How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised StudyKitson, Harry Dexter
Science
How to Use Your Mind: A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised Study
Kitson, Harry Dexter
Study skills
"A second change in fatigue has been found in the cell body of the
neurone. Hodge showed that the size of the nucleus of the cell in the
spinal cord of a bee diminished nearly 75 per cent, as a result of the
day's activity, and that the nucleus became much less solid. A third
change that has been demonstrated as a result of muscular work is the
accumulation of waste products in the muscle tissue. Fatigued muscles
contain considerable percentages of these products. That they are
important factors in the fatigue process has been shown by washing them
from a fatigued muscle. As a result the muscle gains new capacity for
work. The experiments are performed on the muscles of a frog that have
been cut from the body and fatigued by electrical stimulation. When
they will no longer respond, their sensitivity may be renewed by
washing them in dilute alcohol or in a weak salt solution that will
dissolve the products of fatigue. It is probable that these products
stimulate the sense-organs in the muscles and thus give some of the
sensations of fatigue. Of these physical effects of fatigue, the
accumulation of waste products in the blood and the effects upon the
nerve cells are probably common both to mental and physical fatigue.
The effect upon the muscles plays a part in mental fatigue only so far
as all mental work involves some muscular activity."
By this time you must be convinced that the subject of fatigue is
exceedingly complicated; that its effects are manifested differently in
mind and body. In relieving fatigue the first step to be taken is to
rest properly. Man cannot work incessantly; he must rest sometimes, and
it is just as important to know how to rest efficiently as to know how
to work efficiently. By this is not meant that one should rest as soon
as fatigue begins to be felt. Quite the reverse. Keep on working all
the harder if you wish the second-wind to appear. Perhaps two hours
will exhaust your first supply of energy and will leave you greatly
fatigued. Do not give up at this time, however. Push yourself farther
in order to uncover the second layer of energy. Before entering upon
this, however, it will be possible to secure some advantage by resting
for about fifteen minutes. Do not rest longer than this, or you may
lose the momentum already secured and your two hours will have gone for
naught. If one indulges in too long a rest, the energy seems to run
down and more effort is required to work it up again than was
originally expended. It is also important to observe the proper mental
conditions during rest. Do not spend the fifteen minutes in getting
interested in some other object; for that will leave distracting ideas
in the mind which will persist when you resume work. Make the rest a
time of physical and mental relief. Move cramped muscles, rest your
eyes and let your thoughts idly wander; then come back to work in ten
or fifteen minutes and you will be amazed at the refreshed feeling with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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