in I can't do it for long periods, I'm torn between whether it is due to my bad mental endurance or just my perceived ADHD. I don't want to resort to taking drugs, so far, i'm one of the more high performing students in my course, but i feel i'm not at my fullest potential yet, i know i can perform better, I'm one of those people that likes to dream big.

So the bottomline is, do i have ADHD or not? Is it due to my personal weakness in brain endurance or is it just due to the fact that i have ADHD, because sometimes when I study, my brain tends to drift. There is no strong focus. Thanks a lot, bros.
please help a fellow user out, i want to be able to advance and perform better than i currently can.

I can study for about 14 or 16 hours straight before my thought process is shit ( other than the biological functions like eating and washroom).

I find that if you study every day and keep it regular you feel guilty if your not studying so it motivates you to study.

I also smoke a ton of weed when I when I study. Get high before I study, then every problem I get right I go smoke again and if I get a problem wrong twice in a row I go smoke. I find it helps me focus/ gives me the will to study for so long.

I study Chem eng if people are wondering.

>a ton of weed when I when I study.
oh it shows

I dunno, but for me trying ritalin is what I imagine trying on glasses for the first time is if you've got bad vision. It's a fairly wide spectrum, but to me it sounds like you're getting jewed hard.

I guess how I would describe being without meds is like driving a ferrari in first gear, with meds on the other hand I can finally actually do what I want and kick ass every day.

When I got evaluated I answered as honest as I could, and it really opened my eyes to how incredibly dysfunctional I actually was. It's fairly common that people with ADHD underestimate how bad they have it, I mean everyone gets tired of studying right? Turns out it really is a big fucking difference, at least for me. At any rate, you're doing something really fucking dumb if you don't try out meds because of some misunderstood concept of pride or whatever.

The thing is, i've heard of people with ADHD way more serious than mine, for example, there is no way they can sit down and do 1 thing, one guy i knew had to play with a basketball by bouncing while doing his work, i didn't have that problem, the problem with me is that i get ultra bored doing something for awhile and then fatigue kicks in and i just give into temptation and doing shit like what i'm doing now and video games and other bullshit useless activities.
What do you think, i like to blame it on my perceived ADHD, but i can't jump the gun, should i go back to the psychiatrist after like fuckin 13 years of no ritalin, the psychiatrist may just say, heh ur not failing a classes nothing's wrong, here's your 700 dollars consultation fee

Yes it does, going to graduate Summa Cum Laude.

Stop being jealous because I'm studying something I enjoy and will pay the bills.

Some people go from being dysfunctional to being moderately functional, I went from being moderately functional into getting a phd spot. The criterium for getting medicine in civilized countries is not failing classes, it's under-performing wrt your own abilities and intellect, which there is a possibility that you are doing.

I don't know how it is in burgerworld, but a competent psychologist will likely be able to pick up ADHD if you answer honestly and you feel like the symptoms of ADD, such as the fatigue that sets in is hampering you. It doesn't sound like your symptoms are super severe, but I still think what you describe fits with my experience of ADHD. You could always check out some online questionnaires, I found many of them were pretty representative of what I got asked during my diagnosis. You could also check out the ADHD sub-plebbit, but only for the sidebar info as people with ADHD generally are fucking annoying (takes one to know one I guess..)

Just don't enter Veeky Forums, I'm here when I should be studing (the exam is tomorrow and if I fail they will kick me off)

That's just autism user

I'm a different user.
So far I had tought that it was just ... being bored and/or being lazy

Thing is I get easily distracted by the cat, by an opening dor, by a church's bell.

And when I'm alone I have the mind literally always wondering about things. I mean sometimes I can read, but most of the times I find myself thinking about stuffs

Oh I also had social anxiety and I have some mild OCD

Co-morbid disorders are fairly common with ADHD. I was sort of depressed because I was a colossal fuckup before I got on ritalin, and I still have mad anxiety for shit like paying bills and taking phonecalls which stems from before I was diagnosed (I think, or maybe I just have anxiety, it's not very bad though).

I know there are people without ADHD who end up with the diagnosis, but from my experience turning my life around I prefer false positives over missed cases.

Very worth checking out, but its a very individual thing. Personally I couldnt attend lectures and I'd lose track of conversations (although I really wasnt aware of how lost I was during conversations before I tried meds, so its not necessarily a good indicator)

nonexisting dubs is correct

if you have non-consumable hobby like crafting, art or sports, it's wise to do this in your short breaks

I'd however refrain from watching TV or playing Games since those two are heavy on memory usage, which might overwrite some less important things you've learned before.

do you suffer at first taking adderall or ritalin?

I didn't, but I went from IR to concerta. When I tried extended release (between IR and concerta) it sucked and I got trouble sleeping. All three are ritalin, but even when we're talking about the same substance I reacted suprisingly different to different delivery methods, so maybe if I started on the ER stuff I'd answer yes.

