Preliminaries 13
Figure 1: Relation between sense, care and learningthem are already apparent from the discussion above. Let’s list a few more of them with explanations
just so that you can see howeasyit is to sit down to study and try to learn and have “something
wrong” that decreases your ability to learn in that particular place and time.
Learning is actual work and involves a fair bit of biological stress, just like working out. Your
brain needsfood– it burns a whopping20-30% of your daily calorie intake all by itself just
living day to day, even more when you are really using it or are somewhat sedentary in your physical
habits so your consumption in the form of physical motion is smaller than normal or healthy. Note
that your brain runs on pure, energy-rich glucose, so when your blood sugar drops your brain activity
drops right along with it. This can happen (paradoxically) because youjust ate a carbohydrate rich
meal. A balanced diet containing foods with a lower glycemic index^3 tends to be harder to digest and
provides a longer period of sustained energy for your brain. A daily multivitamin (and sometimes
various antioxidant or metabolic supplements such as alpha lipoic acid)can also help maintain your
body’s energy release mechanisms at the cellular level.
Blood sugar is typically lowest first thing in the morning, so this is a lousytime to actively
study. On the other hand, a good hearty breakfast, eaten at least an hour before plunging in to your
studies, is a great idea and is a far better habit to develop for a lifetime than eating no breakfast
and instead eating a huge meal right before bed^4
Learning requires adequatesleep. Sure this is tough to manage at college – there are no parents(^3) Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/glycemicindex.
(^4) ...which is, alas, my own pattern unless I’m careful, made into a habit back in college. It seemed to work a lot
better at age 20 than it does at age 60...