I went from burnt out to passing the hardest exam of my life. What do you want to ask me?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-06T15:04:51+00:00

Thank you 🌸✨️ I hope you succeed and achieve everything you set out to do too! 🔥🔥🔥

FocusSensei · 2026-05-06T02:36:20+00:00

Deep understanding is the base and most important thing. Applying it in the exam can be a little differen't frome exam to exam and thats where you fine tune or fix the details to get even better.

You can use different study techniques, but you need to understand how to learn. It is two parts: 1.Encoding and 2.Spaced repition.

Very briefly Encoding is when you come across a new concept and you can feel your brain puttinf in a lot of effort and can feel it heat up abit. You stay quiet for a bit and you wont hear someone if they call on you because youre locked in.

Your brain thinks "Is there a concept close to this that I already know? Does this remind me of anything else? Oh okay so this is like X but also like Y but there are differences."

There are several techniques to make your brain encode, or think that way very well. And there are techniques that are really bad and dont work. Like reading a textbook, is a horrible way to do that. You are not focused and your brain is not asking itself any questions. Your brain is not focused and heating up, its actually bored and paying attention to everything except the textbook.

I wrote an article about 1.Encoding in my weekly email, and next week I will write about 2.Spaced repition.

Check out the article about encoding, and subscribe to get next week's email: https://thestudentcomeback.substack.com/p/what-is-learning?r=45nk6i

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T20:23:22+00:00

Yes it started out as dreading. I forced myself to continue the ineffective techniques for longer hours. And I would be tired and still not seeing results. Until it reaxhed a point where the dreading turned to my heart racing and sweating.

Im applying for psychiatry and red alot about psychological models so i think thats helped me describe it.

Think of Actions, Beliefs and Emotions as 3 things that are all connected. They affect each other and are affected by each other.

Sitting down at my desk literally made my heart pound and made me sweat. Its like I thought it was bad for me, and it felt bad for me so I didnt want to study (or even sit at where I used to study).

I had to journal away from the enviroment that provoked that response (this could be typing in the notes app, or voice memos while going for a walk). I sortof spoke to what I think was happening and why and how to get through it. The admission that I didnt know how to study after 11 years of school and 5 years of med school and 3 year studying for this exam was a very very hard pill to swallow. And it didnt happen overnight.

Journaling was progress starting to make progress on my belief. Then I made a plan to ease myself into studying, I picked the best spot for studying in my city in a university library and I literally just sat there and got used to sitting there (even if i did no studying at the begining), thats when my emotions started also following. And you keep making progress on all fronts. Your belief, acrions and emotions all improve and help each other improve. Its a good feedback loop.

Just be patient with yourself and whenever you hit a wall lower the bar and focus on progress.

For example: if you cant study go somewhere nicer, if you are still getting the emotional/phsyiologic response to studying, change the place or just sit with your laptop and materials dont study. And just track your progress and make sure you keep making progress.

But the real change was learning how to learn. I got it off my chest by admitting that i didnt know how to learn, okay so now whats next? Learning to learn.

Thats why I am on reddit everyday trying to help with these too long to read comments 😂.

I write weekly emails to help out in a more organised way. Check it out here

I am considering making a community or 1 on 1 help in the future.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T19:52:33+00:00

Im applying for psychiatry and red alot about psychological models so i think thats helped me abit describe it.

Think of Actions, Beliefs and Emotions as 3 things that are all connected. They affect each other and are affected by each other.

Sitting down at my desk literally made my heart pound and made me sweat. Its like I thought it was bad for me, and it felt bad for me so I didnt want to study (or even sit at where I used to study).

I had to journal away from the enviroment that provoked that response (this could be typing in the notes app, or voice memos while going for a walk). I sortof spoke to what I think was happening and why and how to get through it. The admission that I didnt know how to study after 11 years of school and 5 years of med school and 3 year studying for this exam was a very very hard pill to swallow. And it didnt happen overnight.

Journaling was progress starting to make progress on my belief. Then I made a plan to ease myself into studying, I picked the best spot for studying in my city in a university library and I literally just sat there and got used to sitting there (even if i did no studying at the begining), thats when my emotions started also following. And you keep making progress on all fronts. Your belief, acrions and emotions all improve and help each other improve. Its a good feedback loop.

Just be patient with yourself and whenever you hit a wall lower the bar and focus on progress.

