Question

I feel physical pain when I try and learn math, even though I love it.

Answer 1

Yes, that is called learning.  It is a physically exhausting activity.  

> I've never been much for studying

The more you do it, the easier it will be.

Answer 2

You may have a learning disability or developmental disorder. Maybe dyscalculia, if you don't have any other symptoms of other disorders. If you're smart enough (and you probably are if you are in Calc 2) you can overpower some learning disorders. Math is my favorite subject but it literally makes me cry. I have ADHD specifically.

Answer 3

i have the same problem sometimes. for me personally it's an anxiety thing. if i don't study for a while i get visions of getting killed or tortured, etc. its my subconscious punishing me for not studying. this naturally led to me developing a kind of fear around studying even while i study just because i overthink a lot. sometimes it gets hard to breathe while i study so i need to stop and calm myself down. funnily enough throughout the whole process i actually enjoy the math part.

your experience doesn't sound this severe, but do you have problems with procrastination? do you have similar anxiety around studying? the problem can also be that you're doing too much too soon. you can 1) try closing your eyes for 60 seconds and taking big breaths whenever it gets too painful. 2) try doing very simple and fun math in the beginning of your session and gradually build up to the level you actually need to study 3) try doing your homework in short bursts throughout the day instead of one long study session, i.e a few problems between tv breaks, or if you require a longer time to learn, you can take long breaks right after you finish a theorem and gradually work up to making the breaks shorter.

try not to brute force things. build up your tolerance slowly. the times i tried to just get over it and study everything at once i usually burnt myself out and ended up spending less time actually studying.

best of luck!

Answer 4

I have the same thing. It's just so hard, and often painful.

I've read it can be a symptom of adhd, or something similar, but I don't know much about that.

Answer 5

This is a wild guess, but it might be a symptom of adhd / attention disorder, or a related disability.

If you find it really difficult to focus in other situations as well and it's affecting you negatively, it might be worth consulting a therapist just in case.

Answer 6

I'm not into math, but I love drawing and I'm going through the same thing as you. I've never tried learning anything deeply like I have done with draftsmanship before. Through most of our life, it's easy to learn the basics of many subjects. To master it, however, is another story. My theory is that we're forcing our minds to expand beyond limits that it has never approached before. Therefore, the pain occurs because our brains are physically changing.

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But I'm no neuroscientist, I'm just trying to rationalize this learning pain.

Answer 7

So you should definitely look into some of the conditions mentioned. But barring that, I did want to point out that I think a lot of us enjoy math because we like that pain. Same reason people like climbing mountains.