Learning Styles

#284

I've watched people learn my whole life. Some light up when someone's explaining something out loud. Others zone out and need to read it themselves (that's me!). Some need diagrams and visuals (also me). Some need to hear the story. There's no one way, though unfortunately most classrooms teach like there is.  Conforming to a single format and expectation. No wonder so many people think they're bad at learning. They're just not learning the way their brains actually work.

For me, I took advantage of that as an adult once I not only became more aware but also as resources like GenAI made learning, its modes, and accesses virtually limitless.

I always thought I was a visual learner because I respond to images and written words. I need specific examples to understand the underlying concepts at times, but then I'd click on an educational video, say, ten to fifteen minutes on how manual vs. automatic automobile gear transmissions work, and I'd lose focus after just two or three minutes. Listening to someone talk, even when they're drawing on a whiteboard tends to exhaust me. So I'd think, "Well, I'll just read about it instead," and somehow I don't tend to zone out. The words on the page have a vastly different effect on me. And I know the situation is the exact opposite for a lot of folks out there.

A part of it ties to cognitive load: basically, how much information your brain can process at once. Video lectures layer sound, visuals, pace, and duration all at once. Reading lets you control the speed. One can pause, reread any number of times, skip ahead and come back more easily, and differ the pace on different sections of a page. For some brains, that's the difference between learning and tuning out.

When I studied for my PMP (Project Management Professional) exam, I tested this intentionally. I grabbed the PMP Exam Prep for Dummies book from the library and paired it with video lectures strategically - not as my primary source, but to fill gaps. Reading was my workhorse. I'd absorb the material in half the time. It was slightly different in this particular case because preparing for an exam is different from actually learning the subject. I needed to understand what the exam tested more than memorizing answers or learning the concept as such due to hands-on experience at work, and the combination of books and  videos helped me strike that balance.

The meta part- I also started noticing how I learn about things I'm genuinely curious about - hobbies, interests, random topics. Same pattern. Reading first, videos when I'm stuck.

Learning styles are many: visual learners absorb through images and written words, auditory learners thrive on listening and discussion, reading/writing learners (like me) need text to process, and kinesthetic learners need hands-on experience.

If you notice your learning style skews toward reading, or video, or listening, or hands-on, stop forcing the other way and honor the working of your brain. That's self-care, too- giving yourself permission to learn the way you learn best. Your future self will thank you for the time you save.

Artificial constraints

#283

I borrowed twenty-something books from the library three months ago. Some I finished. Most I didn't. And for weeks, I carried around this low-level guilt about the ones still sitting on my nightstand: half-read, abandoned, judging me quietly.

When I voiced this shame out loud one day, my partner asked me: "Why do you have all these artificial constraints!?"

I'd been complaining about always showering before breakfast. That's the rule I'd set for myself, apparently. Why? Because that's how I was raised and I'm rather obedient, so I didn't question it. But then one day I didn't have time. So I ate breakfast first. Waited an hour. Then took a shower.

The world didn't end.

That day, I went and returned those unfinished books to the library. I became aware of the fact that I was forcing myself to finish books I no longer wanted to read urgently or that other activities took priority during that phase of my life. It helped me let go of my own made-up rules that no longer served me.

When obligation becomes the point

The borrowed books weren't the problem. The pressure I'd put on myself to finish them was.

I had borrowed the books with real excitement. New frameworks, new stories, new ideas - I'd wanted them all. But then life got dense. Some books didn't land the way I expected. Others I started and realized I'd outgrown them. A few were just... not it.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that I should finish them. Because finishing things is what you're supposed to do. One of the ways I'd measured success in life. But also: psychology.

There's a concept known as the "sunk-cost fallacy". It's the idea that because you've already invested time, money, or effort (i.e. sunk cost) into something, you should keep investing more to justify what you've already spent. It's a cognitive bias, a trick our brains play on us. We think that the effort we've already wasted somehow obligates us to waste more.

But in reality: that obligation is completely made up.

Turning completion worship into intentionality

My partner noticed a pattern quickly enough when I used to yes to things I didn't have to say yes to, and feel trapped. I created rules and forgot they were optional. I pressured myself to finish because stopping felt like failure and I couldn't tolerate leaving things unfinished.

Sunk costs don't obligate you. Returning the books didn't erase what I'd already read. Breaking the shower rule didn't undo my morning. The sunk costs were sunk either way. Finishing them wouldn't un-sink them.