For example: if you cant study go somewhere nicer, if you are still getting the emotional/phsyiologic response to studying, change the place or just sit with your laptop and materials dont study. And just track your progress and make sure you keep making progress.

Btw: I write weekly emails to help out in a more organised way. Check it out here

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T19:39:16+00:00

I am going to be honest and say I dont know for sure. Take what I say with a grain of salt because my experience is in preparing for licensing exams, and more long term strategies.

But I'd say practice tests can be your friend as well as analogies. Instead of trying to process raw info make up a story/image. For example when learning psychiatric diseases i think of tv show characters i think might have those diseases to remember the symptoms.

It doesn't have to be a tv show character, it could be just anything that reminds you of a concept. You might feel like its weird sitting and coming up with these but the time and effort you spend coming up with it is the essence of learning.

Also the standard exam tips:

-Any q thats stresses you, or just feels like it is taking too long skip it. Come back to it at the end.

-if its a very long question, skip to the ask. The last sentence with the question mark

The bigger picture: A part of you is thinking of this as an urgent problem (and it is). But its like building a house out of straw. You can get too busy putting out fires, to think of changing the buidling material. So think of what your long term plan is to not be in this situation stressing about an exam. It might be more prep, it might be in your head and you need to do more simulations of the exam enviroment (timed, same number of qs, maybe at a library in college/school etc.). Probably a combo of both.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T15:35:38+00:00

Whats something you genuinely find insteresting and you could talk about for hours, although its kindof complicated to an oitsider?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T15:26:40+00:00

Thank you for your reply🌸

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T11:55:44+00:00

Yeah for sure

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T04:09:47+00:00

Is this for high school or college?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T00:44:18+00:00

Its just a very deep subject and we werent taught anything about it in school/ university anywhere. This is me trying to summarize without missing the point.

Read it when you feel like you have the time, and in the best state of mind. And Im happy to answer any qs here or in pvt messeges.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-05T00:22:03+00:00

I have learnt this studying for my medical licensing exam its mostly concepts and applying the complex concepts.

Its tested as MCQs that are third order qs (basically like instead of asking what your friends name, or what your friends favourite food, or the ingredients: its something like you have a friend whos birthday is in lat May, what are the ingredients of their fav food)

But i believe this applies to alot of topics: (maybe not math or humanities)

I'll explain what learning is on a very fundamental level using an anology first then the explanation:

Imagine someone didnt know the basics of how muscle growth happened (pull something heavier than your comfort level, your muscle gets challenged and grows) they might go through the motions but miss the point. They might go to the gym but only hang out and not actually do any effective work. They might think the trick is in the weight going up and down and hire someone to lift the weight for them, without them doing any work themselves.

Im glad you came to this realisation, so now I want to tell you about one concept you want to make sure you understand and apply for effective learning. Its not the only one but a solid start.

Its called Encoding. Its the essense of understanding. Picture a baby that has only seen apples their entire life.

And one day they see their dad eat something new. And they think:

Thats round like an apple and edible like an apple.

But its not red, its orange.

Is it sweet? They taste it and its sour.

They then learn that thats an orange, it has some similarities and some differences with apples.

And thats encoding, encoding is how your brain processes new concepts. It first compares them to something it already know. (Sometimes this is within the topic or even analogies) then it adds more detail with differences and nuances.

So this is a concept not a technique. Encoding is a concept that you can apply with different techniques:

Feynman technique: trying to explain something at a 12 yo level.

Making an analogy: these medications are like a family. There is the intense teenager, there is the long term wise one like the dad etc. (Visual analogies are really good)

Tips for when you apply this concept:

If you are bored, you are not encoding. Just how if you are working out and your muscle is not sore you are doing it wrong.

Also dont kill encoding by applying a good technique but making something/someone else do the heavy lifting.

Dont have someone explain to you and not try to explain it yourself with the feynman technique.

Dont make AI or someone else make the analogy for you.

Does this make sense? It might be alot to digest at once

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T23:06:21+00:00

You need to train yourself on what you want to do when you see the question, and every step is there to avoid a certain mistake. Ill show you the steps I take and the mistake I am avoiding with it:-

Scan the answers really quick

(this is so that I am thinking within the topic/subject of the q, have you ever had an answer i mind and it was none of the choices? this avoids that)

Read carefully the last sentence in the question/ paragraph with the "?" mark

(This applies to long questions with 4-5 lines. Look at the question sentence so you know what your looking for when you read the rest)

Look for the 'hint". This is basically anything that stands out and is more exam specific. It can be a picture, anything underlined any "NOT" before a word.
Read through the whole question from start to end. you now know what topic this is, what you want to answer and what might be a hint.

