What if I were to talk about five habits that make your brain even slower than it already is? Perhaps you’ve been following these five habits daily, thinking they’re normal. These five habits might sound strange to you, because we’ve been trying to improve our bodies by working out and eating healthy.
Some of you might even follow a skincare routine to look your best. But the body part we use the most to make the most important decisions in our lives is the one we’re probably paying the least attention to. This is why many of you are facing similar problems: we memorize, then forget.
We watch a full two-hour lecture, but the concepts don’t stick in our minds. We open a book and sit for 15 to 20 minutes, then get tired, and then blame ourselves that maybe our focus isn’t strong enough. I’m not as intelligent as I used to be. But to be honest, if you look at it long-term, the problem isn’t in your brain.
There are certain habits you’ve been following for a long time, and they’ve shaped your brain and body in this way. Obviously, this didn’t happen overnight. It happened gradually, every day, because of certain habits that gradually caused this damage. Today, I’m going to talk about these five habits.
I’ll also explain how to improve these five habits based on my own experience, based on what I’ve learned or discovered while researching. If you improve these five habits, your focus, your ability to sit still while studying, and your learning capability will all increase exponentially. So, let’s start with our first habit.
1 Constant Notifications
let’s talk about this habit, which has become a part of the lives of most of you, almost all of you. Think about your phone, and imagine how many notifications you get in a day. Whether it’s a WhatsApp notification, an Instagram notification, a YouTube notification, or a notification about something arriving on a shopping app or a sale. Now, you might think you get 50 or 100 notifications a day. And what about the notifications?
Only a small bell is left. The problem isn’t with the notification bell itself. The problem is that you’re wasting 15 or 20 minutes because of that bell. Imagine you’re preparing an important math question, revising a topic, and in the middle of that question, you get the sharp sound of a notification. You go to that notification, and if it’s an interesting one, you spend 15 to 20 minutes absorbed in it, forgetting that you were just solving an important math problem.
But let me explain the bigger problem. You think that after 15-20 minutes, when you put down your phone and get back to work, you’ll pick up where you left off. But that’s not the case at all. You spent half an hour studying math. Your brain was in that flow. A small notification broke that flow. When you go back to studying math, it will take you the first 10-15 minutes to get back into the flow.
So the solution is very simple. You’ve probably already understood what I’m about to say. The answer is, turn off any notifications that aren’t important. For example, if I talk about my phone, I’ve currently turned off all my Instagram notifications, all my YouTube notifications, and all my notifications from my own Science & Fun app because I feel they’re not relevant to me.
Yes, if I were a ninth-grade student and I followed a ninth-grade channel, I would keep its notifications on. If I had purchased the Science & Fun app from ninth grade, I would have kept its notifications on. I currently have WhatsApp notifications on my phone. But I’ve muted all my friend groups and family groups. So, first of all, you need to change your habits right now.
Take a pen and paper and decide that I will turn off notifications for all my unnecessary apps, whether they’re shopping apps or anything else. Now, this is our first habit, which is a start and attracts your attention. But the next habit is reducing your attention as well as your working efficiency.
2 Multitasking
Hardly any student today is immune to this habit. Look, multitasking isn’t a bad thing—unless you’re an expert at it. So, in your case, I’d say multitasking isn’t a good option. What does multitasking mean? You’re studying. Let’s say you’re studying math. While studying, you realize you have homework to do today.
While doing your homework, you realize you need to talk to a friend. Then you pick up the phone and talk to your friend. It’s not even about the phone. While talking on the phone, you remember, “Oh, I need to pick up some stuff.” Then you go shopping. While picking up the stuff, you realize you forgot your math homework.
So, you buy the stuff with half-hearted focus. Then you come back to do your math homework. This is called multitasking—when you start multiple tasks simultaneously. Now, every time you suddenly switch from one task to another, your brain loses energy in switching. Simply put, you’re essentially wasting your brain’s energy throughout the day. Let me reiterate: I’m not saying multitasking is always bad. I’m talking about your student days.
If I asked you to write the numbers 1 to 26, could you do it? The answer is: very easy. But if I asked you to write A1 on one page, B2 on the next, and C3 on the next—that is, not one below the other, but separately on each page—and asked you to do it quickly, you’ll see for yourself that this task is difficult for you, compared to quickly writing A, B, C, D, or quickly writing the numbers 1 to 26. In short, what I’m trying to say is that if you’re studying physics, there should be nothing else on your study table except physics.
If you’re talking to a friend, don’t think about anything else for 5-10 minutes. If you’re using Instagram, focus on it with full concentration—don’t think about studying. If you’re playing outside with a friend, focus only on playing—don’t think about studying. This will help your mind learn to focus. Let me tell you a little story. I once went to a TEDx talk. Many great saints were there.
