Sunday, November 4, 2012

Fight or Flight

Fight or flight, an automated physiological decision that you will make during stressed, threatened or emergency situation. And I find it very applicable to study.

At the level of maximal stress, either you continue sitting fighting for exam (I assume most of the people do), or you will choose to do anything else, don't bother anymore (flight).

For example, given a very hard topic you seriously hardly understand, what's your response. My response is, I will go and do something else first (flight) before touching the notes, then continue fight for it at the later time.

Or have you tried this before, on the night right before your exam, when your stress level is super high, and what you are supposed to do is to strive your very best utilizing the time left to recap everything. But, you just can't take it anymore, choose to flight and go to bed.

Interesting right? the mind says go fight go fight, the body says go flight go flight. what your body will do then? Integration! The ability of body to receive multiple signal and produce the appropriate response, especially when the signals are opposing each other. Then, there will be a balance between the two and you will study with optimum motivation.

So, study study study, ok well, everything runs into mind now. I can definitely remember this and that. But then, oh no, desensitization takes place, a negative feedback process when you body detecting that you are studying too much (overload), starts to shut down your reception and concentration for study.
At the time, you should just stop, take a break, remove the stimulus (study), which will makes your body system to become sensitive again.

I think, the tips for making study efficient is, build up a strong basis on the topic. When you start to understand everything from the basis, you will find it very easy to remember and comprehend stuff, which would definitely amplify your study input into a much larger outcome. For example, you study about this topic in another unit, ok then, you find that you can apply the knowledge to another topic too, so on and so on. The accumulation of these collective knowledge on the topic will eventually amplifies what you have studied and allows you to really comprehend the stuffs.

Happy studying everyone!
so, fight or flight?

FIGHT now, then we will FLIGHT home soon!