Dont know about adderall, but people seem to take it recreationally so cant be all bad.
The only really shitty experience I've had was combining the ER stuff and a big cup of coffee (this happened when I was at home during xmas which is why I was on a different type, and why I drank coffee). It wasn't scary because I knew there were no significant risk, but it was very uncomfortable.

thing is, I got out my social anxiety using Paroxetine, which is quite devastating. I'd prefer to keep my adhd and not to feel as I used to with paroxetine

Made most of my anxiety go away. Ritalin only works for a few hours if you do instant release though, it's not like antidepressants where you need to be on it for a long while, and similarily taper off. I dont know what paroxetine is, but I can at least tell you that ritalin works for a short time period.

>Tfw im reading this thread instead of studying.

Passive study (i.e., just reading your notes/textbooks over and over again) doesn't work very well. Try flashcards and spaced repetition (there's FLOSS software for that: Anki, Mnemosyne, emacs org-mode with org-drill, ...).

With this approach you first go through your material and break it down into small pieces of information. This forces your brain to actively engage with the material and helps you think about "what kind of question could I be asked about this topic". Then, you revise your flashcards every day. This works very well if you do it frequently (i.e., every day). The spaced repetition (SM5) algorithm takes care of which cards to display based on which cards you had trouble remembering previously. You can have hundreds and thousands of cards and only spend a few minutes a day.

I use it for remembering formulas and proofs, CS algorithms, etc. My brother uses it for his Latin studies and my SO for (bio) chem, botany, biology, etc.

Note that both making and revising your flashcards is taxing and I never go for much longer than 1 hour without a break. Finally, note that you need a functioning brain to learn. Apart from water and glucose, the brain also needs time to consolidate the newly formed neural connections, i.e., rest and sleep.

If you're interested in substances, I've had good experiences with Rhodiola Rosea drops.

I always take a 10 minute break every hour or so. Taking short breaks enables me to learn a lot quicker than studying for 8 hours straight.
Maybe this isn't an answer you were looking for, I'm just giving my opinion.

If shit was true, that I do have ADHD that requires medication, do I have to be on meds for a large part of my life, I don't want that reality honestly.
This user:

lol more like sumo cum loudly

Adderall

what can you do to help mitigate brain fog, lethargy and inattention? Seems that no matter how much I sleep and practice "clean sleep hygene" I'm never rested and I'm always in a shit mood, I noticed stimulants helped with this but my heart feels like its going to explode from all the caffeine/nicotine and its expensive af.

sounds like me

that's a big sumo

for you

>when I when I when I when I
>hen every problem I get right I go smoke again and if I get a problem wrong twice in a row I go smoke.
Shut the fuck up

how much sleep do you get per night?

also take cat naps. sometimes when my brain gets too fogged up i take a 10 minute cat nap (15 if im really tired). and right after im good to go.

cheap

To people who are diagnosed with ADHD,
Do you generally have difficulty reading a book or
Watching a film?

What do you do to get to that standard of focus?

bump

You do get ineffective as the fuel for the neurons gets depleted after a while - mental fatigue. Then you need to eat and possibly sleep to rearm them neurons.

To focus better remove distractions. Put mobile on silent, cut off internet if you have a computer nearby. Make sure you don't have scheduled appointments nearby and that people won't risk rushing in and bother you. Any distraction can make you lose your focus.

So you eat to relieve mental fatigue?

Bump

Same famalia

>How do I do this?
You must be interested. And you are not interested, dumbass. Right now you could blow it all to hell and not feel bad about it. You are just some dumb narcissistic parasite going through the superficial motions in academia because you are too lazy to do manual labor.

To be interested, you must feel like a loser when you don't know the subject. This way, you work for the relief, which is very pleasurable. So starting now, I want you to call yourself a loser repeatedly, and then relate it to the subject. In a few weeks you will internalize this, and react accordingly.

Calcium Sodium Potassium are all ions which are used when "firing off" neurons in your brain when studying. A small break meal with stuff that contains those can be good.

Will work if your behavior gets constructive when you feel dumb. Many people instead give up or "run away" when they feel dumb.

Dont forget activated ions

I like to soak my ions in water for at least 12 hours before consumption

Agreed.

My favorite study snack is banana sundae with fries.

bro science and bad english coming through

1. 8 hours of sleep
2. brain is incapable of getting energy form fats and whatnot. the only source of energy is the glucose in the bloodstream, which becomes depleted in 2-3 hours after a meal. read about glycemic loads / curves
3. not letting in any negative emotions. your body gets used to stress hormones, and at some point you stop noticing it, but they're still disrupting your thought processes. make steering away toxic people your priority
4. being passionate about what you do. like when playing your favourite vidya, when you don't have to sleep or eat. there's no place for half measures - you have to turn yourself into a maniac
5. practice. working prolonged hours, putting your all efforts kicks in after a few months. a few weeks of exam session is not long enough to form a habit

>nobody told user he has an immaginary disease made up for appeasing mums with lazy children

Willpower and practice. You have to find what works for you and keep doing it. In the end you have you keep your hyperactive ass on a chair and actually do the work.
Pomodoro doesn't work for me, I take a ~5 minute walk including some stairs every hour of study. Studying for me is just doing tonnes of practice problems.

