Transcription
Do you ever experience brain fatigue? Do you know what that is? Well, today we'll review one news article. You'll learn what brain fatigue is, how to combat it, and you'll learn 53 everyday English expressions. Welcome back to JForrest English. Of course, I'm Jennifer. Now, let's get started.
First, I'll read the headline. Combat brain fatigue with these top expert tips. We're talking about brain fatigue. When your brain feels like this. Notice the pronunciation here. Fatigue. Igue. Fatigue. Repeat after me. Fatigue. Fatigue means extreme tiredness. Notice it's a noun. Combat brain fatigue. It's a something. Tiredness is a something. Let's review these two sentences and see if you can identify the difference. I feel fatigued after studying English. I feel fatigued after studying English. You may notice that the pronunciation is almost identical because this D in fatigued is extremely soft and you don't really hear it at a natural pace. But what is the difference in grammar or meaning between these two? The meaning is basically identical. But fatigue here, this is a noun. You can feel something. I feel happiness when I look at a beautiful sunrise. For example, now I feel fatigued. This is an adjective. I feel happy when I look at a beautiful sunrise. So, the meaning is the same, but the grammar is different. This is a noun and this is the adjective form. And you can feel for both of them. And notice that pronunciation is almost identical. So what about you? Do you feel fatigued the noun or do you feel fatigued the adjective after studying English? If you do, put that's me, that's me, in the comments. And know that as we'll learn in this article, it's very common. So don't feel bad if you say that's me. I certainly feel fatigued after I do a lot of mental work.
Now notice how they say combat. Combat brain fatigue. You could also say fight brain fatigue or battle or combat. Notice all three of these have the same visual image of fighting brain fatigue. So you have three alternatives in your vocabulary. Don't worry about taking notes. I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can find the link in the description.
Now let's start the article and learn how. Put your thinking cap on. Have you heard this before? Put your thinking cap on. This is an idiom and it means get ready to think hard or think creatively. So if you're discussing a problem at work or at home, someone could say, "Let's put our thinking caps on." Because it's one's thinking cap. So if you have more than one, you would add an s to cap. Let's put our thinking caps on and figure out how to reduce the budget. For example, that's the problem you want to solve. So at the beginning of this lesson, I could say to you, put your thinking cap on. You're going to learn a lot of new vocabulary, so get ready to think hard. And don't worry if you feel fatigued by the end of this lesson as a result. Put your thinking cap on. People often hear. So this is a common expression is what they're saying. After all, that's what our brain is for. Your brain is for thinking. That's the purpose and what many are paid to do. You are paid to think at your job. That's what you're paid to do. You're paid to think.
But a new study finds that people see a downside to such mental expenditures. Thinking can be a pain. Do you know what a downside is? Put your thinking cap on. A downside is a negative aspect. It's a disadvantage. So we talk about the downsides, the disadvantages and the opposite is the upside or there can be plural the upsides, the advantages, the positive aspects. So you could say there are many upsides to learning English but there I just noticed I have a typo here but there are downsides too. I was thinking of writing. There can be downsides too. But there are downsides too. So this means there are many positive aspects to learning English. But there can be some negative aspects. For example, how much time it takes or how much mental expenditure there is. Those can be the downsides. So you can put in the comments the upside to learning English is. And then you can do the same thing with the downside is. And then you can share a point in the comments to practice this. It's very common use. The upside or the downside. Remember it can be singular just talking about one or you can make it plural. The upsides and downsides. The choice is yours. So put that in the comments. An upside and a downside.
Let's look at mental expenditure because I use this in my example as well as one of the downsides. Expenditures financially are things you spend money on your monthly expenditures. So if it's a mental expenditure, it means you're spending but what are you spending? You're not spending money. You're spending your mental effort or your mental energy. So mental expenditures is the amount of effort or energy required.
Let's look at this next part. Thinking can be a pain. A pain. To describe something as a pain. It can be painful meaning physical. I have a pain. Oh, I have a pain. This means my neck hurts. This area is painful. So it's physical. But we also use this to describe something as frustrating or annoying. And we use this a lot. For example, maybe you agree, driving during rush hour is a pain. It's annoying. It's frustrating. So, it causes mental or emotional pain. Driving during rush hour is a pain. You can put that's right or that's right instead of that's me. Put that's right in the comments if you agree that this is a pain. So just remember grammatically it's to be and then you need this article a pain. So something that that's why we have this jarn verb something is your verb to be a pain. Again, if you agree that this is a pain, put that's right. That's right in the comments.