What finishing them would do is tie me to decisions I no longer believed in.

I gradually learnt that meaning comes from who you are now, not from finishing what made sense five years ago. You don't have to be who you were when you started, because you've grown. You've evolved.

What artificial constraint are you carrying today? What would happen if you broke it?

Continuity over perfection

#282

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -Aristotle

For three months after I started CrossFit, I kept waiting for the right conditions before I'd go: eight hours of quality sleep, good hydration, zero excuses lined up. That combination hardly ever lined up, so I rarely showed up either. It was irregular, sometimes twice a week, sometimes four times a week to catch up then burning out and skipping a week, then vowing to thrice a week but going at different times of day anyway. The days I went half-baked with less than 6-7 hours of sleep, I realized my cortisol ends up resetting after a while. So now I go regardless. Tired, dehydrated, running on four hours, whatever the day handed me. On Saturdays, when I actually get to sleep in and catch up in the afternoon, all of me thanks me for having gone and showed up at least.

Blogging taught me the same lesson. I'd sit on a post for weeks trying to get a sentence exactly right, and by the time I published it, I'd lost momentum on the next four ideas sitting in my drafts folder. With this year's commitment to myself to uphold weekly publishing on self-care, a slightly clunky post that goes out on Wednesday afternoon beats a polished one that never leaves the folder.

The two versions of me

There's the version who's still negotiating with the conditions: waiting for the right amount of sleep, the right mood, the right stretch of free time to do it properly. And there's the version who just does the smaller, messier thing on schedule. Same person, same goals, and only one of them actually keeps a streak going.

I used to think the gap between those two was discipline. Gritting my teeth through mornings and grinding through. Turns out it's mostly just the size of the bar I'd set for what counted as showing up. Lower the bar enough and willpower has no room left to matter.

Falling to systems

"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." -James Clear

One aspect of James Clear's research on habits is all about how motivation is unreliable, so what works is building a habit that survives a bad day. He calls this identity-based, rooted in who you are rather than what you want, which is why skipping it feels like betraying yourself instead of just missing a goal.

The compounding part that small and consistent beats big and rare, every time, given enough weeks, might sound boring. But boring is exactly why it works. The only thing that survives "every single day, no exceptions" for me is a lowered bar.

The new bar

Now a workout counts if I show up to the gym and work out for an hour instead of 90 minutes, at 60% of my capacity. A post counts if it says the true thing plainly, even when the sentence isn't singing or the words haven't fully scratched the itch in my brain. Some days I still catch myself waiting for eight hours of sleep and perfect hydration before I'll commit to anything. I just don't wait as long as I used to, and on the mornings I go anyway, tired and unprepared, some part of me is always relieved by the afternoon. I also realized I tend to regret not doing something more than doing it and having to pay the price for it later, like being tired the rest of the day and having to push through because of the workout, because deep down, I convince my brain that my body's better off for having done it.

Conflict and repair

#281

"The best fighter is never angry." — Lao Tzu

My partner and I had a disagreement a few weeks ago over something so small I'm almost embarrassed to write it down- it was about taking the trash out. But honestly, it doesn't matter what it was; what matters is that ten minutes in, we weren't actually arguing about the thing anymore. We were arguing about being right. Voices a notch sharper, and both of us digging into positions neither of us fully believed, just to avoid being the one who backed down first.

A day or two after the instance, during a moment of self-reflection, I pondered things like- what was I even defending during the argument? Was it the original thing or my ego stemming from my need to not be the one who folds first because of my belief to be in the right?

I used to think a good relationship meant fewer fights. Turns out one of its aspects is faster repair. The couples who never disagree aren't necessarily healthier. They often might be avoiding something, or one person has quietly stopped bringing things up at all. The actual skill isn't conflict-avoidance. It's knowing how to stay in the room, stay yourself, and still care about the person across from you while you're both a little annoyed.

There's a researcher named John Gottman who teaches at UW and has spent decades studying couples, watching them argue in a lab, tracking who stayed together and who split. His finding wasn't that stable couples fight less. It's that they're better at what he calls "repair attempts". These are small moves, sometimes just a joke or a hand on an arm, that de-escalate a fight before it turns into contempt.

