Studying and calories?

Hey,

I was just having a quick break from studying when I suddenly wondered how many calories I was actually burning by studying. I am pretty obsessive with my work as I am at degree level now and love my subject; it takes up the vast majority of my time.

I checked on a “calories burned calculator” and for the 5 hours I spent studying and my current weight, it came out with 488 calories burned.

Does anyone actually clock calories burned through studying and make the relevant adjustments to their daily intake?

Thanks for readingx

But then think about how many calories you'd burn anyway for 5 hours in a coma.

Those 488 calories aren't on top of what you already burn, so really, the extra amount burned spent studying isn't signficant enough to change a daily intake. 

But say for example you have two identical people, both requiring 2000 calories per day (they are identical in all respects).

On day 1,

“Person A” spends 5 hours studying.

“Person B” spends this 5 hours Sedentary.

Surly the mental activity and energy involved in working for 5 hours exceeds that of doing nothing; for after working for long periods many will feel "mentally exhausted". Resulting in "Person A" using more energy within that 5 hours than "Person B" did just by being?

how do you burn calories studying?

Original Post by jenn987:

how do you burn calories studying?

It's all that extreme page turning and pencil lifting.

If I may also add that even though the brain is already one of the major consumers of blood in the body, blood flow increases even more to active parts of the brain. The brain uses O2 and Glucose for energy and it should be using even more while a person is actively learning because that requires a whole bunch of synaptic vesicles, transporters and ion channels that all use energy to do their jobs.  So this is theoretically why you burn more calories studying.