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Your brain focuses on changes in things. If you look at a blank piece of paper, your brain makes note of the edges and, after an initial scan just to see that the rest is blank, will pretty much ignore the inside of the page and just keep track of the edges. The same is true for sound. If the sound you are hearing is fairly regular and smooth, your brain will tune it out pretty quickly. You can’t do this with random or chaotic noise (at least it’s harder). So if you are listening to music that is not particularly abrasive and it is loud enough to drown out the random noises in your setting that are harder to tune out, then it actually reduces the amount of information your brain is dealing with, giving you more cake to study with. OF course you want to reduce the random noise around you anyway, but that is not always possible (train, library, rattling fan, etc)
One thing that I would actually be interested in trying is to get a white noise generator (probably available online somewhere), a good pair of ear buds, and a set of hearing-protection headphone things that you are supposed to wear with certain power tools. I’d like to put the white noise in the ear buds and put the hearing-protection on after that. It should result in hearing just about nothing as white noise can be easily tuned out and would cover any small sounds that made it through the hearing-protection.
I think what kind of music you listen to is important. There is the quality of its obtrusiveness, most music with lyrics I find detrimental to concentration, so I usually try to keep those to a minimum, but some songs that I really like are nice, if a song makes me smile and feel happy then it gives me a break and it increases my enjoyment of what I’m doing.
Heres a link to a TED talk about positive psychology.
http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html
So if listening to music relaxes you, and maybe makes you happy, ( You know every time strawberry pie by mini mini moni comes on you smile ) its improving your ability to learn.
There is also music that makes me want to dance, and have fun, its a good way to get into a good mood for learning, spend 15 minutes dancing and listening to something you love, before studying.
Other things is to exercise, we’re physiologically an active species, designed to run around a lot. We’re not designed to spend time thinking. Your body holds itself ready to run off and catch an antelope, holds itself in a state of tension, stores up all kinds of funky chemicals to pump into you when needed. If you never go catch an antelope it means you remain in a state of tension, the chemicals your body stores can’t be held continuously so they’re released slowly producing stress. So its good to metaphorically catch an antelope every so often, use up your bodies store of chemicals. If you can’t settle or concentrate try doing some exercise for 15 minutes so you use up your action chemicals you have stored, and you should find when you come back you can concentrate a lot better.
Ok ok.. no one is belittling cake.. However, I’m not sure concentration is finite to that extent. Music as far as I am aware is processed in a very different area of the brain and actually uses different resources to be interpreted. If I study, I’m definitely not ‘listening’ to the music, it’s just there in the background.. The brain has a brilliant way of filtering and forgetting unwanted material.. Like there are times when I’m in a busy street or it’s loud in the office and I just zone out to the noise. Like it doesn’t even exist.
Similarly, you don’t walk down a street and are pay attention to everyone’s face and then remember them.. it would probably send you insane if you were constantly able to recall and bombard yourself with the full magnitude of your past experiences.. again, the same in the moment, your nervous system takes in so much information in any one second that the brain has to filter the unimportant parts..
The other point to bear in mind, is that the brain is addicted to stimulation.. if there is none (take when you are in bed in the dark with no noise) the mind chatters and makes it’s own stimulation.. That’s why I feel listening to music, having something else going on when I’m studying assists my mind in focusing.. it alleviates it’s need to distract me.. Meditation also helps with this..
Although, always instrumental music.. Lyrics get processed in the language section and therefore would distract you from language study. But, whatever works for you.. That’s just how i’ve rationalized and logicated my situations.. I have proof i swear..
Right, now that I have positively killed this thread.. It’s time to share something! I relax by watching this: http://youtu.be/voc9TrSVVOA
I totally missed these last two posts before I replied, sorry guys!
Just as a brief note in reply to the TED talk posted by Andrew.. I used to be a bit chubby, depressed and generally negative in my world view.. Really, my ability to learn or even socially interact was a bit shit..
A few things in life happened and i turned it around, now in control of my emotional state, i conciously choose to be happy/positive and exercise.. Since this really only happend in the last year, i’ve managed to hammer through a tonne of training for my job and now munch away at 4 seasons of textfugu (which I’ve only been really dedicated to daily for about 3 months now)..
Take that TED talk as a life Maxim.. I can just back up every point he made to improving yourself psychologically by example.Although neither Koichi or Hashi are ever going to make us truly happy (well, maybe if Koichi takes his shirt off again), they sure do a hell of a good job at trying.. The comedic, positive outlook to learning textfugu gives has no doubt kept me motivated and made others stick.. Out of everything it is its sense of perseverance and backing that a good parent gives which is the most outstanding.
No other learning resource (especially not school) has ever positively reinforced me like this textbook.I could ramble for days about it’s usefulness and the incredible effect it has had on my own outlook to learning and discipline..
But for now, more fun: http://youtu.be/MpC8mHFb9Vs
Edit: Washlet.. ^-^
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This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by
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This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by
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