CHAPTER 13
ASKING YOURSELF IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Should You Listen to Music While You’re Studying?
I want you to close your eyes. Oops! Not yet! After you’ve finished reading this paragraph. Imagine you are looking down on yourself from the ceiling. Now.
Could you see your hair? The clothes you’re wearing? Did your face look like it’s concentrating? What kind of learner can you see from up there?
What does “ceiling you” think of your learning today? Are you an effective learner yet? Remember your built-in lie detectors—your dendritic spines!
Becoming an Artist and a Scientist
We’d like you to become a learning scientist. What should you be studying? You. We want you to step away and look at what you’re doing “from the ceiling.”
Look at yourself from the ceiling. How is your learning going?
Your first experiment? Music.
Some people say you shouldn’t listen to music when you’re studying. But we’re all different, and we have different tastes. Do you find that music helps your studies? Or does it distract?
You’re going to be a learning scientist, so you need to do some observations. You need to watch yourself learning, and think about what works and what doesn’t. Some people even like to record their observations in a notebook. We know that you’re a busy student, and this won’t work for everyone, but here’s a suggestion that you could try for a few days if you’re feeling adventurous: Toward the end of each day, jot down the date. Then draw a little picture that symbolizes your day. Good or bad, just do it—no work of art needed. It should only take thirty seconds or so to draw.
What did you draw? A thumbs-up? A flower? A frog? A boot? It only matters that the picture has a meaning for you.
Then, if you’re keeping a notebook, you could add a few notes about your learning that day. Remember, you’re observing “from the ceiling.” You want a calm, outsider perspective. You’re being scientific about this. How did your learning go? Did you do a Pomodoro? How many? Two? Three? Was there something you did especially well? Anything you might have done better? What made a difference in your learning that day? (Incidentally, research has shown that one thing you can do to help you fall asleep faster is to make a task list for what you plan to do the next day. This takes the items out of your working memory and helps you relax and sleep better.)
If you’re not a fan of the notebook idea, perhaps because that seems like extra homework, that’s okay, but you could try talking to a learning buddy, or your mom or dad, about how your learning went that day. Ask yourself the same questions.
Did you listen to music, for example? If so, did you get lost in it, distracted from your studies? Or did it provide a soothing background for you? It’s important for you to be honest.
As you’re reflecting on your observations, try to spot patterns. Do you have better days after a good night’s sleep, for example? Or after you’ve gone for a run? If you leave your phone on while studying, is it a distraction? Or does your phone have a Pomodoro timer you use that instead helps boost your concentration? Are you more productive when you listen to certain types of music? Or do you study better when you don’t listen to music at all?
Are you wondering what scientists say about music’s effects on your studies? We’re just set to tell you about it. But first, here are some other unexpected factors that affect your learning.
Studying in Different Places
Think about where you study. Is it always in your bedroom? At the library? At a friend’s house? Outside in nature? Or do you change it up? It may seem strange at first, but it’s good to change the place where you study.1
Why? It has to do with your friendly attentional octopus. Real live octopuses have suckers that can help it attach to things; in our metaphor, the suckers can make your learning either “stick” or “slip.”
When your attentional octopus is helping you understand material, it also picks up other random stuff. If you study geometry in the library, for example, your octopus is working with you to understand the topic. But it also picks up a little of the feel, smell, and look of the library at the same time.
A little library flavoring rubs onto the links.
If you always study geometry in the library, your octopus gets used to it. When you go to pull a set of geometry links out of your long-term memory, you don’t realize it, but this set of brain-links has bits of “library” stuck to it. Your octopus expects the geometry links to be library flavored.
So what?
Here’s the thing. You don’t normally take tests in the library.
If you’ve always studied in the library, but your tests are in classrooms, your octopus can get confused. In the classroom, your octopus can have trouble finding the geometry links, because there are no library flavors around to guide it. You may end up doing worse on the exam.
