Happy PhD: Using your Physiology to your Advantage

This week, I have the pleasure of hosting Amber Davis, who is sharing her knowledge on 3 important aspects we need to take care of to facilitate the process of writing the dissertation. Amber is a political scientist and PhD coach, who studied at the London School of Economics and Leiden University, and holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence. She teaches stress-management and productivity seminars for PhD students and created the HappyPhD Online Course to help you write your PhD (almost) effortlessly in a couple of hours a day. On her blog, she is giving away the online course twice to celebrate the New Year. Click here to enter the contest.

What if writing a PhD could be easy? Granted, easy may be too much to ask. But easier it can be. That is, if you get yourself in the right zone for doing academic work physiologically, mentally and emotionally. I know it can be done – and you can do it too - but I found out how to do it the hard way. I spent quite some time thinking I would never finish my PhD, when health issues forced me to drop out of the PhD programme and the rest of life for several years. Even after the worst was over, I was left with a fraction of the energy I had had before I fell ill. I decided to finish my PhD anyway. Why not? I had nothing to lose. In the process I discovered that writing a PhD can be easier, and a lot more fulfilling. I also discovered I had to radically changed the way I worked to be able to succeed.

My old working habits - which included a lot of worrying about my PhD instead of working on my PhD, stressing over deadlines, and much time spent in a mental twilight zone in which the PhD was always sitting on my shoulder telling me off for ‘being behind’ – were not exactly conducive to finishing my thesis. Let alone do my best work and finish it with a smile on my face (was writing a PhD with a smile even possible?) There had to be a better way. Against all the odds, I set out to find a more productive and kinder way forward. Long story short: I devoured everything I could find on stress-management and productivity, and set out experimenting. The experiment was a success. I finished my PhD working an average of 2-3 hours a day. I made all my deadlines, and rather astonishingly my PhD was selected the best of its year. Although it wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, it had been easier than I could have envisioned. I now teach PhD students to do the same.

Eva has kindly asked me to write a couple of blog posts to outline how you too can write your PhD more effortlessly. In my search I discovered three levels or aspects of productivity that, when addressed, will significantly improve your focus, output and mood. You can work on them independently, but if you manage to address all three, the rewards will multiply. The first is the level of physiology: or how to create the right physiological conditions to do your best academic work, and keep your mental energy high over time. The second is the level of working habits and structure: or how to organise your day to be most productive. The third level is that of attitude: or how to work from a place of ease and flow instead of forcing yourself forward.

Today’s post will be about level 1: Physiology. When we think of academic work, we mostly think of our minds as somehow independent from our bodies. But our brain, the home of the mind, is an organ. It is physical and has physical needs. If you take care of it well, it will reward you with those three things academics need most: the ability to focus and do challenging mental work, the ability to be creative and come up with new ideas and arguments, and the ability to switch our attention to other things when we choose to do so. With these three in place we can solve complex academic puzzles, using both rational logical analytical thought and creative intuitive insight, and (very important) be able to switch off and do something fun (or useful…if we really have to) once we decide to call it a day.

There are a number of strategies to help your brain function optimally, and the two most basic ones, which I believe should be priorities for every academic, are exercise and meditation. I find it amusing that the activities most beneficial to our mental performance are traditionally thought of as belonging to the physical and the spiritual realm. Going to the gym and sitting on a meditation pillow is for gym bunnies and hippies, not for scholars! Except they are. Very much so. I believe every academic should have a so-called ‘take-care-of-your-brain’ routine in place, consisting of these two activities. Exercise and meditation are the best ways to keep your brain healthy and stress-free. The difference in mental clarity and focus will astound you.

How to do it: To start with exercise: 20 minutes 3x a week is the absolute minimum. It’s important to get your heart rate up for this amount of time. It will help your brain recharge and renew. The activity you choose is up to you, just make sure it’s cardiovascular activity to at least a certain degree. Walking is not intense enough, jogging (elegantly or not) is fine. Or sprint if you want. Do something you enjoy doing. That way you’ll have a better chance of succeeding at all. If you really hate exercise, you can comfort yourself with the thought that 20 minutes really is enough for positive changes to occur, if that’s all you want to do. Turn the music up. Jump around, sing, and dance for a couple of songs and exercise is done.

