how to trick your brain to *enjoy* studying

0:00 this molecule which has eight carbon atoms 11 hydrogen atoms one nitrogen atom and two oxygen atoms is the key to enjoying studying you might also know this molecule as dopamine dopamine is the neurotransmitter in your brain that's associated with feelings of happiness and pleasure while you're eating snacks watching movies or hanging out with friends your brain is releasing a ton of dopamine but when you go to your desk to work on some homework well it's not releasing as much the ultimate goal here is to trick your brain into releasing dopamine while you're studying but before we jump into that let's talk about dopamine itself I like to imagine that different activities in our lives give us different amounts of dopamine and we can put these activities on something I like to call the pleasure scale studying is all the way down here

0:47 listening to music is probably here eating sugary snacks is here and then scrolling on your phone is all the way up here of course there are hundreds of other activities that can and do give us dopamine now before we discuss anything else I want you to ask yourself one question where is my Baseline dopamine level is it all the way down here is it all the way up here or is it somewhere in the middle because here's the truth the farther ahead your Baseline dopamine level is from studying the worse studying is going to feel to you but gohar what is a baseline dopamine level well think about the activities you engage in regularly the average amount of dopamine these activities release is your Baseline level so for example if you spend most most of your day scrolling through Tik Tok while eating candy and watching movies in the

1:33 background chances are your Baseline dopamine level is all the way up here meaning that this is what normal life feels like to you so when you have to study which is all the way down here on the pleasure scale it's going to feel very painful on the other hand if you live a healthier lifestyle for example if you exercise limit your phone usage and avoid eating High processed foods your Baseline level is probably in a lower healthier range so in this situation studying doesn't feel as painful by the way this notion of a baseline dopamine level is not some precise measure it's simply a framework that I came with to assess my own behavior so now to trick our brains to enjoy studying there are two things that we can do first we can make the act of studying itself release more dopamine

2:19 which in essence means moving it up the pleasure scale but there's also something else that we can do we can lower our Baseline dopamine level so this way when we have to study it feels less L painful and ideally we want to do both of these all right first let's talk about how to lower your Baseline dopamine level some people also call this a dopamine detox the first tip I have is to go on a 10 to 15 minute walk every single day no music no phone just you your thoughts and nature for many of us our phones aren't just a tool that we use they feel like an extension of our being I mean just think about it this way is your phone ever out of Arms Reach chances are you said no this dopamine box is sitting next to us 24/7 I mean it's sitting next to me right now the

3:04 goal should be to bring this down just a little bit I'll be honest going on a walk without your phone is going to feel really weird at first because we are so used to holding our phones or having it in our pockets so when you first go outside without it you are going to feel like you're missing something but after some time you are going to overcome that feeling and it might even feel freeing as you go on these walks I encourage you to just sit with your thoughts to observe the smells the sights The Sounds because in today's era I feel like we seldom take time to observe the world around us tip number two is to implement a no screen rule for the first 30 minutes of the day and the last 30 minutes of the day remember you are in control of your phone not the other way around if you grab your phone first thing when you wake up you are implicitly surrendering yourself before the day has even started this sounds a

3:51 little intense I know but my goal isn't to get you to abandon your phone all I'm saying is that you should give yourself the first 30 minutes of the day to stretch drink some water maybe regain Consciousness I'll admit there are some mornings when I grab my phone first thing and I mean first thing like before my vision has even kicked in and no surprise these end up being the mornings that I feel the laziest tip number three is to practice mindfulness or meditation for 10 minutes every single day now the main benefit here is that meditation is a great way to balance out all the distracting dopamine you might be getting throughout the day it's also a great way to lower cortisol which is your stress hormone as well as increase focus and here's a very simple five-step meditation routine first find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for 10 minutes second sit in a comfortable

4:36 position either in a chair or on the floor make sure your back is straight but not tense third start a timer for 10 minutes fourth close your eyes and focus on your breath try to notice the sensation of air flowing in and out fifth be present don't try to judge or fight any random thoughts simply acknowledge them and return your focus to your breath after implementing these habits hopefully you can lower your Baseline dopamine level but it still might be far away from studying on the pleasure scale so now the goal isn't to move your Baseline level even lower instead it's to move studying up the pleasure scale so we can make learning fun and you know what else makes learning fun the sponsor of this video skillshare skillshare is the ultimate online destination to pick up almost any skill that you can imagine from web development and video editing to

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6:09 learn the relevant knowledge and also get the chance to apply that knowledge through projects best of all you can access the classes from whenever wherever so they're easy to fit into your schedule as a busy student if you're ready to pick up some new skills this school year head to my description the first 500 people to use the link in my description will get a free 1-month trial of skillshare get started today and now back to the video okay so for this next part of the video we're going to talk about how to make studying more enjoyable in other words move it up the pleasure scale to do this you have to consider five different factors where what how when who and why first we have to consider where if you're always studying in a dark dingy environment something as simple as studying in a different room can make studying more pleasurable back in college I would love

