I am a freaking bad public speaker, literally. As a schoolbook writer I often get invitations to speak at talks, conferences or giving lectures in institutions. I prepare scrupulously, writing and chiselling my sentences, then mug up carefully. At the event I stand in front of my audience, I don’t see faces only a blurry mass. I start to speak, my mouth is dry, my voice cracks. Then the brain fog descends and I pause. I pick up my text somewhere else, skipping a whole paragraph, and feel very grateful when the trial and tribulation is over.
However once in my lifetime I gave the perfect talk. It was at a conference. I clutched my printed, 5-page long text, waiting for my fate and listening to the guy right before my performance. I found him a terrible speaker, like myself. He looked nervous, spoke softly, but I concentrated on his message with growing interest. I noticed that what he was saying was wrong. My interest turned into surprise, then annoyance. Annoyance turned into excitement when I realised I could clarify what he was messing up. When I stepped onto the podium, I just threw away my papers and held a 40-minute long passionate and improvised speech. After my closing words I got a lot of questions and invitations to other events. I was exhausted and contented.
Unfortunately I could never repeat this feat again, but think a lot about it. So what happened? Simply, my emotions controlled me. I am fine to deliver my ideas but not in front of a big audience. I feel uncomfortable, the feeling turns into panic, and I can’t concentrate anymore. With negative feelings I am not able to think. In the second case I felt happy to think that I could explain what the previous speaker missed. I was thrilled and excited.
What can we learn from my unfortunate case? That emotions matter a lot when it is about performance. Neuroscience neatly explains what happens. There is a part in our brain, called limbic system, which controls our emotions. It is a fancy scientific name, we can call it Lizzy’s sister, doesn’t matter. It is located right behind our eyes, roughly in the middle of the brain. Whenever information goes from the senses to the brain, it passes through Lizzy’s sister. It acts as an emotion filter before anything reaches our conscience. Lizzy’s sister makes quick decision whether the piece of information is worth of notice, or dangerous, maybe delightful. Accordingly, some information won’t reach the conscience, while others will trigger changes. For example when a hippo chases you, Lizzy’s sister will suspend unimportant body systems like digestion, to concentrate on the run. When you sip at some spoiled turkey milk shake, you instantly feel disgust which saves you from further drinking. You really have no time to think at that moment, you just instinctively spit.
The consequence is grim. When you study grudgingly you won’t get much progress. Lizzy’s sister is too occupied with disgust to get through logarithm and chromosomes. Your mind just spits those topics out. When you are relaxed, happy or motivated, the situation is much better. You can easily recall things later. Your hard work will be more effective when you are in a good mood, you are motivated, and less effective when you struggle.
Does it mean that we are the puppets of our feelings? Does really Lizzy’s sister control us? Yes, in fact, but nothing is wrong with it, until our conscience can also grab some control over feelings.
It is just that you have to strive to get motivated, have interest for effective learning. Start studying with topics you are curious about. Or try to find interesting things in them. When I didn’t understand the Maxwell equations, I hated them. I didn’t want to give up, I felt annoyed, then it started to dawn on me and I was thrilled. The revelation gave me the goose bumps of excitement.
If you find your topic ultimately boring, and it is a must to know, find sources which cover the topic in an interesting way. Look at for example Brook’s units on genetics. She uses dining tables instead of the complexity of human genetics. She asks, if dining tables could breed, what would be their genetic setup? It is simple and thought-provoking, not dry description.
If you don’t find any interesting, it is your task to come up with some ideas. Help yourself, and help others, so that you don’t waste your time with ineffective studying. In the real world there are no boring things. Only we, humans create them.