So, if you can, it’s better to study in a variety of places! We know that schools don’t always give you a lot of choice about where to study, but if possible, mix it up at home by studying in different rooms.
That way, your attentional octopus ends up getting used to finding things in your long-term memory locker regardless of where you’re studying. If you study geometry in the library on Monday, at home on Tuesday, and at the park on Wednesday—or even just in different rooms on different days—your octopus gets used to finding your geometry links wherever you are. You can do better on your test!
Get creative and develop your own tricks to shake things up. Move your chair sometimes to a different part of the room. Take notes with a different color pen. Move your lamp. Anything to switch your learning up a bit!
The Problem with Auditory Versus Visual Learning Styles
Researchers agree that people process information in different ways. This has led to talk about “auditory,” or “visual,” or “kinesthetic”* learners. The idea is that some people learn best by listening, others by picturing things, others by touching.
Unfortunately, what research has shown is that relying on a “preferred learning style”—that is, using one sense instead of several—can weaken your ability to learn in other ways.2 For example, if you think you’re an “auditory learner,” you try to learn by listening. The result? You get less practice with reading. How are you going to do well on tests, for example, if you don’t practice reading?
We learn best when we use several different senses—hearing, seeing, and, perhaps especially, being able to feel with our hands. At deep levels in your brain, you see and hear. You see and smell. You hear and touch. When your brain creates its impressions of the world, you want as many senses involved as possible.
So whenever you’re learning anything, try to take advantage of all your senses. Don’t think of yourself as having a preferred learning style. Think of yourself as an “all-inclusive” learner. If you imagine hearing a famous person from history speaking to you, or you visualize a chemical, that counts as multisensory learning, which is the most effective kind. For everyone.
Sleep—It’s Even More Important Than You Think!
Here’s one for your learning journal. Did you get enough sleep? This will shock you, but just being awake creates nasty toxic products in your brain. The longer you’re awake, the more the toxins build up. What an awful thought!
It’s not as bad as it sounds. Once you go to sleep, your brain cells shrink, and the poisonous toxins are washed away through the gaps.3 When you wake up, the poisons have gone. Just like a computer can be rebooted to clear away errors, your brain is rebooted when you wake up from a good night’s sleep. This is your overnight upgrade!
If you don’t sleep enough, there isn’t time for all the toxins to be cleaned away. You start the day groggy, blocked, and unable to think clearly. Your neurons can’t grow new synapses, either. There’s been no time for your mental mouse to run along the pathways and make new connections. Fail!
When you go to sleep, your neurons shrink, which allows the toxins to be washed away.
Sleep is the ultimate diffuse mode. Ideas, images, and pieces of knowledge flow around your brain freely. Different areas of the brain link up, connect creatively, and work on problems together. People sometimes talk about “sleeping on it” when they’re not sure about something. Your sleeping brain is good at figuring out what to do even when you’re not focused on it.
And incidentally, a nap can also help your learning. Much like ordinary nighttime sleep, a nap allows the information that’s temporarily been stored in the hippocampus to be moved into long-term memory locations in other places in your brain. This movement “empties” your hippocampus so it can more easily hold the new information you want to pour into it after your nap. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a series of naps during the day makes up for a good long sleep each evening. It doesn’t.
This may spark the question of how much sleep you should be getting. Although people differ, in general you should have at least eight hours a night reserved for “sleep opportunity time”—that is, time to both fall asleep and be asleep.*4 These eight hours of sleep opportunity time should be consistent during the week—it’s not the kind of thing you try to catch up on over the weekends. Sleep is the best thing you can do to retune yourself each day and keep yourself healthy. Teens and younger people often need even more than eight hours per night.
To help yourself get a good sleep, after dusk rolls around, avoid anything that emits blue light, like iPads, computer screens, and smartphones. You can also download blue-light-blocking apps.