Meditation is the more difficult habit to learn, mostly because of our beliefs around it. Some people have to get over the ‘spiritual’ nature of meditation first. If that is you, just drop it (I say that in the kindest way). See it as a brain exercise, much like you would see solving an intellectual puzzle. It’s just a different way of exercising the brain. Secondly, we think that meditation is about ‘emptying our mind’. We should be Zen, chilled out and blissed out, which is a very nice idea, until we try to sit still for 5 minutes and find out how difficult it is. Our busy minds won’t shut up. So many things to do today, so many things to worry about, so many distractions! The most important step in meditation is to realise that ‘emptying the mind’ is not something we can strive towards. It is something that just happens, if we create the right conditions for it to occur. And if it doesn’t happen that is also OK. You can’t really force anything. But you can practice just sitting (with a busy mind, if need be). That’s where the beauty lies. If you sit for 10, or 20, or 30 minutes in stillness every day, the mental (and other) rewards will show up. That’s a promise. But they will come unannounced, not when you are willing them into being. The practice of meditation is simple: sit in silence and focus on your breathing (there are many other techniques, but this is the most basic one). Whenever you notice your attention has wandered into thought, bring it back to the breath. Do it for your chosen length of time. That’s all. It’s very simple. Meditation done.

If you are interested in creating your own ‘take-care-of-your-brain’ routine as discussed above, have a look at the HappyPhD Online Course. It will walk you through it step-by-step, day-by-day, for 6 weeks. That is, until it’s a habit and has become a part of your daily routine. To celebrate the New Year (it’s still January after all), I am giving away the course for free twice on my blog.

PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: Leveraging your Job Seeking Position by Highlighting your Academic Skills

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer, your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands.

These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands.

If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic!

After 3 or 4 years of hard work and study, you have received your PhD degree, and you wonder: "What is next in life?".

Very few PhD graduates remain in academia after obtaining their doctoral degree. Most of us will go to the industry.
And every so often, especially in the Netherlands, the following remark comes up during the hiring process:

"Why did you spend your time on doing research, while you now want to come and work in the industry? Shouldn't you have gone to work straight after your Master's degree and used these years to get real-life experience?."

When this question, or a similar remark comes up, don't feel offended or misunderstood. Instead, highlight your academic skills as a function of your job search. Needless to say, think thoroughly about this subject before you walk into the interview room...

While a number of years of experience in practice are certainly very valuable, these years in academia, especially while working towards a PhD degree, provide you with skills that might make you a more attractive candidate for the open position.

Let me restate that clearly: your doctoral training has made you an independent researcher, with an array of unique skills that are highly valuable in industry.

Depending on your field, you can think of the following skills that put you ahead of other applicants:

1. Analytical skills
Whether your PhD research relies on qualitative or quantitative data analysis, there is almost always a large chunk of analytical work involved in PhD research. Being able to handle large amounts of data is a skill needed by consultancy offices, private labs as well as many large technical companies.

2. Autonomy
Getting a PhD is all about becoming an independent researcher. No third or fourth year doctoral candidate has his/her adviser watching over his/her shoulder while working. You might be working weeks on end on something, trying out different paths, iterating, and making your own decisions. This large level of autonomy gives you the ability to work on larger projects, all by yourself, while being able to communicate your decisions and the reasons for these decisions to your superiors later on.

3. Ability to learn new topics and skills
A very typical situation during your PhD studies is one in which you run into a subject that you don't know much about, or one in which you seem to be needing a different computer program or programming language to continue your research work. Instead of lifting up your shoulders and thinking: "Well, too bad, I don't know that...", you head out to the library to pick up a book on the subject, read a couple of papers on the subject, follow an online tutorial or start getting involved in a programmer's forum. This ability to learn by yourself new topics and skills, combined with your autonomy, gives you the ability to advance quickly in your career in almost any given field.

4. Deep understanding of your field
Since a doctoral degree is the highest level of education you can achieve, you can pride yourself in the fact that you know more about a certain topic than most other people. In fact, when it comes down to your sub-topic of research, you can claim that you are the expert in your field on that topic - you simply are the only person who knows all the ins and outs of the topic you chose for your PhD studies.