I told them I wanted to meditate, but I couldn’t. They asked, “What do you do?” I said, “I teach.” They asked, “Do you think about anything else while teaching, or just the subject and the students?” I said, “No.” They said, “Yes, that’s what meditation is. Meditation means focusing on one thing. If you focus on one thing at a time in every task, you’re meditating even while you’re working.” That is why while studying, the focus should be only on studies.
3 Doom scrolling
You’ve probably all said something to yourself in your life, like, “I’ll scroll through Reels for five minutes. Then I’ll do my work,” whatever it may be. But do you know how this Reel, or short format, is designed? If the first Reel you see is motivational, the next might be a comedy. After that, it could be a sports video, and then a scene from a horror movie.
This means that every 30 seconds to a minute, your brain is shifting its focus. This forces you to shift your attention to something else every 30 seconds. And because of this, you don’t even realize how big a problem you’re getting into. Your attention span is shrinking. Meanwhile, the algorithm keeps pushing things you like, which gives you a fake dopamine rush. You enjoy it and get instant rewards.
It’s not like you’ll get rewarded after two or four months, like studying. If you work out today, like in the gym, you’ll reap rewards in six months or a year. Here, the rewards are instant. The mind is completely in a comfort zone. So, you get stuck in that loop. Now, there’s a simple solution. I never said not to use Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. I do. But what’s the best solution? Divide your time slots.
If you’re not earning anything from social media—like, I earn money from social media, and my major time is spent on social media—but if you don’t earn anything from social media, then you need to allocate a fixed amount of time to your social media. Let’s say you say, “I’ll read for 4 to 5 minutes, then I’ll use my phone for 10 minutes. Then I’ll read for 7 to 8 minutes, then I’ll run for 10 minutes and check notifications.”
That’s totally fine. But you need to set a fixed time. If you can’t control yourself and say, “No, I’ll use my phone for 10 minutes,” but that turns into 20 or 50 minutes, then you need to break your phone habit. You’ll have to give your phone to someone else while you study. This will be difficult at first. There’s no other solution. Or, make it difficult to access your phone.
Keep your phone far away from where you study, so that even when you’re studying and feel like using it, you’ll have to put in effort. This will, in some ways, reduce the impact. You’ll understand how dangerous doom scrolling is when you break it. If you think doom scrolling is a very dangerous habit, let’s move on to the next habit.
4 Poor sleep schedule
I was watching a podcast recently. There was a football player on it, probably from Norway. I don’t know much about football, but his name was probably Holland. He was quite large, tall, and broad. He said something profound in his podcast. Someone asked him, “What’s the most important thing in your life?” What’s the most important thing?
He said, “Sleep.” Many of you kids think, “Hey, I sleep for two to three or four hours and consider myself a hero.” If you’re unable to sleep for a day or two because of work, that’s totally okay. But if your routine is such that you’ve been sleeping for two to three or four hours for months, you have no idea what you’re doing long-term.
I recently discussed the sleep cycle in the Science and Fun videos where I conduct experiments. If your sleep cycle isn’t complete properly, whatever you’ve read or tried to memorize throughout the day won’t be stored in long-term memory. There’s a part of our sleep called deep sleep. I explained it in that video. During that period, all the data we gather throughout the day is transferred to long-term memory.
Our bodies are repairing themselves. But if you don’t get enough sleep, you’re damaging yourself physically and mentally as well. You won’t be able to retain what you’re studying at full efficiency. So, there’s no heroism in sleeping for 2-3 hours. Believe me, if you study an hour less but get a good night’s sleep, whatever you’ve studied or memorized will be remembered for a longer period of time. So, you need to pay proper attention to these short naps.
5 Never giving your brain a break
Look, consider your daily routine. You wake up in the morning, get dressed, get ready for school, and come back from school. If you’re a school student or college student, you’re going to college. You have a lot of work to do after returning from work. If you study on a regular schedule, you should have taken a break during the gaps in your studies. That’s when you pick up your phone or something. In short, apart from sleeping at night, are you giving your brain a break?
I saw a video about how important it is to be bored. I get my best creative ideas on days when I’m bored. So, being bored is just as important as working hard. So, start giving your brain a break. Let’s say you go to the gym. You’re working your muscles, breaking down muscle fibers. You even eat a good meal.
But if you don’t give your muscles time to re-grow and repair, what’s the point? So, brother, you need to take breaks in between your long sessions, along with sleep. And if you are taking breaks, don’t do any tasks that involve your brain during those breaks.
For example, don’t use your phone or do any complicated tasks. You can go for a walk during your breaks, which doesn’t require much mental effort; you can listen to good music. Let’s suppose you like spending time with your parents, you can go there. But it’s very important to take breaks in between long study sessions.
Look, most of you kids are doing all these short habits. But the simple thing is that you don’t realize how much harm they are causing. Why? When a person smokes a cigarette, it’s clearly written on the box that it will cause cancer and damage the lungs. But we probably don’t know about these habits. We’re not even aware of how much harm they are causing to our bodies in the long term. So, try to improve these five habits.