Is there any way to read magazines online?

Why do I have difficulty understanding the things I read?

• I'm in my second year of university studying economics and when reading a lot of the textbooks, or even reading any books for that matter (i.e. for personal pleasure), I sometimes just don't understand the things I am reading, I just don't take it in, even when I understand what all the words mean (I do have a decent sized vocabulary). It just doesn’t seem to make any sense to me at all. This problem seems to be getting worse lately. I will read the book but I just can't seem to make any sense of it. When reading I have to do so really slow, taking in one word at a time and sometimes have to read over and over it again just to understand it. The worse is when I try and read about a subject on my computer (i.e. Wikipedia). I find it almost impossible to make any sense of what it means. I don’t think I have a major problem when reading newspapers or magazines, possibly because it’s only the news I’m reading about and not actually trying to learn anything. Sometimes I do though. I think I have some sort of learning difficulty as another problem I have is not being able to learn anything in lectures. I just can't understand anything and that's why I have to rely on reading the textbooks so much. Sometimes when reading though, I think the reason I don't understand it is because I have convinced myself that I cannot understand it - particularly in difficult subjects. It's like I'm reading this book and at the same time I'm thinking 'I just can't understand this and I'm not going to'. This is something I do a lot with maths problems. Over the last year or so I seem to be concentrating a lot on words and in particular how they go together and I'm always on the dictionary website looking up a word I do not know. I think I may actually be concentrating on the words too much and not actually what those words are saying (if that makes any sense?). Lately, a question seems to be popping up in my mind: how does by reading words my brain understand what something means. How by reading words do we make sense of these words? All sorts of crazy stuff like this pop in to my head and it seems to give me less belief when reading. How much of a problem could this be? I also spend a lot of time on computers (at least 6 hours a day) and I have sleeping problems and tend to feel tired a lot. Could this be a major reason? Though this may seem an obvious culprit I don't believe it is the main reason. I think it is more than likely to do with my brain being ****** up in some way. My brain seems to work in a very weird way. I tend to confuse myself a lot. I seem to be always convinced there is a perfect way to of doing something and strive for this. I also tend to contradict myself on things a lot. I seem to be always trying to figure out the best way to learn and understand things and think I have just confused my brain completely. When I do read something and think I have understood it I always have doubts on whether I have understood it properly, understood all of it, and if I'll even remember what I've just learnt. I'm always thinking 'there must be more to it than this' and I'm always thinking - and tend to say out loud - how do I know that I am actually understanding this. It's like there's no signal telling me that I have just understood what I have read. With easy things it's quite obvious and it's only with difficult things I seem to have that problem. One of the things I tend to do often is go back to earlier chapters of a book and read parts of this chapter, only to learn something I did not pick up when I originally read it. I tend to understand earlier chapters only after reading later chapters quite often, yet it should be the other way around. Do you think I have some kind of learning difficulty? Dyslexia? Am I crazy? How do you find it best to read? How do you concentrate on what the words are saying instead of the actual words? Any tips for me? Is there a cure for me or am I just ****** up in the head? Please answer some of these questions.

• Answer:

  Given everything you've presented here I think what's happening for you is that you are over-stressing. The stress is affecting your sleep, your eyes, and your brain. It seems to me that this super-focused concentration is like looking at a painting from one inch away...you're missing the point! I also want to let you know that this is not an unusual thing for a student to encounter, especially when the studies become more burdensome. My best tip to you would be to learn how to speed read. This means that you capture the meanings of words NOT by verbalizing them in your mind (which is the typical way of reading) but by scanning the lines quickly. There are programs that can 'teach' you, try EyeQ. Another tip would be to have you be sure to RELAX! There are lots of tools for stress reduction out there, and I suggest you avail yourself of some. It is my hypothesis that if you are able to do these two things, you will successfully make your studies easier on yourself.