Does anyone else get headaches after extended periods of active listening and attempted comprehension?

27 comments

1. I feel you! I get really tired after my lessons, where I’m actively conversing and interacting in Japanese. I assume the neurons are working hard to make new connections haha

2. Means your poor little brain is working too hard. Try taking some breaks

3. I don’t get a headache but I do zone out after about two hours. I just get tired and can’t follow the conversation anymore.

   Now with reading I do get a gnarly headache after a while. I think it also has to do with eye strain, probably. Kanji + vertical text kills me.

4. I get headaches from extended periods of just about anything, but thats because of my migraines lol

5. When I first moved to Japan, I would get home after work and just be exhausted from trying to listen to everything everyone around me was saying and trying to parse it all out and I’d take a tylenol or something on days it had given me a bad headache. It does get easier though.

6. Yes, it happens with every foreign language! I remember I was like this with English too and it still happens with Japanese now. I built a bit of endurance, but I’m not there yet. Just make sure you take some breaks!

7. I just become really braindead after lol.

8. Yes definitely. One thing that helps me is to make sure I’m eating enough. Even just a small snack an hr in helps a ton. Keeping my blood sugar up, while not a full fix, definitely keeps me engaged longer

9. I see everyone’s reactions and I guess I’m different? I don’t get tired or the need to go to my native language, nor now nor when I was learning

10. When I started learning Japanese, I didn’t have that problem with listening since I am used to listening from watching anime. But I got headache from reading and couldn’t read more than 30min-1hr. It took some time, but I no longer have that problem.

11. I feel you I head start hurting, but now it takes hours of listening to podcasts for my head to hurt now

12. > don’t really care because something tells me that it means I’m just using my brain.

    lmao. youre probably just tensing muscles in your head/neck without realizing it. which is the opposite of using your brain but whatever.

13. no pain, but when i pull 6+ hours study sessions afterwards i get hit with some pretty significant brain fog, especially if i did a lot of reading. also i get a pretty strong sense of fatigue in my body similar to how i feel after doing exercise.

14. Yep. When I first moved to japan I had been studying Japanese for years but after a few hours of conversation I felt exhausted.

    I lived with a gf for a while who spoke no English. It forced my ability to stretch basically. I didn’t have a choice so I adapted and now can speak Japanese all day without feeling too tired.

15. I don’t really get headaches but I do feel totally fried after too much anki

16. where to start learning. I really want to watch anime or j drama without subtitles. especially gintama. so i do not really have anyone to talk japanese with yet. want to learn online. Thanks. Arigato Gozaimasu

17. Yes. I can’t study for more than 4 hours because of this.

18. I would love to have a native speaker in my life. It’d be so much easier than reading and forcing myself to translate while driving. Besides I could be completely wrong in my translations.

19. This is normal I think. It will eventually stop happening, it stopped for me

20. It happens to all of us at some point when we switch to an all JA environment. It also happens if we’re switching back and forth between our native and learned languages. A nap is the only way I’ve found to get around it.

    But the good news is it goes away with time.

21. I don’t have headaches but i have a state when my brain can’t think anymore and I have a weird feeling. So I guess u have to take some breaks.

22. Yeah It’s your brain working hard, one day you will be able to do it on autopilot and it won’t happen anymore

23. yes, its your brain getting tired of trying to understand a language totaly diferent form you native one, i work in a conbini and my brain is allways tired after my shifts even tho ive been 4 months working there, im afaraid it is smth you will have to deal with for a lomg time

24. Maybe pay attention to what your head and neck muscles are doing. They might be tension headaches from clenching your jaw or squinting or tensing some other muscle because you’re concentrating so hard

25. It happens for lots of people learning a foreign language. The Swiss exchange student who spent a year with us called it an “English headache”.

26. Hell yeah. Always make sure to take some ibuprofen before engaging in studies, as the Brain IS a muscle that you are working, and it’s getting PHYSICALLY tired from its work out.

27. Hell yeah. Always make sure to take some ibuprofen before engaging in studies, as the Brain IS a muscle that you are working, and it’s getting PHYSICALLY tired from its work out.