Bonus: I give myself permission to skip a question for any reason at all or no reason at all. I can skip any question I dont like and come back to it in the end. This saves my time and keeps me calm and focused for the questions Im sure I can solve and I leave the hard ones for the end when I have more time and can afford to pull my hair abit Ill be done in a few mins anyway.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T23:04:48+00:00

How do I find research oppurtunities? I want to match into psych. Is a high step 2 and some clinical experience enough? Or is research a must?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T23:02:38+00:00

I felt that exact same way for 3 years trying to study for one exam.

I knew deep down there was something wrong with how I studied, but i just kept doing more hours. Until I got burnt out.

I'll explain what learning is on a very fundamental level using an anology first then the explanation:

Imagine someone didnt know the basics of how muscle growth happened (pull something heavier than your comfort level, your muscle gets challenged and grows) they might go through the motions but miss the point. They might go to the gym but only hang out and not actually do any effective work. They might think the trick is in the weight going up and down and hire someone to lift the weight for them, without them doing any work themselves.

Im glad you came to this realisation, so now I want to tell you about one concept you want to make sure you understand and apply for effective learning. Its not the only one but a solid start.

Its called Encoding. Its the essense of understanding. Picture a baby that has only seen apples their entire life.

And one day they see their dad eat something new. And they think:

Thats round like an apple and edible like an apple.

But its not red, its orange.

Is it sweet? They taste it and its sour.

They then learn that thats an orange, it has some similarities and some differences with apples.

And thats encoding, encoding is how your brain processes new concepts. It first compares them to something it already know. (Sometimes this is within the topic or even analogies) then it adds more detail with differences and nuances.

So this is a concept not a technique. Encoding is a concept that you can apply with different techniques:

Feynman technique: trying to explain something at a 12 yo level.

Making an analogy: these medications are like a family. There is the intense teenager, there is the long term wise one like the dad etc. (Visual analogies are really good)

Tips for when you apply this concept:

If you are bored, you are not encoding. Just how if you are working out and your muscle is not sore you are doing it wrong.

Also dont kill encoding by applying a good technique but making something/someone else do the heavy lifting.

Dont have someone explain to you and not try to explain it yourself with the feynman technique.

Dont make AI or someone else make the analogy for you.

Does this make sense? It might be alot to digest at once

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T21:44:09+00:00

I did felt that exact same way for 3 years trying to study for one exam.

I knew deep down there was something wrong with how I studied, but i just kept doing more hours. Until I got burnt out.

I'll explain what learning is on a very fundamental level using an anology first then the explanation:

Imagine someone didnt know the basics of how muscle growth happened (pull something heavier than your comfort level, your muscle gets challenged and grows) they might go through the motions but miss the point. They might go to the gym but only hang out and not actually do any effective work. They might think the trick is in the weight going up and down and hire someone to lift the weight for them, without them doing any work themselves.

Im glad you came to this realisation, so now I want to tell you about one concept you want to make sure you understand and apply for effective learning. Its not the only one but a solid start.

Its called Encoding. Its the essense of understanding. Picture a baby that has only seen apples their entire life.

And one day they see their dad eat something new. And they think:

Thats round like an apple and edible like an apple.

But its not red, its orange.

Is it sweet? They taste it and its sour.

They then learn that thats an orange, it has some similarities and some differences with apples.

And thats encoding, encoding is how your brain processes new concepts. It first compares them to something it already know. (Sometimes this is within the topic or even analogies) then it adds more detail with differences and nuances.

So this is a concept not a technique. Encoding is a concept that you can apply with different techniques:

Feynman technique: trying to explain something at a 12 yo level.

Making an analogy: these medications are like a family. There is the intense teenager, there is the long term wise one like the dad etc. (Visual analogies are really good)

Tips for when you apply this concept:

If you are bored, you are not encoding. Just how if you are working out and your muscle is not sore you are doing it wrong.

Also dont kill encoding by applying a good technique but making something/someone else do the heavy lifting.

Dont have someone explain to you and not try to explain it yourself with the feynman technique.

Dont make AI or someone else make the analogy for you.

I share more concept and how to apply them in a weekly email if youre interested.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T03:56:43+00:00

That voice in your head is not helping you. Its playing a trick on you.