6:55 studying in different campus libraries particularly Barker Library which was located right underneath the MIT Dome here take a look at a few pictures and tell me this doesn't look mesmerizing but if you're not in college yet you could study at your local library instead or maybe a cafe or even outside choose a place that's novel but not distracting for example you don't want to study in a place with too many people or too much noise even if it feels like a fun place to be now if you don't feel like walking or driving somewhere to study don't worry because you can still make it feel like you're studying somewhere new just head to YouTube and search up Ambiance and instantly you will find videos each between 2 and 10 hours long that will transport you into different worlds for example do you want to study in a bookstore Cafe while listening to Jazz no well what about a

7:42 cozy wooden house in the forest while listening to some rainfall or what about a cabin or what about a spaceship or what about Hogwarts not going to lie I sometimes throw that one on while working I would definitely recommend next you have to consider what you study with I mean doesn't it always feel exciting to study with a new notebook or a new in of pens or pencils no am I the only one I remember back when I was taking AP Cal I got the ti84 plus C which is that fancy graphing calculator with a colored screen I kid you not just because I had that calculator I actually enjoyed doing my Cal homework for the first few weeks of that class now the point here isn't to go out and buy a bunch of expensive things to make studying more fun if you have the budget to buy a few new things great but the main point here is to introduce just a pinch of novelty and that could be as

8:27 small as using a pen instead of a pencil or Cornell notes instead of the outline method actually I'm not the biggest fan of Cornell notes so maybe not that okay so we just talked about where and what now I want you to think about how you study now the problem with how we study is that the payoff is all the way at the end only after studying for 2 3 or 4 hours when we can finally check studying off our to-do list do we feel that sense of gratification but while we study we usually feel pretty miserable so we have to figure out a way to feel that sense of gratification not just just after studying but while studying and this requires us to hack our brains reward system so I have a question for you what is the most satisfying feeling as a student besides doing well on an exam it's checking things off your to-do list

9:13 so the trick here is to create a super granular to-do list on a sticky note and place it next to you while you're studying this way you can feel the satisfaction of checking things off while you're working and not just after for example you can write things down like read five pages read 10 pages read 15 Pages or write one paragraph two paragraphs three paragraphs by having this granular to-do list studying will start to feel like a game and obviously games are pretty fun now if you want to take this even one step further you can associate each thing on your checklist with a different reward for example next to read 10 pages you could put down take a 5-minute break or grab a snack so now you're going to feel the pleasure both of checking things off and getting rewarded for making progress this is literally a way to turn studying into a fun video game and if this doesn't move

10:00 it up the pleasure scale then I don't know what will next I want you to focus on when you study now this is totally up to personal preference but I feel much better when I tackle hard homework assignments earlier in the day so for example back in high school I would do homework right after school or better yet even during school I can't even begin to explain how great it felt to finish homework during study hall and this was especially the case during my senior year when I was taking 5 AP classes and also applying to colleges I would also try to squeeze and work in between classes for example if I got to class A few minutes early or if I had a few free minutes at the end of a class I would just pull out a homework assignment and answer the first question right then and there this way once I got home I no longer felt that burden of starting an assignment from scratch instead I just had to keep the momentum

10:46 going now I will add one caveat to this however numerous studies show that studying right before bed can help with memory consolidation however I'm still going to stick to my original point I still think it's beneficial to study as early as possible in the day however right before bed maybe you can throw in a Light review session all right next I want you to consider who you study with now I'll be honest finding a friend to work with is one of the easiest ways to make studying more fun yes you have someone who can quiz you or explain Concepts but you also have someone who can help reduce the stress some of my best memories from college come from when I was studying with my friends at 1 or 2: a.m. and it was during these late night study sessions when we had some of our funniest moments which does lead me to one caveat you should only study with your friends for certain kinds of assignments studying with them the night before a big exam might be a recipe for

11:34 disaster if yall don't know how to stay disciplined and focused now unfortunately my friends and I did not have that discipline all the time which is why we wouldn't really study together before huge midterms or finals but during the week we would always get together for pets or anything else that wasn't as important and then finally I want you to consider why you study many students study just for the grade not for the sake of actually learning the content and look I don't blame you I I'm not jumping for joy at the thought of learning about Hamlet or the KB cycle but education is a privilege and to be well read in this era where the world is more distracting and distracted than ever is a gift so I want you to switch your perspective instead of thinking I have to study this think I get to study this this one subtle shift can make

12:19 studying feel so much more enjoyable and meaningful and yes while I understand that the individual topics might feel a bit irrelevant school isn't just about learning a bunch of random facts and formulas though it might feel like that at times school is instead about who you become in the process regardless of whether you want to be a doctor a lawyer an engineer or even if you don't want to go to college you will have to learn to synthesize information think critically and approach complex problems all of which are skills you learn as a student so even if School feels irrelevant or pointless owledge the benefits and how that develops you as a person to survive in the real world so hopefully with the these six key aspects in mind you can make studying feel not only bearable but also enjoyable and if you want to make

13:05 studying feel even more enjoyable feel free to join my Discord which has over 180,000 students from all around the world you can join my newsletter the studio student for weekly study tips and you can always subscribe for more tips thanks for watching and I'll see you again next week