The term (术语) “pseudo-working” is used to describe how many of us study. The pseudo-worker looks and feels like someone who is working hard — he or she spends a long time in the library and is not afraid to push on late into the night — but, because of a lack of focus and concentration (专注), he or she’s doesn’t actually accomplish much.

This phenomenon can be seen on most college campuses. For example, at Dartmouth there was a section of the main library that was open twenty-four hours a day, and the students I used to see there late at night crowded in groups, drinking coffee, were definitely pseudo-working. The roommate who flips through her chemistry notes on the couch while watching TV is pseudo-working.

By placing themselves in distracting (令人分心的) environments and insisting on working long hours, these students are damaging their brain’s ability to think clearly and accomplish the task at hand efficiently. In the end they get half the results with twice the effort.

The bigger problem here is that most students don’t even realize that they’re pseudo-working. It never crosses their mind that there might be a better way. However, Straight-A students know all about pseudo-working. They fear it. It not only wastes time, but it’s also mentally tiring.

In fact, the most important skill in becoming a straight-A student is the ability to get work done quickly and with a minimum of wasted effort. A science research concludes that about fifty minutes is the optimal learning period to learn best. So how do these students achieve this goal? To understand their secret to success, consider the following simple formula (公式): work accomplished = time spent x intensity (强度) of focus.

Pseudo-working features a very low intensity of focus. Therefore, to accomplish something by pseudo-working, you need to spend a lot of time. The straight-A approach on the other hand, increases intensity in order to use less time.

In a recent study, researchers burned scented candles (香薰蜡烛) in several rooms — ranging from a small bathroom measuring 6 by 6 by 9 feet to a living room measuring 15 by 15 by 9 feet — and then used special instruments to determine what was released into the air. They found that while some cancer-causing chemicals were produced, the highest levels measured after four hours of continuous burning were less than half as high as the recommended indoor air quality limits set by the World Health Organization.

This led the study authors to conclude that under normal conditions, scented candles won’t pose any health risks. It’s important to note that only a small number of studies have looked into the health effects of burning scented candles. And most, including this one, were conducted by researchers sponsored by the candle industry, but health authorities have claimed that the authors findings are solid.

“When candles burn, they release chemicals in relatively insignificant concentrations,” said Pamela Dalton, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. “The amount of unpleasant materials produced in general is on the order of a few parts per million or even parts per billion, which is like pouring a teaspoon’s worth of a chemical into an Olympic-sized swimming pool.”

“Exposure to chemicals released by scented candles is so low that they pose no significant risk to human health,” said Nikaeta Sadekar, an expert with the nonprofit Research Institute for Fragrance Materials.“Even the highest users of scented candles are not putting themselves at any considerable risk of harm.”

According to Dr. Dalton, humans can detect a pleasant smell at very low concentrations. “We’ve been told that we’re at the low end of the animal kingdom in terms of being able to detect various smells. That’s just not true,” she said. “Our nose can often smell things in the air even when they are barely there. When we smell something, it just smells strong. We tend to automatically assume that what we’re breathing represents a high concentration. And very often that’s not the case.”

Salvador Dali had a strange way of refreshing his mind — “slumber (睡眠) with a key”. In a book, he described how it worked. “You were to grasp a heavy key, hanging above a plate.” Then, he continued, “As you were progressively asleep, the key would slip from your fingers and fall on the plate, awakening you.” He claimed the brief moment spent between wake and sleep would refresh your physical and mental being.

Now Dali’s mysterious-sounding method has been, to some degree, proven by science — napping with an object in hand might help to tap into this creative sweet spot.

Delphine Oudiette is a sleep researcher at the Paris Brain Institute. She was curious to find out why — so she and her colleagues asked 103 volunteers to complete a series of math problems.

Unknown to the participants, there was a quick shortcut to solve all the problems. ( Sixteen of the volunteers figured that out and were excluded from the rest of the study. ) The volunteers who didn’t determine the secret were asked to emulate (模仿) Dali’s method — but grasping a plastic bottle with their fingertips rather than a key. Some took a Dali-style micro nap (小睡), some napped longer and others didn’t nap at all. After the nap, the researchers asked all the volunteers to do hundreds more of these math problems. And they found that volunteers who took micro naps were nearly three times as likely to figure out the problem-solving trick, compared to those who didn’t nap at all.

Oudiette said, “We think that’s maybe in this short period, you have the best of the two worlds: sleep and wake. So you lose control of your thoughts and have loose associations, which could be helpful for creativity. But at the same time, you still keep some awareness that might help you to recognize when you have a great idea. Those who slept for longer periods actually did worse than both those who briefly slept and those who stayed awake. The next step of my work will involve repeating the experiment with other creative tasks to know more about the mechanism — and maybe to teach people to reach this creative sweet spot.”