Contempt looks like an eye-roll, a sarcastic jab, or mocking your partner's point mid-sentence. A repair attempt looks like the opposite: a joke, a hand on an arm, sometimes just admitting out loud that you're both being ridiculous. The couples who last aren't the ones without friction but rather the ones who know how to hit the brakes.

I'm glad to have become more aware about these things nowadays. The fix has almost become unglamorous- some days, it's a simple "can we start over." Other days it's even simpler: "I think we've shifted topics." My favorite ones are where one of us comes up with a clever joke or pun to diffuse the situation instantly.

What do you do in the ninety seconds after things get a bit fraught- Do you dig in, look for the exit ramp, or something else entirely?

Joy of movement

#280

Until about a year ago, movement was never really my thing. I wasn't into fitness or working out or even sports at a consistently competitive level. My parents did tai chi and yoga, but I was the kid with a book in her hand, not a jersey on her back.

Then I moved to the US and everyone kept talking about pilates. So I tried it. And it felt hard. Not in a good way but rather in a way that made me want to stop. One day my friend introduced me to CrossFit.  And then, thanks to the coaches, the community, and camaraderie, lifting heavy things became addictive. I felt strong. It felt empowering.

But CrossFit isn't the only movement that found its way into my life. Yoga has been good too. Especially the slow, controlled vinyasa flows. Though balancing poses still require way more focus from me than I'd like to admit. My body's still learning what stability feels like.

Dancing has always been fun. I move differently when music is involved. But I've had knee issues forever, so there's always this low-level fear. That same caution kept me away from sports as a kid. My knees have taught me to move carefully. CrossFit helped me build quad strength that stabilized muscles around my knees, keeping it in place.

And then there's running. I was never a cardio person. Never understood the appeal. But this year, I signed up for my very first run: a 5K. Trained for about 2 months for it. The overall final run felt a bit difficult, but since I had no time goal for myself, I was very happy when I finished the race well under an hour. The medal still hangs in the middle of my living room and I feel inspired by it every time I look at it. I've also started enjoying running way more than before and say yes to the opportunities that present themselves.

All this to say - this is what joyful movement feels like. Not punishment or obligation, and not because I'm trying to earn something or fix something. Just the simple pleasure of feeling your body move the way it's designed to move. Slow, controlled, intentional. Feeling your muscles engage. Feeling your breath. Feeling the ground under your feet.

It's different from what the fitness world sells you. There's no before-and-after. No metric to hit. No goal to achieve. Just the sensation of being in your body and actually enjoying it. The strength in your legs after a long walk. The calm that settles over you during a slow yoga flow. The lightness that comes after you've moved intentionally.

Your body is yours. You get to move it for pleasure. Not punishment. Not because you're supposed to. Because it feels good. Because you want to. Because your body is capable and alive and sometimes that's reason enough.

Memorabilia as self-care

#279

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Somewhere in a box in my closet, there's a card made of pistachio shells.

One of my older cousins had colored the top of each one, painstakingly, shell by shell, and glued them into place to spell out "All The Best". She had made this for my tenth grade board exams. The kind of exam where the whole extended family collectively holds its breath for the first time.

I don't remember much about studying for those exams. I remember the card.

In that same box: a letter from my younger cousin, back when she was still learning her letters — literally. She didn't know cursive yet, so in my reply, I wrote out the whole alphabet for her, looping and slanted, showing her how each letter connected to the next. She wrote back with a drawing tucked inside. Two stick figures holding hands. Big sister, little sister, her handwriting rather neat and coherent for a three-year-old. I can't exactly describe what I feel when I look at it. I've tried to find the word and I can't. Maybe it doesn't need one.

The box also contains gifts from my girl-cousin duo at my bachelorette, the notes from all the birthday gifts my Dad has given me over the years, and origami cranes a tour guide in Japan folded for us on our last day, making it one of the highlights of our trip. Small things creating big waves. 

Over time, an item became a folder. A folder became a box. And soon, it became several folders inside an ever-growing bigger box. I used to revisit the box once a year and wonder if I'd had anything that I wanted to get rid of as part of "Kon-mari"-ing the house. But every year, the answer would be a hard no, since all it would do is make me feel valued and loved and grateful for my family, friends, and experiences in life.

There's a concept in psychology called attachment theory. It's the idea that humans need a "secure base," something or someone that reminds the nervous system it's safe, it's held, it belongs. Usually that's a person. But objects can borrow that job too. The pistachio card isn't just paper, color, and shell. It's a younger version of me being told, in the most literal glued-together way possible, that someone rooted for her.

