Supplement: fish oil (1.5g of epa/dha omega-3 a day, was suggested
this one) and
selenium helped me with brain fog.
Thank you, I knew fish oil was good but I shall add selenium to my list of things to try!
Some supplements that help some people are Huperzine, Vinpocetine, Ginkgo Biloba extract and L-tyrosine or N-acetyl-L-tyrosine. These all act very fast, usually within 30 minutes or so, except the Ginkgo, that might take some time to work. I'm assuming if you are sensitive to supplements you know to start at very low doses and slowly work your way up.
Thank you, I've literally never heard of the first 2 and don't know much about the others, so they'll all go on my list of things to both research and try. I'm sensitive to medications but I'd never really thought about the need to start slow with supplements too - makes sense and it's something I'll definitely do now.
- Stop much more frequently to quiz yourself. Sometimes I had to do this every page or two! This gives you less time to forget what you've read.
- Try reading out loud and seeing if that helps. Sometimes both speaking and hearing yourself speak can help you remember the material.
- Take notes as you read/study. The act of writing (actually writing, not typing) might help you remember the information.
- Every page or so, stop, go back, and summarize the information you've read. Try to do this aloud!
- Before moving on after a break, go over the previous material (or your notes on it) to review it.
Thank you, these are great tips! I think stopping and reviewing more often is most definitely something I should be doing. I'm so focused on getting through the content and not getting behind that it's easy to not review often enough, especially when I think I probably need to review more often than when I was healthier.
Retrieval is a big deal now here. And differentiating between subtleties. So I now screw up on the trick question. Or where two answers are really similar. Or: there were two things, and now I can't keep track of whether it was the one or the other. The best hope is: the multiple choice test without trick questions!
We fortunately do have a multiple choice section in most exams, but it's a smaller portion. Usually if an exam is worth 50 marks, multiple choice will be about 10 marks, short answer about 15 marks and case studies about 25 marks. That's why it's so important to really
get the information, because I have to be able to process it so I can make a diagnosis and decide on most appropriate treatments and actually explain that diagnosis and treatment plan.
The differentiating between subtleties is a big one for me, as we are often learning about a bunch of similar health conditions and have to be able to determine how to differentiate them. I think that's what can be so overwhelming! For example in internal med, we did about 4 weeks on digestive disorders so I need to know about constipation, diarrhoea, various types of dysentery, IBS, IBD, epigastric pain, acid regurgitation, abdominal pain, abdominal distention and nausea/vomiting. Each one of those has on average 4-8 presenting patterns (Chinese medicine, so different approach to biomed). So my study is literally all about damn subtleties! I think that realising this will help though, as it shows I need to highlight the overall definition of each condition as well as the key differentiating factors.
Thanks for all your ideas so far guys. It's given me a few ideas on supplements to try and study strats to implement and I'm definitely going to start re-evaluating my study techniques, as I think my brain function has declined enough to need to adapt my study techniques to my new needs. Sorry it took me a bit to reply - Christmas period is hard, I know you all understand. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all! I hope 2020 brings us all many spoons!