# Strategies and Tips: What to do when stuck on math?

Since math students will be stuck on some math at some point, what strategies or tips can help
(to assuage this recurrent reality of maths)?

Certainly, this wonderful website helps; here: one can ask questions, interact with different people, be referred to other information. Still, to what else can be one resort?

I thought to start with some quotes from the following two articles:

[Source:] As research mathematicians, Littlewood and Poincaré knew the value of letting a problem go. They both structured into their lives time for allowing the attention to disengage from the level of actively thinking about a problem. Littlewood went for walks in the country. Poincaré went on a geology excursion. And occasionally, with good luck, the sudden flash of deep inspiration occurred.

[Source:] ■ The first theme has to do with sleep and the role it plays in doing mathematics and AHA! experiences. Many of the participants commented at one time or another about the phenomenon of waking up to a solution, either in part or even fully formed.

■...he discusses how "a bridge gets built between two apparently unrelated fields".

■ Certain gaps in knowledge needed to be filled and my main role was to feel that these gaps could be filled. - Dick Askey

• Go for a walk.${}$ – user1729 Aug 6 '13 at 11:04
• In my opinion, if you mean the typical student, those strategies bare little fruit when compared to the tools available nowadays, namely MSE. – Git Gud Aug 6 '13 at 11:20
• From the movie Pi: "Listen to your wife! She will give you perspective." So listen to your wife, whoever/whatever that is. – Eric Auld Aug 6 '13 at 11:20
• @GitGud There is much to be gained from struggling through a problem without help from others. – user1729 Aug 6 '13 at 12:42
• @user1729 Agreed, but I didn't want to go into much detail in my comment. – Git Gud Aug 6 '13 at 13:36