Not sleeping enough can have long-term consequences that are similar to eating arsenic. Lack of sleep allows toxic products to build up all over your body, makes you more prone to getting sick, to getting cancer, and to all sorts of mental problems. Lack of sleep also stops the growth of new neurons and synapses, making it far harder for you to learn.
So note in your learning journal, if you are keeping one, how much sleep you had the night before and keep track of how you feel. This will help you get a better sense of how well you are doing in the sleep department. If you are tired and find yourself falling asleep during the day, you definitely are not getting enough sleep.
And another thing. If you do a little bit of focused work just before going to sleep, you’re more likely to dream about it. And dreaming about your studies can help you on your tests. It sticks better.5
Make sleep a high priority. Don’t work late the night before a test. It’s harder to do well. One Pomodoro with a fresh brain is worth three with a tired one!
Eat Your Frogs First!
“Eat your frogs first” means it’s best to get started on the unpleasant or difficult things first in your study session. That way, you can take a break and work on something else if you get stuck. This lets your diffuse mode work in the background to “unstick” you when you return. You might even finish your difficult task at the beginning of your work period, which feels great. (Of course, if you like eating frogs, you will need to change the metaphor. Some people like to think of this as “Save your cookies for last!”)
Set a Quitting Time
One last tip. It helps a lot if you are able to set a quitting time for your studies each day. We know that school controls a lot of this, but when you’re working on your homework, plan to stop by a certain time if you can.
Cal Newport, for example, had a firm 5:00 P.M. quitting time throughout his college studies. He ended up getting his doctorate (that’s the most advanced kind of university degree) in computer science from MIT. This is one of the world’s best universities, so it worked well for him. (You might want to check out some of his books, such as How to Become a Straight-A Student.) Cal insists that he was not a natural superstar. Instead, he found that setting a firm quitting time allowed him to focus intently on his studies during the day. He was then able to relax and enjoy life with his friends in the evening. Cal reduced his stress levels by learning to keep intent focus when he was studying.
Cal recommends a shutdown ritual he uses when he’s removing himself from work. You might do something similar. Pretend you’re an airplane pilot. At the appointed time, say a countdown that ends with “Systems off!”
One exception. Before you go to sleep, you can make a few notes in your learning journal or think back over your day. It’s also okay to take a last peek at something you’re trying to reinforce. This fuels your dreaming and your learning. But try to stay away from backlit screens, like those on a computer or smartphone, for at least an hour or two before bedtime. Backlit screens send light signals to your brain that say “Wake up!” This can make it hard for you to fall asleep.
Chapter Wrap-Up: Back to Music
We’ve covered a lot in this chapter. Now that we’re ending, we promised to let you know what research has to say about listening to music.
Here’s the conclusion: Scientists aren’t sure!6 Sometimes, and for some people, music can be helpful. But sometimes music can fool you into thinking it’s helpful when it’s actually harmful.
This is why it’s so important to become a learning scientist. Observing your learning as if you are a scientist will allow you to see what effect music and other influences have on you.
The only guidance that research provides about music is this. It seems that your attentional octopus can be more easily distracted by loud music, and by music with words in it. The words fill one of your octopus’s arms, making it less efficient. But quieter music with no words can sometimes be helpful, depending on what you are studying. One thing to keep in mind is that there probably won’t be music when you’re taking a test—unless you happen to be close to the music room at school!
The bottom line is that if you want to listen to music when you are studying, it may be okay. But be careful. You will need to try this out for yourself and see what works for you. Be honest with yourself.
My Learning Journal—a Sample Page*7
Date: ________________ Your Symbol for the Day:
Where? What? When?
My School Bag and My Locker
Where did I study?
Place 1: ______________ Place 2: ______________
Place 3: ______________
Pomodoros I did today (tick off):
Some Smart Things I Did Today:
Swallowed any frogs?
Tackled any tests?
Taught someone else?
To-do list made for the day?
My system shutdown time: ______________