>2. brain is incapable of getting energy form fats and whatnot. the only source of energy is the glucose in the bloodstream, which becomes depleted in 2-3 hours after a meal. read about glycemic loads / curves
this is actually true, I'm literally studying it right now.

that said, the body can produce glucose from old stock piles. and that's why you don't die if you don't eat constantly sugar

This is why diets should be high-carb.

All of this is great, I have personally found all of these to be accurate so far. #2 may explain why splitting up meals across the day not only helped me eat less, but made me feel much better mentally.

Some of my experience to add to #1, if you sleep in then stop staying up late. Circadian rhythm is serious shit. When I sleep at midnight, 8 hours and I'm good, when I sleep at 1am, I struggle to avoid 10-12 minimum.

The brain can run just fine on ketones. That being said, a lot of complex carbs (and even potatoes/unrefined grains) are good for you and should be consumed at every meal in moderate amounts

my mom is currently doing a keto only diet because migrains, and she's living but it's basically hell. (it's painful for the arts, plus it's really hard not to eat carbs)

You're probably a coffee drinker?
Stop drinking pre-ground shit, ground it yourself.

I find that ground coffee (filter coffee) gives me a 5 minute boost and then I crash hard, while my own coffee at home (I grind from beans, I pay a lot for half a kilo of beans to ensure higher quality) does not make me crash at all.

Thats a placebo. Brewed coffee is better because it tastes better, is more nutritious, and has more caffiene

ever heard of diabetes and the immediately consequences of high insulin levels?

Of course, what does that have to do with my post?

What about sports drinks? Or Isotonic drinks? With lots of ions in them

Heres a tip I use: I go somewhere else where I only work. I use the library at campus, and make sure that my screen faces out so people will see if I dick about.
They prolly wont care, but I dont want to be the guy playing league in the lib, so I work instead.
Also, start with the easyist part, if I have a multiart assignment, I write Assignment 1, make space to write it and assignment 2 and so on, starting working is the easiest part, and then just dont stop.

Otherwisely you can use a partner or buddy. I find that when I try to explain concepts to a buddy I grasp them more myself. Speaking out loud at home might do the same. Also just getting up and dressing, sitting at a clean desk.

You can use a medieval tip and place a skull or other mortal reminder that every second you waste on internet you are closer to death.

Bump

Dont ever study in the same place you sleep.
Study with other people who are successful.
When you're not making progress (assuming you where before), leave your study place and do something else for a little while.
Sometimes changing where you study helps.

Don't frequent facebook, twitter, Veeky Forums, it makes you used to only read shorts amounts of information unfortunately.

Bump

Twitter is alright, you don't have to follow shameless crap. And I also recommend youtube, if again you know how to pick channels. To avoid all the unrelated bullshit they try to push up your butthole use this link instead of just www.youtube.com: youtube.com/feed/subscriptions

Bump

Bump

>watching a film

yes. I always try to multitask while watching a series or movie, opening up webpages on chrome and reading while simultanously playing the audio of the film in the background. After a while I just get bored of either one and continue the other (often finishing it).

>reading a book
Hell,
It doesn't help that the first books I tried reading were Russian literature recommended to me by acquaintances, but in my experience, concentration issues imbue a severe distaste for things that require

1) concentration
2) are a monotone activity (you just sit still and try to convert everything you read into imagination).

Often my eyes just skip words and rush through sentences as if the main objective of reading is not to enjoy it/to learn, but to get to the end of the page.

Amphetamines.

Bump

How do you go about with flashcards in mathematics?

Could you explain the necessity?

I'm the world's worst procrastinator. Every paper I write, every assignment I turn in, every study session I do is completed within a couple hours, if not minutes, of the deadline. I've done this since I received my first homework in 3rd grade and it's continued to get worse as I've reaffirmed my behavior with good test scores and near perfect grades over the last decade or so.

Is there any way to escape this nightmare? Do I have a disease?

Fuckin easy m8
>actually doing the work
Copy your friends bro, just change handwriting, sequence and remember to use synonyms, get your good friend to send you the day before and do your refinements then

This is not helpful

1. It doesn't work for exams
2. I intend to actually learn something
3. This doesn't prevent procrastination. If the assignment were due at an 11 am class, I would be finished copying at 10:40.

>Dont ever study in the same place you sleep.
Sounds like placebo. Got source on that?

Then it's not a placebo you fig