5. Teamwork skills
A PhD degree is always the result of cooperation: with your supervisors, with funding institutions, with other researchers, and with laboratory technicians. Nobody ever graduated by brooding in his/her room in complete isolation for a couple of years and then spitting out 1000 pages of innovative research material. Being able to work in teams is one of the great skills you learn during your doctoral studies.

6. Writing skills
Those papers and that thesis didn't write themselves, and they certainly did not get written without developing sound academic writing skills. With all the writing practice you get during your doctoral years, you will be able to whisk together reports and briefings faster and in a clearer style than your peers who did not go into a PhD program.

7. Presentation skills
Just like you got a good training in (academic) writing during your PhD, you also got a good training at giving presentations. Remember your very first presentation in graduate school? Remember how nervous you were, and how afterwards you learned how to better structure your talks until it almost became second nature? You need to realize that this communication skill is again very valuable to prospective employers.

8. Extra skills you learned during your PhD
During your PhD years, you certainly picked up a few extra, general skills besides your analytical and communication skills. You might have taught yourself a programming language, you might have learned how to speed-read, or you might have taken a number of courses to sharpen your soft skills. Think about all these extra skills, and use them to your advantage to show the benefit of your years of doctoral study.

As I said earlier, make sure that you go well-prepared to your interview, by thinking about the additional benefit you can bring to a company through the skills and topics you mastered during your PhD research. Highlight the value of yourself and your skills as a function of the company where you are applying for a position: show them clearly what unique characteristics you are bringing into the company, and how the company will benefit from this.

Time management in Academia: Balancing teaching and research

Spring 2014 is my first semester in which I have a full course load to teach - and from now on, I'll (most likely) be teaching 3 courses in Spring and 3 courses in Fall. This semester. I'm teaching 3 new courses - courses that I'm developing from scratch for the students at USFQ.

As we saw earlier, it takes about 4 hours to prepare an hour's worth of lecture. Since I'll be teaching 9 hours a week, that puts me already at 45 hours a week (1 hour teaching + 4 hours preparing => and this 9 times a week). Add in some time for grading, and regular admin stuff, and replying emails, and you can imagine that my time is running out quickly.

And all of that is just teaching - what truly matters, on the tenure-track, in my field, for my institution and for my overall career, are my publications. I made an ambitious schedule for churning out a large number of journal papers based on the novel elements in my dissertation (and the massive amount of test data that we produced), but I'm already experiencing that, even though everything is written in my dissertation, it takes more time to write the papers.

With a number of papers in the submission process as well, I forgot to keep time and space in my planning to deal with the comments of the reviewers. Overall, I'm now slowing down from initially wanting to submit a paper per month of 1,5 months to a paper per 2 or 3 months.

Nonetheless, given my part-time appointment in Delft, I want to carve out at least 10 hours per week for research and writing. Ideally, I'd love to up that number to at least 20 hours per week, but I'm afraid that will be hard in my first semester.

As I was scratching my head, and wondering how to fit teaching and research into my schedule (and still find time to eat, play music, play with my cat, given some attention to my husband, exercise, meditate, read for pleasure, sleep at least 8 hours per night, maintain this blog and explore this country), I turned to Twitter for advice. You can find the Storify of the tweets at the bottom of this post.

The main take home message from the tweets was to plan time for writing. This advice closely corresponds to the idea of making the weekly template, as I saw earlier on the blogs of Tanya Golash-Boza and Raul Pacheco-Vega.

As such, I made a weekly template for myself. Over time, I'm planning to change this template in line with ideas from Alisa Vitti's monthly cyclic approach (as outlined in her book WomanCode) and Laura Vanderkam's 168 hours mathematics (see 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think). I'm also planning some trials of writing first thing in the morning, from 6am to 8am, as well as going to the gym first thing in the morning.

Taking into account my previous reservations, and highlighting that this schedule is in its experimental face, I'm here sharing my current weekly template.

Managing the research process

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Helen Kara who wrote a guest post in which she highlights some elements of her recently published book about saving time in research. Helen Kara has been an independent researcher and writer for the last 14 years. She is an Associate Research Fellow at the Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham. She is also on the Board of the UK's Social Research Association with lead responsibility for research ethics. She studied for her own PhD part-time while running a busy research business, and was so successful at managing the process that she needed special permission to submit her thesis just 2 years and 10 months after registration. Her PhD was awarded in 2006. She writes about and teaches research methods, and is always happy to answer any questions on Twitter: @DrHelenKara

Research methods books often treat research as if it exists in a bubble, separate from work, family, and social life. However, in reality, research has to be managed alongside all other activities. This is particularly the case for a long and involved project such as a PhD.