Are you enjoying this lesson? If you are, then I want to tell you about the Finally Fluent Academy. This is my premium training program where we study native English speakers from TV, the movies, YouTube, and the news. So you can improve your listening skills of fast English, expand your vocabulary with natural expressions, and learn advanced grammar easily. Plus, you'll have me as your personal coach. You can look in the description for the link to learn more, or you can go to my website and click on finally fluent academy. Now, let's continue with our lesson.
Such work isn't actual pain of course because remember we talked about something can be painful physically or just frustrating annoying. So the physical the mental expenditure such work the mental expenditure isn't actual pain. Of course your brain has no nerve ending. So your brain does not feel pain. I didn't know that. Did you know that? So a pain in the brain is not like having a pain in the neck. And that's the exact example I gave before. Oh, a pain. And it's interesting because this full expression is the idiom. So you could say driving during rush hour is a pain in the neck is the full expression to say that something is frustrating or annoying. But native speakers generally just leave out in the neck and just say a pain. So I expanded that with the full expression, but it's in brackets to show you that it's optional. And honestly, it's more common to just say a pain. But the mental effort, remember before we described this as mental expenditure. The mental effort it takes to think hard can be so upsetting that some people will choose physical pain instead. So here the article ended on instead because the alternative was already mentioned. Think hard. That's the alternative. So choose physical pain instead. But just remember if you write out the full alternative, you have to say instead of the preposition choice is of and then your verb needs to be an ing. Instead of thinking or I could add instead of thinking hard, but you don't have to because that alternative is clearly known. But I just want you to remember what preposition and the grammar that you need.
A 2020 study asked people if they would prefer to do a difficult memory task. Remembering if a card reappeared after a distraction. This is the difficult memory task. A distraction is something that causes you to change your focus or attention. Right now, you're focusing on this lesson hopefully, but then if you heard a noise in the other room, you might want to go see what happened. You leave this lesson. So, that noise was a distraction. It caused you to change your focus or your attention. We use this a lot in the verb form to be distracted. To be distracted. Notice that's the passive form. So, you have your verb to be that needs to be conjugated. And then distracted is always in the ed form. You could say, "Sorry, I was distracted." "Sorry, I didn't hear you. I was distracted." And then you could add on, "I was distracted by the noise." So, if your friend is telling you a story and then you realize you weren't actually focusing on your friend, you were focusing on the noise in the other room. So, your friend says, "So, what do you think?" And then you say, "Uh, sorry, I was distracted. Can you say that again?"
Or experience searing pain. So remember the choice was, "Would you prefer to do a difficult memory task or experience searing pain from a heat device held against the skin?" Notice how my tone changed when I read that because the adjective a searing pain that sounds like an extreme pain. So if you burn your finger, if you do it just like that, it probably wouldn't be searing. But if you hold your finger on a heat source, then that would result in a searing pain, an extreme pain. Before we move on, notice they said prefer to do a difficult memory task. Verbs of preference often use the jarn, but some of them are flexible. Prefer is one of those verbs. So you can say prefer doing or prefer to do. In this case, they use prefer to do. Remember a difficult memory task or experience searing extreme intense pain from a heat device held against the skin. Which would you prefer? Number one, the difficult memory task or number two, the searing pain? Put one or two? Put your choice in the comments. One or two. Put it in the comments.
When the pain was minor, most people chose the heat. To me, this is a slight contradiction because the definition of searing pain is extreme or intense. So, it isn't minor because a minor pain isn't a searing pain to be honest. When the pain was minor, more people chose the heat, but that number dropped as the pain increased. So as it moved closer to being a searing pain, more people chose the difficult memory task. However, 28% of the participants still chose physical pain over mental strain. So mental strain. Strain represents the expenditure, the effort or the energy. Strain is also a noun and it has the same meaning as fatigue, extreme tiredness. Personally, I hear the word strain being used most with eyes. A lot of people talk about eye strain, especially from staring at a screen all day. So, you might say, "My eyes become strained." Strained. So, this is the adjective ed strained. And then this is your verb. My eyes become strained at the end of the day after staring at a computer. Or you could ask, do you know how I can combat eye strain? So just as they talked about combat brain fatigue, fight against or battle brain fatigue, you can use combat eye strain or battle eye strain. You could say I fatigue, but I hear the word strain used specifically with your eyes. Is that a problem you have from staring at a computer all day?