Marie Kondo asks if a thing sparks joy right now, hands on it, this exact moment. Most days, I'm on board. But some things don't need to spark anything today to matter. The cursive letter doesn't spark joy on a random Wednesday in my closet. It's a record of two sisters learning each other's handwriting, and that's enough of a reason to keep it.

I no longer assess this box on what item earns its keep. Rather, I feel a sense of pride when the box gets bigger because to me, that's what an accumulated life looks like: a slow collection of little things people didn't have to do, but did anyway.

I imagine this box a few years from now. Heavier. Fuller. More folders than it has any business having. Still full of pistachio shells and cursive letters and cranes from a woman in Japan I might never see again.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." -Maya Angelou

Sensory overload

#278

There are days when everything feels too much. Too loud or too bright. Flickering lights that make my eyes hurt. A crowd of people all talking at once, each voice competing for space in your head. So many inputs and stimuli that my nervous system just wants to run away.

So I run away. To my room if possible. Find a quiet corner. Curl up with my knees drawn to my chest - I love this posture. It makes me feel contained and safe. I dim the lights. And slowly, things start to get better. My mind quietens and I can think again. My brows un-furrow.

This is what sensory overload looks like: your brain receives more input than it can process. Sound, light, movement, people—all at once. Your nervous system gets flooded. You need to retreat because you can't process anymore. It's easy to label that as weak or antisocial but it's really just dealing with an overwhelming situation.

After stepping away from Instagram and discovering boredom (see #276 and #277), I started enjoying quiet spaces even more. I love silence nowadays. No TV, no podcasts, no music, just me and my thoughts. And sometimes, my thoughts aren't thinking anything either. I've lately discovered that doing this - just sitting quietly in my room even for 15 brief minutes calms and regulates my nervous system, similar to what writing often does for me.

You can find your own quiet space in whichever way appeals to you when you need it - A corner of a café during off-hours. A park bench early morning. A bathroom with the door locked. Anywhere your nervous system can pause and reset.

This quiet space is sometimes where I come up with blog post ideas in the realm of self-care. Like this post on sensory overload.

The world is loud, bright, and full of competing demands. Self-care during sensory overload isn't necessarily always about meditating or forcing yourself to calm down. Sometimes, it's simply giving yourself permission to step toward outer peace to find your inner peace.

"I'm bored." "Sometimes, that's great!"

#277

In my previous post (#276), I talked about stepping away from Instagram for 30 days. This led to moments of doomscrolling being replaced by my ability to experience boredom. When you're not scrolling, there's no new content and no notifications to constantly stimulate your brain. What happens then?

I watched a YouTube video about someone who stared at white walls for about 15 continuous minutes. What happens from a neurological standpoint there is that your brain activates something called the Default Mode Network—a system of interconnected brain regions that turn on when you're bored or daydreaming. Or when you allow your mind to wander.

Your brain is consolidating memories, making new connections between ideas, processing emotions, generating creativity. The things that don't get a chance to happen when you're constantly stimulated. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that mind-wandering is linked to greater working memory capacity. Your brain is literally thinking better when you're "doing nothing."

Growing up in an Asian household in an extra-Asian society conditions you to fear boredom. To fill every gap with content. With input. With something. Kids get bored for five minutes and parents immediately pull out a screen. Adults feel restless and scroll. We treat boredom like it's a problem to solve instead of what it actually is—a necessary rest and reset.

Look at what happens when you let a kid actually be bored for a while. Really bored. No iPad. No suggestions. Just time and space. Eventually, they stop complaining. They get creative. They build something. Boredom is where independence and curiosity develop on their own terms. This is different from meditation, where you're actively trying to direct your mind. Boredom is the opposite—you're just letting it roam.

That's the Default Mode Network doing its job. Introspection. Memory consolidation. Creativity. Reflective thinking. All the stuff we say we value but don't actually make space for.

When I stopped scrolling, I noticed I started thinking differently. Not in a tortured, existential way. Just... clearer. Ideas came that weren't reactions to someone else's content. I had thoughts that surprised me because they came from me, not from what I'd consumed. Same logic applies for great ideas coming to you when you're in the shower.

The white walls aren't depressing. They're restorative. Minimal visual input means your brain isn't constantly processing external stimuli. It gets to process itself instead.