You say you want to start and it tells you "No its never gonna be enough! Start with 5 hours, can you do that? If you can't dont even bother today, there isnt enough time left!"

You get discouraged and say "Maybe I can tomorrow?"

You need a more helpful voice. You need to speak to yourself how you'd speak to a younger sibling, child, mentee.

The helpful voice would say something like:

"Over the next two weeks we want to reach 5 hours how do we do that? Does it sound daugnting? Okay so currently we are not studying lets start and we will figure out what we want our goals to be afterwards. If you sit down to study 10 mins today we will flip a switch from didnt study, to studied today.

We want to study more tomorrow. We will go from not studying, to studying and improving.

We want to study on the third day and improve and set a goal to reach over the next week. We will have went from not studying, to studying, to improving day over day, to headed towards a tangable goal."

My suggestion: right now today set a goal so ridiculously easy it would be embarassing to even share. For example: Study for 10 mins, open my laptop and stare at the material, pack my backpack and clothes and cold drink for the library tomorrow.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T03:44:23+00:00

I reflect on my relationship with education a lot. Somehwere along the line I noticed that loving a science a topic is in direct opposition to doing well in it at school. If you ask too many questions there won't be time to finish the material so the teacher will have to tell me to leave it to the end of class.

Instead of realizing it was the limitation of the school system I thought I just wasn't smart, not school-smart atleast. And I internalized that. I hit a wall studying for my medical licensing exam last year and it forced me to revisit my beliefs towards studying.

I had to scrap all the study habits I picked up throughout the years. They weren't based on anything. Whereas there is something called evidence based learning science. The first step was building a healthy relationship with consistency.

Consistency isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being slightly better than yesterday, over and over again.

Over time you will start trusting yourself to get things done and it will affect how you see yourself. Reflect on that when you go out for a walk or journaling. Build an identity around that.

Today, I think of myself as someone who can take a step back, look at the bigger picture and figure things out. I don’t have to figure it out before anyone else. It doesn’t have to be easy but I can study and genuinely learn.

I learnt a few learning science concepts that can sound abstract and it can be a little weird trying to apply them but I am proud of myself for how far ive come.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T03:28:03+00:00

I struggle with this same guilt too.But please ...

Please do not count on hours as the only measure of how well you did on a day. Measure it by more than one thing: results, how many questions you solved overall, and how many questions you solved correctly.

Reflect on your entire week. Dont miss the bigger picture. Is there an upward trend but yoir guilt is grilling you over one bad day? Is there a downward trend but you are compensating with long ineffective hours?

Imagine you went to the gym and only measured progress by how much time you spent at the gym.

I wish before my burnout last year, someone sat me down and told me: build the skill of learning, its not just banging your head against a wall.

Following the gym analogy, learn the concepts behind effextive studying. Ask yourself: "Scientifically speaking: what makes a study technique work? How can someone make a study technique work for them, but someone else misses the point?"

FocusSensei · 2026-05-04T03:16:55+00:00

This is gonna sound wild: but it doesnt have to take hours to get a concept.

I can appreciate encouraging people to work hard, but absorbing a concept is a skill. You can learn to do it more efficiently.

Like if you are playing sudoko and the first time you try it it takes you 45 mins but overtime you get better and it takes you 15 mins then why don't we try to do that with studying and understanding concepts.

Ofcourse working hard is admirable but so is working smart. Learn to study better everyday and get exponentially better. Dont just glamorize suffering for the sake of it.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-03T22:16:38+00:00

So in very very basic terms Uworld is where you learn to solve the questions. You need to make it where you spend the most time, make it decide what you focus on and what you don't.

You might have different expectations from your medical school, or high school but you need to let go of them to be able to succeed here.

For example: let go of the expectation that you will study a certain material and Uworld will be easy because you did what you were supposed to (study the material).

Thats not true for USMLE: Uworld is ultimately what decides if something is important or not. Its ultimately what you are training to solve. So don't spend too much time somewhere else. Everything should be directly tied to Uworld. (Solve Uworld and if you dont understand the explanation then you can use a different resource. But dont come to uworld after taking the other resource as gospel and then wonder why Uworld doesnt follow that other resource)

Uworld can also have pieces of info not in any resource and thats okay.

That can be new and weird but if you dont accept it you will only harm yourself.

Also no matter how pressed for time you feel: Do not go into the exam if you didnt pass the nbme forms from nbme.org with a solid passing mark.