So, mental strain, mental fatigue, even when the pain was most intense. So, the pain was searing. And that was 28% of participants. How can this be? How could 28% of people choose a searing pain over a mental task? After all, many do puzzles, play chess, or challenge their brains in all sorts of ways during their spare time. Notice these verbs. You do puzzles, but you play chess. So in English, you just have to memorize what verb goes with certain activities. Sometimes the choice is between do or make, but in this case we have do or play. And of course, spare time is one's leisure time, the time they have when they're not working, they're not doing chores at home. They get to relax and perhaps play chess or do a puzzle. Yet even in those scenarios, the scenarios where people are doing puzzles or playing chess or challenging their brains in other ways. So those are the scenarios. Even in those scenarios, studies in the review found people complained about the mental effort. So if you complain about something, it means you express your negative feelings or opinions about it. I could say some students complained. So complain is a verb. In this case, it's in the past simple form because it's a completed past action. Some students complained that this lesson was too long. So you can use the verb complain plus a clause. A clause is a subject. This lesson, a verb was, and then the rest of the sentence. A clause is a standalone sentence. So if I take this lesson was too long, that is correct as a sentence on its own. So you can use complain that and then a clause or you can complain about. But if you use about, you need a something. Some students complained about this lesson. Now, this is the actual complaint. Now, notice a complaint. This is the noun form. So, if I saw this, this is a complaint. It's a noun. This lesson was too long. And then there's some sort of negative emoji because you're not satisfied or happy when you complain. And of course, it's your right to complain as a consumer, as a student, as a viewer. But I certainly hope you don't have any complaints using it as the noun. I hope you don't have any complaints about this lesson. But if you do, please share them because I will learn from them.
Let's continue to combat brain fatigue. So, we understand why it's a problem. So now we're learning about the solution. Remember you know this verb from before to combat to battle to fight. Brain fatigue. Now notice how this sentence starts with the infinitive to plus base verb. But this is short form for in order to. In order to native speakers just drop the in order and just use the infinitive. But if you see this, you know it represents in order to in order to combat brain fatigue. And then following you will have a clause as well. Now you know what a clause is. It's a complete sentence with a subject, a verb, and the rest of the sentence the object. You can schedule regular breaks. So this is how you are going to combat brain fatigue. It may seem like you are interrupting your mental flow by getting up in the middle of a task, but a break, especially a physical one, such as a walk outside, refreshes and boosts brain power, experts say. Now, of course, a break is a period of rest from an activity or work. After I record this video, I am going to take a break. I'll probably make a cup of tea and then come back to work. So, a quick five-minute break to prevent eye strain to combat eye strain and mental fatigue. So notice that verb you take a break meaning one but you can take breaks which means multiple but the verb we use is to take to take a break.
Now to interrupt you might know this is similar to a distraction. You are interrupted by a distraction. The verb to interrupt is when you stop something usually for a short period of time. So, you're working and then a break interrupts your mental flow. It stops your mental flow for a period of time. We commonly use the verb to interrupt when someone is speaking and then someone else speaks, but then it causes this person to stop speaking. This is done in a rude way, but it can also be done in a helpful way. A speaker could be giving a presentation, but then the moderator could say, "Sorry to interrupt, but we're almost out of time. Please finish your speech." So that's commonly done in formal speeches, debates, or even in a meeting where you're following a strict agenda and you have to move on. But it's also done in a rude way. You shouldn't interrupt your teacher when she's teaching, for example. But a break, we know what that means, especially a physical one. So my example was to get a cup of tea. That's not physical. A physical one would be such as a walk outside. So that's physical, of course. It refreshes and boosts brain power. Experts say, let's practice this. When I take a break, notice this is in the present simple because when represents whenever. Whenever I take a break. When I take a break, I always always is a keyword for the present simple as well. So your activity will be in the present simple. I shared mine. When I take a break, I always get a cup of tea. I could also say I always make a cup of tea or have a cup of tea. What about you? What do you do when you take a break? Put this sentence in the comments or just share your activity to practice this expression so you're more likely to remember it.
