Recommended Reading
Your brain is greedy - so feed it.
Despite only weighing in around 2-3% of your total body weight, your brain requires the following just for you to stay alive:
- 15% of cardiac output
- 20% of total oxygen
- 25% of total glucose
Imagine how much more this organ requires during those intensive revision sessions!
An area of the brain that can be particularly affected during studying is the reticular system. This is the part of the brain involved in motivation and keeping you awake. This area receives inputs from the eyes and ears (amongst others), which might be why some people find it useful when revising to include lots of visual diagrams or talking things through with colleagues.
When people use the expression 'using the grey matter', this is a reference to the fact that your brain is made up of both white and grey matter. Your grey matter is the areas where the cells (neurons) live, and the white matter is the pathways which connect the grey matter.
There are around 100 billion cells in the adult brain, which connect extensively with other cells, making approximately 100 trillion connections. It is these connections that make us who we are, what we have learnt and how we feel about the world.