When I was writing my book Research and Evaluation for Busy Practitioners: A Time-Saving Guide, I interviewed 20 researchers in depth to find out how they managed the process. Many of them had done, or were doing, PhDs. I also drew on relevant research and my own doctoral experience. I found that there are four keys to successful management of the research process: plan, be organised, manage your time, and look after yourself.

My interviewees were unanimous about the need to plan carefully. Start with an outline plan for your whole PhD. Work out when you would like to submit your thesis for examination, and work backwards. My outline plan looked something like this:

Jan-Jun year 1 – read as much as possible, make notes, decide on methodology, write first draft of methodology chapter
Jul-Dec year 1 – read more, pilot and review data collection method, write first draft of literature review
Jan-Jun year 2 – collect data, begin analysis, read more, write second draft of methodology chapter, write first drafts of findings/discussion chapter and introduction
Jul-Dec year 2 – finish analysis, read more, write second draft of literature review and findings/discussion chapter, write first draft of conclusion
Jan-Jun year 3 – read more, write third drafts of literature review, methodology and findings/discussion chapters, write second drafts of introduction and conclusion
Jul-Dec year 3 – read more, write third drafts of introduction and conclusion, polish, proof-read, check references

Then break down each chunk into monthly goals, taking into account other commitments such as holidays. At the start of each week, check your monthly goals and make a to-do list for the week, then refer to this list daily to make sure you're on track.

Being organised will help you to put your plans into practice. If you can, set aside a space to work, and make sure you have everything you need at hand. Keep accurate records of your reading, data collection, and so on; this will save you time and stress.

You need to block out time in your diary to do research. Make sure you allocate enough time and use it effectively. Sitting at your computer, fiddling about on Facebook while exchanging text messages with a friend, does not count as effective use of time! One surprising finding from my research is that more time does not necessarily equal more productivity. People are often more productive when they work in short bursts in between other activities. A key skill for researchers is learning to use small chunks of time effectively. In half an hour you could read a journal article or write 250 words of your thesis. In 15 minutes you could make a phone call or two, or search the Web for relevant information. In five minutes you could read a page of a book or enter some questionnaire data into a spreadsheet. And if you have some spare time when you're not at your desk – e.g. waiting in a queue, standing in the shower, on the bus – you can think about your research, try to find solutions to any problems you may be facing.

And look after yourself. Remember to say 'no' – or learn to say 'no', if this is not a skill you've already acquired. Put your PhD first wherever necessary. You're making a major investment in your future which deserves to be a priority in your life. Network with other doctoral students for peer support – and don't feel you have to stick to students from your own discipline, as cross-disciplinary input can be very useful. If you haven't discovered #phdchat on Twitter, I would urge you to join this very supportive global community of doctoral students.

But at the same time, don't become too obsessive about your PhD. You need to stay in touch with your family and friends; take time off; reward yourself for hard work. Different rewards suit different people, so identify those that will suit you. Make them proportionate: for example, when you've reached your daily word count, you could take a break with a cup of tea and the newspaper; when you've finished a draft chapter, you might decide to have a good night out with friends. Doing a PhD is a major challenge, and every step along the way is a real achievement, so get in the habit of celebrating as you go along; it will boost your motivation. Best of luck!

There is more about this in chapter 4 of my book, and I have also written a short e-book called 'Managing The Research Process' which is currently available for 60p on Kindle and Nook and 98p on Kobo (prices may change). Other e-book titles are: Collecting Primary Data, Analysing Data, and Writing for Research.

Eurocode design sheets for structural engineers

Every now and then, I review structural engineering software here at PhD Talk. The last review is from a time ago, and dealt with Codeform and Codeproof, sheets that help designers and that are based on the Eurocodes.

Today, I'm reviewing Carlo Sigmund's Eurocodes Spreadsheets. This January, the Eurocode Spreadsheets are available for sale, and I've had the chance to have a look at these sheets before they were released to the market.

To software of the Eurocode spreadsheets is aimed at students, novice engineers as well as licensed professional civil engineers, designers and architects.

