I feel I have lost it. How do I be dissolved in studies again?

[shivajikobardan]

I don't know how much this relates to this subreddit. But I feel I have lost my peak learning form. I used to get dissolved in studies. And I used to love whatever I am studying. I used to understand everything.

Nowadays my problems-:
1) I simply can't focus properly. I need to study in laptop and I bet I am not even studying 10% efficiently. My brain is always wandering, I am sometimes checking election results updates, sometimes checking other soccer forums, sometimes checking gossip forums, sometimes checking youtube random videos where they expose pseudoscience about religions.
2) I don't feel connected to what I am studying. I don't feel totally immersed in whatever I am studying. I don't know if anyone will understand it. I don't feel confident in my learning ability.
3) I feel I have lost it. My learning ability, my curiosity.
4) And obviously, my pace of learning is nearly 0. I am not even learning 1 topic completely per day.

The thing is that I have whole day free these times for studying for exams. And my exams are coming after few weeks as well. It is getting too serious. Please sorry if this is not related here. Every posts here I read seem to be from successfull students problems. But this problem is really mine(I kind of feel ashamed looking at the other posts in this forum to ask this)

It has just been around 2 months(it wasn't this bad at the start...it is like a linear curve i.e day by day my condition is degrading) that I am feeling this.
One good thing that I am doing is waking up early in morning. But in the past I used to wake up at 8-9 but still manage to do many things. But nowadays, I wake between 6-7 but I feel I am doing nth. I love waking up early in morning. I check my smartphones and those soccer forums, gossip(movie) forums, my country's discussion forum, election result updates and my favorite youtuber vlogs. I regret it instantly. My brain starts to get overwhelmed from the start of day. I don't know how to explain but brain is running here and there and isn't ready to struggle and learn concepts.
I even tried some deep breathing meditations but still I found no huge difference.

 

[symbolipoint]

I don't know how much this relates to this subreddit. But I feel I have lost my peak learning form. I used to get dissolved in studies. And I used to love whatever I am studying. I used to understand everything.

Nowadays my problems-:
1) I simply can't focus properly. I need to study in laptop and I bet I am not even studying 10% efficiently. My brain is always wandering, I am sometimes checking election results updates, sometimes checking other soccer forums, sometimes checking gossip forums, sometimes checking youtube random videos where they expose pseudoscience about religions.
2) I don't feel connected to what I am studying. I don't feel totally immersed in whatever I am studying. I don't know if anyone will understand it. I don't feel confident in my learning ability.
3) I feel I have lost it. My learning ability, my curiosity.

Your written expression is strange.

Are you worried about events and situations outside of your learning and because of those worries, you are forced to study poorly?

 

[Choppy]

This sounds to me like a form of burnout.

Often people end up searching reddit, forums, videos etc. because each new post or video gives them a very little feel good spike from your brain's excitement chemistry. But over time they can develop a tolerance to it. This kind of thing tends to get exacerbated when people are tired, overworked, have to make lots of decisions, and/or are dealing with crises on a long term basis.

I'm not sure there's any easy solution to it. I mean, it's easy to tell you: shut off your internet connection, don't check your phone, laptop, etc., but the problem is that not doing these things uses up your willpower and can leave you pretty tired, and vulnerable to repeating the cycle.

Some tips

1. Universities often have academic counselling offices that are staffed by people with access to much better resources for dealing with these kinds of things. Make and appointment or drop into once of these centers and see what they have to say.
2. Take good care of yourself. Get regular, adequate sleep. Eat properly. Get frequent, quality exercise. Socialize. Work "down time" into your schedule and be conscious of how you use it.
3. Identify the common offenders that are distracting you and figure out ways to make them less accessible. For example, if you wake up at 6 am, make sure your internet connection is off until 8 am. Or study as much as possible with textbook pen and paper. Leave your devices in another room.
4. Be conscious of when and for how long you're spending with the common offenders. Set limits.
5. Spend time with people who are studying the same things and who have similar goals as you. As much as possible gravitate toward those who are excited about the path they're on and avoid the skeptical, cynical ones that drain your energy.
6. Check in with your academic trajectory. Do you still want to be studying what you are studying? What you think you might enjoy when you graduate high school and what you actually do enjoy once you get into university can be two different things. Are you taking the classes you want to take or are you just checking off boxes?
7. Make sure you take time to read up on those aspects of your studies that excite you. Sometimes, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the required reading that you can forget to read simply for enjoyment or curiosity, but cultivating that inherent interest in a field and allowing it to grow, is critical to long term success.
8. Take on your own independent project. Again this goes back to cultivating your interests. But there's also an element of practical skill development. Sometimes students struggle with subjects because they don't see or completely understand the immediate application of it. But that subject can become a lot more interesting when you need to understand it to complete a step in a personal project.

 

[phinds]

I don't know how much this relates to this subreddit.

I don't either --- so, you did a cut/paste from a reddit post to here and didn't bother to change that line?

 

[berkeman]

I don't know how much this relates to this subreddit.

This is PF, not reddit.

You have been asked to stop posting threads like this (this is approximately your 4th such thread), so this one is locked and we are asking you again to stop doing this. We have given you (multiple times now) our best advice for how to handle your situation.

Here is one last pair of suggestions from a Mentor who has been discussing this latest thread of yours:

The only thing I would add is to point out the danger of wasting way too much time on social media, and failing to recognize the benefits of delayed gratification (i.e., keeping your eyes on the prize).