In a world that's obsessed with optimization and productivity and constant input, boredom has become almost rebellious. Sitting with nothing. Staring at a wall. Letting your mind wander without trying to direct it. That's radical now.

Digital detox

#276

I uninstalled Instagram for 30 days. Just as a random first-of-the-month resolution - the kind I make every once in a while to reset habits that have slowly drifted away from me. Eat healthier. Sleep earlier. Practice violin for 5 minutes a day.

This time it was: see what happens if I'm not watching other people's lives.

It was nice to remain up-to-date with what all my school and college friends and acquaintances have been doing these past few years as we've lost touch. However, the issue with Instagram is that people only show you the highlight reels. Someone's vacation in Bali. Someone's fancy new mansion. Their morning yoga routine. Their pottery creation. Their perfectly plated breakfast. And much more. What it doesn't show you is the fight they had with their partner that morning, or the several jobs they applied for and didn't get, or the three months they spent stressed about money before that vacation happened.

We tend to compare our internal experiences - our doubts, our failures, our ordinary Tuesday mornings—against everyone else's external curated moments. It's not a fair parallel to draw. No one's posting their bad days or their messy kitchen or the fact that they cried during a meeting. So naturally, everyone else's life looks better than yours.

I noticed this wasn't even subtle. Someone would post about a trip and I'd immediately feel the pull. Where am I not going? What am I not doing? Why haven't I learned that skill or taken that class or traveled to that country yet? The comparison was constant. And it was draining. I felt like I was missing out even though I felt perfectly content and happy with my own life.

After about two weeks without the app, these comparisons in my head stopped. I stopped wondering what everyone was up to. Stopped measuring my life against theirs. My mood shifted. I felt a lot more focused. I also repurposed that time and energy towards reaching out directly to friends and family I actually cared about, and of course treasured the voice call to a friend in another city, the long message on WhatsApp to my cousin, and asking my partner about his day way more than doom-scrolling and self-loathing.

Nowadays, when I randomly get the urge to find out what others are up to, I open Instagram on my mobile browser instead of reinstalling the app. I have to log in every single time and I set a 15-minute limit, which helps me snap out of it and put my phone away. This helped convert mindless, endless action into something intentional. Instagram was no longer the default way I spent my idle minutes.

Remind yourself when you face this that you're only seeing one side of the story, and that side has almost nothing to do with anyone's actual life. Majority of folks posting on Instagram make it seem like they're doing something you're not, but in reality, they're just good at making it look that way. Focus on creating real, meaningful connections in ways that appeal to you. Hopefully in no time, you'll be FOMO-resistant!

Let the sunshine in

#275

I remember this song from my 4th grade music class called "Let the Sunshine In", written by Stuart Hamblen. The lyrics go: 

"So let the sunshine in, face it with a grin

Smilers never lose and frowners never win

So let the sunshine in, face it with a grin

Open up your heart and let the sunshine in"

Every time the sun graces us with its presence in gloomy Seattle, my brain automatically starts singing these lyrics. I've lived here more than three years now. The first winter, I was too busy adjusting to notice anything different. Big move from India. New city. New job. New lifestyle. Pretty much new everything. But during the fall and winter the second year - from September to roughly March - I realized I was sleeping at least 10 hours at night! The sun would set around 4PM and it wouldn't turn bright until about 8AM the next day. Also, no matter how rested I'd feel, and regardless of my sleep quality, I'd wake up feeling tired. Some days, I'd even feel kinda hopeless and low. Meh and bleh.

Year three, same thing. And then my friend educated me about SAD. Very apt name for the Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is a type of depression that occurs around the same time each year, typically when daylight hours shorten. Your brain chemistry responds to less sunlight by producing less serotonin. How does one combat it? Several options, including taking vitamin D3 tablets every day, purchasing a light therapy lamp that mimics sunlight, planning trips to sunny cities to escape Seattle winters. These made the hibernation period slightly more manageable.

Just like you allow the sun rays to caress your face, penetrating through the thick, dense clouds, take care of yourself by enabling a glimmer of hope or positivity to pass through despite all the things you might be going through. You're not denying the gloom, you're not weak just by admitting you need help. All you're doing is recognizing that even when your forecast looks bleak, you still get to choose how much light you make space for.

The song rings true. Smilers never lose. Just that they sometimes need vitamin D and a plane ticket south to get there!