If you want a quick idea of what the design sheets look like, watch this video:



Let's now look at the advantages and disadvantages of the software

Advantages

Helps interpreting the Eurocodes

As the spreadsheets contain all the requirements from the Eurocodes, and let the user select what is applicable for the design he/she is working on, the software has taken on the task of sorting out those issues of where the Eurocodes aren't really clear. As you can see in the following screenshot, if you select, for example, your consequences class, the sheet will continue with the associated reliability index and safety factors.



Additional information

Here and there, the sheets have a built-in textbook function, which describes some concepts that might not be familiar to all practicing engineers. An example is the explanation of a gamma distribution:



Ready to be printed for reports

The sheets have a printing functionality, so that you can simply click the button and get a printed version of the sheet, which can be added to a design report.

Teaches you to use the Eurocodes

For those designing engineers who didn't grow up with the Eurocodes, and need to make the step from previoulsy used national codes to the Eurocodes, the suite of spreadsheets can be a great tool to learn using the Eurocodes. With the additional information, as well as with the fact that the sheets help the designers interpret the codes, the sheets can be a great tool to understand what the requirements of the Eurocodes are.

Comprehensive software

The software is very comprehensive. It is organized per Eurocode, and of every Eurocode it contains all the subcodes and annexes. There's nothing left to the designer to go and look up in the code. In fact, for all that is programmed, the sheets function as an interactive version of the code.

Disadvantages

Not geared towards member design

Since the sheets are organized in exactly the same way as the Eurocodes themselves, the sheets are not fully geared towards member design. The goal of the sheets is to facilitate design (manual or through finite element software), and as such helps the designer make the choices for, for example, input of the right load and resistance factors. However, the designer will have to either cobble together pieces of the spreadsheet to help him with member design, or take some information from the sheets and then use that as input for a design calculation.

An Expat Scholar’s View from the Gulf

Since I wrote a post about the topic of finding a job after the PhD, I've been receiving a lot of feedback from you guys (thanks so much!). One of the people who approached me to discuss the employment debate a little further is John Laprise, a Visiting Professor in Residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. He's about as interdisciplinary as you can get with degrees in Media, Technology and Society; War Studies; History; Religion; and Interdisciplinary Studies. He has also worked as a consultant in the private sector for a decade in the logistics, telecommunications and higher education sectors. John contacted me and told me about his story. Since I'm now a professor at a young university in a country that might be considered as "off the beaten path" as well, my curiosity was triggered, and I asked John to share his story on PhD Talk.

I recently re-entered the job market for the first time in ten years from Doha, Qatar. In 2003, I began my PhD at Northwestern. Five years later, they approached me and asked me to join the faculty of their new campus following my graduation. I was fortunate. I was the right person at the right place at the right time. I could teach needed courses, my research was portable, I had lived previously in the Middle East, I did not have a family to complicate relocation, and I had a solid reputation as a graduate student. I was also an older graduate student having spent ten years in the private sector consulting before returning to university.

In 2009 I arrived in Doha and for the past four years, I have been part of an amazing project. There have been many challenges. Starting a university campus is no small feat but the faculty, staff, and students have produced a truly remarkable program over the intervening years. Along the way, my faculty position has afforded me amazing opportunities. Northwestern supports active global scholarship at international conferences which has enabled me to stay connected with disciplinary colleagues and build new international networks of contacts and collaborators. Moreover, I have had truly unique opportunities for interaction ranging from a serendipitous coffee with Vint Cerf to chatting with cast members from Kevin Spacey’s touring production of Richard III. I have had the incredible good fortune to work with ictQatar, the government council that regulates and sets policy for information and communication technology. Many if not most of the amazing interactions I have had here are unthinkably improbable if I were a junior faculty member in the United States.

It is thus with some regret that I confront the end of my time in Doha and look forward to new challenges and opportunities. Unlike many colleagues who have written about the dismal state of the academic job market, I have a decidedly rosier if broader point of view.

I will never be unemployed unless I choose to be.

As an international academic, I quickly realized that as a holder of a US PhD, I would always be able to find a job if I did not limit myself to US academia. Start-up universities are eager to fill newly created faculty positions while existing universities are always interested in improving the prestige of their departments. While US universities receive significant criticism within the US, they have a strong global brand and a US PhD is prestige. PhD holders from US universities are globally rare and sought after, regardless of discipline. A PhD can be a credential for non-academic employment. International organizations and governments are eager to hire PhDs.

