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August 19 - September 18, 2025
But it seems that the best ways to give your diffuse mode a chance to work out a difficult problem are through activities like sleeping, exercising, or going for a ride in a vehicle.
The best way to allow your brain to work in diffuse mode is by doing activities: taking a walk, exercising, sleeping, etc.
The first way you can get stuck happens when you don’t catch the initial explanation.
Two ways one gets stuck.
1. Miss initial explanation.
2. You haven't given your brain's diffuse mode a chance to work things out.
sometimes you need to take a break in order to coax your brain’s diffuse mode to come to the rescue.
Taking a break allows your brain to switch to diffuse mode.
What does it mean to be in focused
1. To be in focused mode means that you are paying attention to something.
What is diffuse mode? And what are your
Diffuse mode is another mode of the brain that occurs when a person is not focused on anything in particular. The mind is allowed to wonder. Some of my favorite diffuse mode activities are sleeping and surfing the web.
How does a pinball machine (or two) help
The pinball machine analogy helps show how the brain goes in between the two modes.
What is another metaphor for focused and
Another metaphor for focused and diffused modes is the pinball machine analogy.
What are the two different ways you can
Two ways that you can get stuck are missing the initial explanation and being too focused on the problem and not letting the diffuse mode play a role in solving the problem.
What’s the one study habit that you
One study habit that I would change is being stationary. I'd take more walks.
the insular cortex, begin to light up.
The insular cortex where the pain receptors are in the brain lights up just thinking about an activity that you do not want to do.
the pain goes away after about twenty minutes.
It takes about 20 minutes for the pain to go away.
It’s a good idea to do something during your break that’s very different from what you have been focusing on.
It's a good idea to do something during your break that is very different from what you were doing before you took a break.
don’t switch between tasks when you’re doing your Pomodoro. Pick a task and work at it until the bell rings.
Keep doing the same task when you are "doing a Pomodoro."
When you switch your attention, you waste mental energy, and you will perform worse.
You cannot multitask. When you switch your attention, you waste mental energy.
DISTRACTION:
Distraction(s)
I start daydreaming.
Action
I press myself to get back into focus mode.
What is procrastination?
1. Procrastination is delaying doing a task.
Why is procrastination bad for your
Procrastination is bad because it can lead to stress because you might be responsible for something within a shortened time period. Moreover, procrastination trains you to keep putting things off until the last minute.
What happens in your brain when you
The insular cortex in one's brain lights up just thinking about something that one does not want to do.
How would you explain the Pomodoro
I would say that the Pomodor technique consists of setting a timer for 25 minutes and commit to wholly giving oneself to the task that a person is attempting to do during the 25 minutes. Then, the person ought to take a 5 minute break. One does not have to finish the task within the 25 minute time period.
What is the most important part of the
The most important part of the Pomodoro process is the break.
What should you do during your break
You should completely disconnect from the material.
Should you plan to finish a task during a
No, you don't need to plan to finish a task whilst doing a Pomodoro. You don't want to compromise the quality of your work by rushing through it.
What can be good about going into
Going into zombie mode allows one not to have to think about one's actions. One just carries out one's habits.
What does zombie mode have to do with
One zombie mode could be procrastination. Procrastination is the bad habit.
What was the point of the arsenic eaters
The point of the arsenic eaters is that something that might seem innocuous can be harmful over time. Procrastination once might seem okay, but always giving into it is harmful.
Explain the idea of active recall.
Active recall is remembering information that you are responsible for knowing.
Your brain has a lot of neurons in it. Billions, roughly the same number as the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
The brain has a lot of neurons. These are the fundamental units of the brain and nervous system.
Ten neurons are only as wide as a human hair!
10 neurons = width of human hair
dendrites. Up above is the neuron’s “arm.” It is called an axon.*
Dendrites: the legs of a nerve cell or neuron. Receives impules from other cells.
Axon: the threadlike part of the neuron which sends out impulses to other cells.
When one neuron-alien wants to “talk” to the next alien, it reaches its arm out and gives the tiniest of shocks on the toe of the next alien. (These particular aliens show friendship by giving tiny shocks to one another. Weird, I know.)
Neurons communicate with each other by sending impules/electric shocks to other neurons. The impulses arise from the axon, go across the synapse, and touch the dendritic spines.
These flowing signals are your thoughts.
Your thoughts are the signals passed from neuron to neuron.
Learning something new means creating new or stronger links in your brain.
Learning means creating or strengthening brain links.
As you practice a new idea, more neurons join in.5 And the synaptic links between the
More neurons get involved when you practice a new idea. The synaptic links between the neurons get stronger.
Longer brain-links can store more complex ideas.
Longer brain links can store more complex ideas.
neuroplasticity.
Neurons can change. They are moldable.
neurons up, axon to dendrite, you can better understand how the neurons “talk” to one another. A Neuron Mystery Back when Santiago Ramón y Cajal was around, in the late 1800s, scientists didn’t know that the brain was made of individual neurons. Scientists thought that maybe neurons joined to one another to form a network. This network was spread throughout the brain, like a spiderweb.*
In the 1800s, scientists though that the brain was composed of a spiderweb of nuerons. They did not have powerful enough microscopes to see individual neurons.
The trail allows you to more easily do complex thinking about the “real” concept.
The brain links allow you to more easily think complexly about a topic.
You are reusing ideas you have already learned to assist you in learning new ideas.)
Metaphors offer scaffolding. They allow you to integrate new information by using already known concepts to do it.
Concentrating intently during the day to learn something new can spur new dendritic “bumps” to begin to form.
Focusing on something can cause dendritic bumps to form.
This gives more time for new synaptic links to grow and helps the new learning to really take hold.2
More time is necessary for the synaptic links to grow during sleep.
Your brain has a galaxy of room inside—you can never even come close to filling it with new ideas and facts, no matter how hard you try!
Your brain has a large amount of space that is improbable to fill. You can never learn too much.
prefrontal cortex
Working memory is stored/occurs in prefrontal cortex.
That’s why we repeat something we want to remember temporarily.
Repeat something you want to remember temporarily.
Your long-term memory has almost never-ending storage space.
Your long term memory has nearly unlimited space.
How is your working memory like a school bag?
The working memory can only hold a small number of things
Where
The attentional octopus lives in the prefrontal cortex.
How
Four things are what the brain's short term memory can hold.
How
Long term memory can store many things, but it may be unorganized.
Where
Long term memory is located all over the brain.