Finally, so another way to combat brain fatigue. This was one way, take regular breaks. And another way, cut your brain some slack. Oh, do you know what this means? This is an idiom to cut one some slack. So remember for idioms you have to remember the exact word. So you must use some slack and one you can replace with whoever the something or someone is. In this case your brain to cut one some slack. Remember that cut is an irregular verb. All forms are cut. The past and the past participle. Now this means be lenient. So be more understanding, be less critical and less judgmental. So just understand that your brain gets tired and that's okay. Cut your brain some slack rather than beating yourself up. Okay? So to physically beat someone up is to to hurt them physically. But to beat yourself up is to be very critical of yourself. So students do this all the time. My English is terrible. My accent is so thick. My grammar is horrible. They beat themselves up. They're very critical of themselves of their English skills. So that's an example of beating yourself up. But in this context to beat yourself up it would be I've only been working for two hours. Why am I tired? I shouldn't take a break yet. It's only been two hours. So that would be very being very critical of yourself in terms of your mental fatigue and strain. So cut your brain some slack. Be lenient understanding rather than notice this is a gerant expression. So you need the verb in ing after rather than. So rather than plus jarn rather than beating yourself up, rather than being very critical of yourself because you're irritated or flustered by a complicated mental task. Recognize that those feelings are part of being human. And the lesson you should remember is you should also cut yourself some slack with your English. You don't need to beat yourself up. Remember that.
Now, let's look at this last word, flustered, because I really like this word. It's fun to say, flustered. Flustered. When you're flustered, in this case, it's to be flustered. So, flustered is your adjective. When you're flustered, it means that you're upset, you're annoyed, you're frustrated, but because you're either confused or you're stressed. This happens to me. I get flustered in airports, very large airports. I find them very confusing or stressful. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I need to be. I don't know what the procedure is. So, I get upset but frustrated, annoyed. I get flustered in airports. Now, this is the passive form. You could also say airports fluster me. So this is the active form. Airports something to fluster someone. Airports fluster me. What about you? Is there something that flusters you? So you could say blank flusters me. Now notice I have airports because it's plural. It would be they. So that's why I have fluster. But if you have one item, you could say, "What could I say for one item?" Maybe math. Math flusters me. So this is one item. So I add that s because it's it it flusters me. They airports fluster me. So for you thinking of the English language, you might say phrasal verbs fluster me or idioms fluster me or English grammar flusters me. But the lesson here is cut your brain some slack. Cut yourself some slack. Don't beat yourself up. That's normal and that's part of being human.
I like this lesson at the end of this news article. So that's the end of the article. What I'll do now is I'll read it from start to finish. And this time, I want you to focus on my pronunciation and shadow my pronunciation as well.
Combat brain fatigue with these top expert tips. Put your thinking cap on, people often hear. After all, that's what our brain is paid for and what many are paid to do. But a new study finds that people see a downside of such mental expenditures. Thinking can be a pain. Such work isn't actual pain. Of course, your brain has no nerve endings. So, a pain in the brain is not like having a pain in the neck. But the mental effort it takes to think hard can be so upsetting that some people will choose physical pain instead. A 2020 study asked people if they would prefer to do a difficult memory task, remembering if a card reappeared after a distraction or experience searing pain from a heat device when held against the skin. When the pain was minor, more people chose the heat, but that number dropped as the pain increased. However, 28% of the participants still chose physical pain over mental strain, even when the pain was most intense. How can this be? After all, many do puzzles, play chess, or challenged their brains in all sorts of ways during their spare time. Yet, even in those scenarios, studies in the review found people complained about the mental effort. To combat brain fatigue, you can schedule regular breaks. It may seem like you are interrupting your mental flow by getting up in the middle of a task, but a break, especially a physical one, such as a walk outside, refreshes and boosts brain power, experts say. Finally, cut your brain some slack. Rather than beating yourself up because you're irritated or flustered by a complicated mental task, recognize that those feelings are part of being human.
Do you want me to make more lessons just like this? If you do, then put let's go. Let's go. Put let's go in the comments. And of course, make sure you like this lesson, share with your friends, and subscribe so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. And you can get this free speaking guide where I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. You can click here to download it or look for the link in the description. And make sure you watch this lesson right.