PhD holders are trained to be creators of new knowledge and in an information society that skill set is highly valuable.

Our information society thrives on the creation of new knowledge and PhD holders are an important part of that ecology. A PhD announces expertise at creating and sharing new knowledge in a critical and intellectually rigorous way. Disciplinarity is in some ways less important than the skill set that comes with the discipline. These skills are also very valuable outside of academia. I am a historian of computers and the same skills I use to sift through archives and construct narratives is equally useful when I consult on trends in technology policy.

I want to be paid for doing intellectually challenging work with people I like.

My happiness is important to me and I value it highly. Crucially, I do not define who or what or where my employer might be. I think of myself as a renaissance artisan or condottiere whose work is supported by a patron. When the funding runs out, the contract ends, or the interests of patron and scholar diverge, I must find a new patron. This does not diminish the quality of my work or my professionalism. This is the situation I find myself in currently. Northwestern has established itself in Qatar and is now developing a strong regional research program while I study White House computerization. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.”

Non-tenure track faculty are underpaid academic consultants.

Post-docs, visiting and adjunct faculty tread academic water hoping for a tenure track line, but most will drown without ever landing that position. If these academic consultants decided to ply their trade in the private sector, they would almost certainly command equal if not better compensation and work-life balance but this is not an easy choice because:

Academics tend to identify with their knowledge rather than their skills.

Academic position are frequently advertised by looking for scholars with knowledge in particular areas. The private sector is interested in what skills you have. For many academics, setting aside their knowledge in a subject and identifying with the skills of an archival researcher for instance can be difficult. One big exception are scholars who are methods pioneers. They tend to make the jump without a problem. This is compounded by the fact that:

Academia does not encourage taking risks.

Graduate students spend five or more years at the mercy of their committees. In some cases, this is a benevolent tyranny but in others it’s more like the Terror. Tenure-track faculty are no less ruled by tenure review committees. So for ten or more years, academics are encouraged to take some risks but only within circumscribed bounds. It’s no wonder that many academics fear a private sector job search.

It has never been easier to search for a job.

Internet ubiquity and the global hunger to fill challenging positions means that employment and networking opportunities abound. Spread your wings and move a little outside your comfort zone. Odds are your comfort zone is actually bigger than you thought it was.

Silver Linings: Binaural Beats for Study and Writing

For some time now, I've been using binaural beats to help me focus while I am writing. I am not convinced that the binaural beats themselves help me focus, but for some reason the ritual of putting a binaural track, taking my headphones and committing to finish something makes my productivity soar.

The "science" behind the effect of binaural beats seems to be incomplete at most, and very often fishy. Most likely, using a white noise generator would give me the same results - and I don't think I'm experiencing anything else than a placebo effect.

Nonetheless - when I really need to start cranking out a lot of words, and music makes me irritable because I start to listen to the lyrics or decipher the notes that every instrument is playing, I use these binaural beats to reach a state of elevated focus.

With that said, and -hopefully- convincing you guys that I'm not the person to take any spiriwiri mumbojumbo that has not passed some rigorous testing and that is back by Good Science, I would like to invite you to try out binaural beats and see if they help your study and writing too (or a white noise generator sound).

What are binaural beats?
Binaural beats result when two nearly similar frequencies are played in each ear when you are listening to headphones. Your brain will process this information, and you will "hear" a third frequency. For example, when one ear hears 100Hz and the other ear 110Hz, you will hear 10Hz as a result.

What do binaural beats do
According to the alternative medicine community, if you hear this 10Hz difference, your brain waves will increase by 10Hz too. Because there are different frequencies of the brainwaves, it is said that the binaural beat that you hear, can induce a certain state of mind.

Benefit of binaural tracks
Binaural tracks are similar to white noise generators, although they seem to have a little more variation to themselves. I quite like the binaural tracks that are combined with sounds of running water. Since most tracks on YouTube are either 30 minutes or an hour long, you can commit to finishing a certain task within half an hour or an hour, take your headphones, switch on the track and finish it before the track ends.
It's a trick you are playing on your mind, but one that you might like to try out and see if it improves your productivity, for example with this track"



Have you tried using binaural beats during study or writing? How is your experience?