He Studies Math 10 to 12 Hours Every Day

Some people study a lot of math. In this video I answer a question I received from a viewer. He is studying math for 10 to 12 hours every day and is lacking motivation. Do you have any advice? If so, please leave a comment below.

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[Wandering_Horse]

Man, if I could properly overcome my excuses and just study Mathematics for 2 hours per day, my math skills would increase significantly. Studying 10-12 hours a day would leave me completely burnt out and more likely to quit studying altogether.

[youraverageburntoutstudent]

2nd year engineering student here. In my relatively small experience, the environment around you plays a HUGE role in the quality and quantity of your study sessions. I find going to a library on campus to study where the atmosphere is quiet and there are other students working around me helps my brain get into "work mode". I find that I'm able to concentrate for long periods of time with increased quality of work compared to when I'm at home in my room, where I can just pull up YouTube and scroll (like I'm doing right now haha).

[mephisto_ow]

Here is what I learnt: Effort does not equal intensity.
What happens is that you lose a lot of intensity when studying for a prolonged time. What you have to aim for is having multiple very very focused sessions with the aim to get the intensity of your study as close to 100 percent as possible. As soon as you feel your mental deteriorate you take a break until you are able to give 100 percent again. Interestingly enough that not only goes for studying math but really practicing any skill in life.

[ChuffingNorah]

The great French Mathematician Henri Poincaré, one of the last great polymaths of the late 19th Century, advocated good rest & sleep between bouts. He was also one of the first to report that strange process whereby the Brain seems to keep on working even if you are sleeping or working on something completely different. He was working hard on Fuschian Functions, was exhausted, went to the Land of Nod, and woke up with an A-HA! moment which solved a very knotty problem.

[DDMO]

Do ANY other activity, your brain will think about the math content in the background. Working that many hours on only one activity will provide diminishing returns.

[mathpunkmindset]

When it comes to studying, less is often more.

It's like lifting weights: you have to do the work to get the results, but you grow when you rest. If you were doing the same exercises every waking moment of every day, you'd end up weaker, not stronger.

Math is the same. Your brain needs time to digest what you're learning/process it in the background, so if you're doing it every moment of every day, you start to slow your learning. Especially when you lead yourself to burnout - you won't learn a lot of math by setting it up as something that hurts you!

I set boundaries with math. I've scheduled my day so I can do most of the work in the morning and throughout the early afternoon. After 5pm, I'm not allowed to study math anymore, unless I really feel driven to (and not because I "have" to). If it's past 5pm and I'd rather be doing something else, but there's still math to do, I take a look at my time management: something's not right if I haven't hit the day's goals on time.

Something I tell people who come to me for math help: I'd rather see you study 30 minutes every day and keep it up, than study 12 hours a day and eventually stop.

[Jade-svmz]

What helps me is studying with people. I found a group of physics and math majors and we just sit outside our professors' offices during their office hours, work on problems, ask questions and discuss. We write on boards or take turns explaining the material to each other. That way it's more interactive and fun.

[michaelrislingnb]

10-12 Hours a day may be too much unless necessary. Just like anything else, there is usually diminishing returns. One thing I do when I am feeling like i havent progressed or like I am lacking motivation is go back and do some questions I previously struggled with. It gives you confidence and motivation when you breeze through things you previously struggled with, and gives you feedback to know that your studying is actually paying off. Dont forget to touch grass and work up a sweat a few times a week atleast <3

[maccleary]

Strategically target questions, don't do A, B, C, or D if they are all the same.

[musashi]

10-12 hours per day of FOCUSED learning doesn’t allow much time for DIFFUSED learning.

Diffused learning is where the mental integration happens.

[colin]

The brain is a lot like a muscle. the more you use it the more fatigued it gets, if you study for too long at a time then it gets harder to learn and retain information. I suggest looking into the pomodoro technique, its pretty simple and will let you study longer with higher quality sessions. Its really as simple as studying for 30-50 minutes and taking a small break of 10-15 minutes in a diffused state to let your brain digest the information and recover. I also recommend meditation, especially for people like me who find it hard to focus. I use meditation as my diffuse state during my breaks and it works really well. The brain has two states of learning/thinking being a focused state and diffused state, to study at your maximum potential you need to use both states.

[carlpalacios]

One must not only train the mind, he must also train the body and soul. Since you are all these three and lacking one will bring imbalance.

[arg]

I have suffered with depression most of my adult life, and I have periods where, when I'm very depressed, I'll just sit down and do something to take my mind off it for many hours at a time (like studying math or physics). Of course, because I'm depressed that only works for a time before depression wins and I lose motivation to do anything. My advice would be to make sure you're not depressed, and if you are, maybe you need to see a counselor or a doctor.

[Primitive_Code]

His name sounded like my name 😄😄. You gave great advice. Sometimes studying for 10-12 hours and becoming unmotivated comes with the territory. There are times I look at a math proof problem for my class for 45 minutes and still don't have a good idea how to prove it but that's ok and maybe expected. Like you said, it's a sacrifice made for a short period of time (2 years, 4 years etc.) So, I think, make the most out of it and study long and hard and as the math sorcerer has said before, don't look back 10-20 years later and have regrets about how your studies turned out. Good luck.

[kirawr]

I study mechanical engineering
Preparing for my math exams but also for others(which are mostly math as well) I study 6-8 hours a day and every 2 hours I take 30 min breaks to eat(don’t underestimate your calories burned while studying)
I also work out for 1 hour a day, helps a lot with back pain(which I experienced appears when you sit for very long and don’t exercise) and does wonders for balancing your day
Sometimes I studied longer and ate less, led to headaches and exhaustion
Studying one day for too long will leave you burned out for next day and therefore you will progress slower
Everyone needs to find their balance at which they’re most efficient at

[Story_Yeller]

First of all, props to the man for his commitment and discipline.
Secondly, on the topic of taking breaks and doing other activities: I would suggest doing things that are OPPOSITE to studying. For example, if you study sitting down, with artificial lighting inside, staring at a screen or paper close to your eyes, and youre alone when doing this --> make sure to balance it with something active, outside, where you view objects far away (yes this matters for your eyes), and preferably with other people.
Balance is key!

[declanfarber]

There’s nothing wrong with spending 12 hours a day working thru math issues. You have another 4 hours a day to do other stuff, like eating etc. The most important thing is to get a good night’s sleep every day, say 8 hours or so, to recharge. Otherwise you could burn out.

[mathlover]

studying that many hours is totally off balance. Take time for yourself and do not feel bad about it. You need a work/life balance that allows you to maximize the time you study. I always found that after a day of letting a concept sink in was better that trying to force it.

[MasterGhostf]

No one should ever do a task for that long especially mental tasks. He needs to do something else or be more efficient with studying. If they're studying problems and doing bookwork, skip hard ones and go back to later. I had the issue where i would go through problems sequentially, despite being stuck on a problem for 30 min's or more.

[michelef]

Diminishing returns. Going any longer than 6 hours provide less incremental benefits and the increment gets smaller and smaller as you go above and beoyond the 6th hour. There's plenty of material out there about the psychology of performance, one easy and fun read to get started is "Talent is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin. The book popularizes the concept of "Deliberate Practice" and touches on how long you can go while properly practicing at basically everuthing.