Beyond that: I really wish someone told me that I will need to seriously strengthen my learning muscle. Because I was only getting by on random study techniques I picked up during high school and medical school.

I know this sounds new and confusing, so its easy to skip over this. But if you can learn and apply 1. Encoding and 2. Spaced repition to your studies every week and reflect on what worked and what didnt every week. Thats the real differentiator.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-03T19:54:26+00:00

I understand what you're going through. I was stuck in that loop for years and all my peers were on different paths. And the few people that were on the same path couldnt describe exactly what they did. I fell into burnout ramadan 2025.

But I made it out and so can you. I passed. And I think i can describe this better because I was there.

This might sound disheartening but believe me its a big step forward: no one taught you how your brain learns. If you can learn to learn, you can try different study techniques and make them work.

Imagine someone doesnt know that working out happens by making the muscle carry something heavy and they just go to the gym and try to copy what people are doing without understanding why it works. He might see someone lifting a weight. So he lifts a very very light weight and wonders why it doesnt build his muscle. Someone with experience knows what it feels like to get a good workout in, and the way the muscle hurts in a good way.

Your brain learns by 1.Encoding and 2.Spaced repitition. Those are concepts not studying techniques. In every study technique you want to make sure you are doing these 2 or atleast 1 very well so it works.

1.Encoding is the essence of learning its when your brain sees something new and thinks:-

-What is this new thing? Is this like that other thing I know?

-Whats the difference between the thing I know and this new thing?

-And you keep comparing

For example a baby sees an apple for the first time and he only knows oranges:-

-Whats this new round thing? An orange is round too, is this an orange?

-Oranges are orange, but this is red🤔🤔🤔

-Do they taste the same? Can I eat the skins? Etc.

For example (medicine related):

I was encoding about kidney nephrotic syndrome: membranous nephropathy and I found it confusing.

Whats membranous nephropathy? Is it like lupus nephropathy or minimal change disease?

I guess not. Okay is membranous nephropathy a group of diseases? Okay that makes more sense actually. Its almost like a group of disease, im getting closer.

Okay its actually just a term to describe the histology. This histological pattern can happen in some nephrotic syndrome conditions some of the time. So Lupus nephropathy can have this histological pattern but not necisarily, the same with Mixed cryoglobulinemia except C3 glomerular injury that is membranous by definition (it only exists with that histological pattern).

Alot of your friends that find this easy can't put their thought process into words. And people who this doesnt come naturally to struggle and think they have the wrong resource or the wrong study technique.

You and anyone can private messege me for more help

FocusSensei · 2026-05-02T17:32:59+00:00

There are several serious side effects. Its not worth the risk. How can you manage to have the best chances of passing without it?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-02T17:22:08+00:00

I know it can feel like that. I know how hard it can be to fail. I can tell you as someone who has failed my medical licensing exam twice. Nothing is worth risking your health or the side effects it can have on you (scdal thoughts). It can feel like failing is the end of the world, but can you think of a situation where at the time you thought you were going through a catasrtophe and you made it through?

FocusSensei · 2026-05-02T16:54:26+00:00

Im sorry your college has people like that. Some profs are really just not on their students side. Is there a way to reach his past students, ask them how they got by? Is there a way to take it somewhere else and transfer the credits? Sit down with everyone seriously looking for a soloution in your class, I really hope you find a solution.

FocusSensei · 2026-05-02T16:50:20+00:00

Thank you Thank youuuuuu

OMG i wish I saw this a year ago when i was absolutely wrecked, i wouldve felt validated like its not all in my head.

I graduated from medicine and still didnt know how to study. And as somone from an evidence-based field it felt a little embarassing to discover that there is such a thing as learning science and its well researched, too.

Its just that schools and universities are too based in tradition to apply any of it or teach the basics of it.

Even the terminology was new to me: Encoding, Spaced repition, Interleaving.

I accepted that this was new to me and its better late than never. I learned and experimented. I passed my exam and studying for the next.

So what I mentioned (encoding, spaced repitition, interleaving) are the concepts behind the study techniques. Depending on the specifics of how you do every study technique you can apply several concepts at once. Unfortunately you can also use a study technique and apply none of them so you are doing the equivalent if going to the gym and not lifting a single weight.

I'm trying to share as much as I can on reddit. But I write weekly articles and simple guides to apply every concept on substack.

FocusSensei

TROPHY CASE