Thursday, April 30, 2009
As class gets dull, you draw flowers, the head in front of you, your teacher, or trace words on a textbook. This mindless act, doodling, might actually improve your concentration.
When bored in class, you may daydream, which can distract you from class. Doodling, though, can reduce daydreaming and keep you concentrated, according to a recent study conducted by Jackie Andrade, researcher at the University of Plymouth in southern England. The study suggests people perform a task better when they don’t daydream, and doodling itself is less distracting than daydreaming. Simple visual tasks, such as doodling, also block mental imagery that is unrelated to the task, says Andrade, who studies cognitive psychology.
Doodling the day away: Mindless doodling can actually help you play attention in class as compared with spacing off.
Twiddling a pen might have a similar effect in reducing daydreaming, Andrade says, though text messaging does not help people pay attention because texting involves verbal processing.
Regardless of her study, Andrade suggests trying another way to concentrate on class. “Find ways to make it interesting,” she says. “Think how it links with material from other modules, or with real-life situations. Doodling is a last resort.”
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Comments
Good for you, bad for you: Doodling
Our son was a doodler. We couldn't tell whether it was helping or hurting his schoolwork until we got his grades! He couldn't seem to stay focused on anything.
We hired an ADHD coach to help with Alex. Our coach advocated us restructuring our parenting approaches. She also had us use two different programs. We used www.adhdnanny.com to help us schedule routines and to provide consequences when the routine wasn't met. It's definitely for younger kids, but it really helped us manage. We also used www.playattention.com. It's a neat program that allows Alex to control their games like Harry Potter. He uses his mind to finish tasks and improve memory. It's a long road, but we're doing well. It's good to have someone sort through the clutter to get help.
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