Though there have been studies interspersed throughout this book, much of it has been to buttress well-known truths about studying and other tips that generally wouldn’t surprise you.

This chapter is a little bit different. It is dedicated to the science of learning ? specifically, the unexpected conclusions science has yielded about learning that will likely surprise you. As an author, one of the complaints I hear most is that most studies don’t really shed light on anything new, and they just confirm what we already know and do instinctually. Hopefully this chapter is a departure and gives you unconventional tips to increase your learning potential, and absorb knowledge like a human sponge 먹튀검증사이트.

Exercise Boosts Your Brain

This first scientific study might be less of a surprise than the others.

Separate studies by Professors Crook and Ratey have shown exercise to be beneficial for your learning and memorization efforts because of the extra blood, oxygen, and glucose delivered to the brain. The more it gets, the better it performs, unsurprisingly. This means your brain on a daily basis is not functioning at its peak. It’s rather functioning in equilibrium and status quo mode in the absence of any dire need. Put another way, it’s conserving energy for when you really need it, but exercise allows you to put your brain into this state of mind whenever you want.

Crook even went so far as to assert that cardiovascular health is the most important factor in learning and memory. Beyond delivering more nutrients to the brain through increased blood flow, physical activity also releases neurochemicals that are beneficial in numerous ways. First, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is released, which assists the brain in cell growth and learning. Neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine are also released, all of which increase arousal, attention, and alertness.

Taken together, exercise puts the brain into a state of temporary amazingness where problem solving and information retention are second nature. How long is this temporary state? A study published in Brain and Cognition determined that you have somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty-two minutes of boosted capability, depending on how strenuous your exercise was. To capitalize on this type of brain alertness, you can schedule breaks where you increase your heart rate for every sixty to ninety minutes, because it’s likely you are starting to fatigue, get bored, and ineffective at that point.

For best results, make sure that it’s actual exercise and not just a walk around the block! A study in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory addressed this, and researchers found that people completed a task 20% faster after intense exercise versus calmer exercise. The bigger the physical toll, the more hormones and neurotransmitters are released to your memory’s benefit. Just imagine how alert and aware you suddenly are if you are driving and almost get into an accident. That’s the same sort of brain rush.

In another study, researchers discovered people who exercised three times a week over a period of six months, had an increase in the size of their hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that controls learning and memory. Physical exercise literally led to changes in their brain structure that led to increased memory capacity. This lends credence to the saying of healthy body, healthy mind. If you feel like you are mentally dragging, take a break to get your heart rate elevated. Treat it like a shot of caffeine without the dreaded hangover. Use your breaks to get some exercise and come back refreshed and ready to absorb.

Change Locations

This next study is about the phenomenon that studying the same material in different locations and environments helps memory retention.

A study by Robert Bjork found that information is remembered and encoded into our memory holistically. This means that if you study Spain in an aquarium, your memory will associate the two subconsciously. Your memory will also associate what you wore that day, what you ate, the smells in the aquarium, and what stood out visually in your environment. They’ll all be lumped together as far as your memory is concerned, with the specific information you are trying to remember or learn.

This means two things. First, that it is possible to evoke the memory of Spain just by being exposed to the same smells and visual stimuli. If they are part of your overall memory of the information, then they will act to remind you of the rest of it. In other words, if you studied Spain in an aquarium and see a picture of an aquarium, it’s entirely possible to remind you of the information you learned about Spain.

Second, if you change locations frequently while learning and processing the same information, you are strengthening your memory because it will be associated with multiple locations, smells, and generally stimuli to make you remember it. The researchers deemed this increased neural scaffolding. The more stimuli that triggers that memory or information, the more deeply it is encoded in your memory like a growing web.

A 1978 study added support for the finding that the more stimuli present while you are learning, the deeper information is processed in your brain. There were two groups that had two study sessions. One group studied vocabulary in two different rooms, and the other studied vocabulary in the same room twice. The first group showed far better recall.

What does this mean for you?

You should change locations as frequently as possible while learning the same information. If you can’t change your scenery completely, change what’s on your desk, the music you are listening to ? anything that impacts any of your five senses. The more change of stimuli, the more roots the information will take to your brain.

Scientists have found other links between what memories can be associated with. Ruth Propper of Montclair State University found that even muscle contractions, namely a clenched right fist, could be subconsciously associated with information and memory if done simultaneously. One group of participants clenched a ball with their right fists while performing a memory task, while other groups either had no ball at all, or clenched their left fists.

The first group routinely performed the best. Why does this work? It could be similar to why changing locations increases memory retention, because the more stimuli, the more cues for the information. Propper also posited that clenching the right hand activates the left side of the brain, which is where memory is generally encoded and recalled.

Feynman Technique

This next point isn’t quite the result of a study, but is named for Richard Feynman, one of the world’s most famous physicists. That’s close enough. The Feynman Technique is typically used for speedy and optimal learning. You can use it to figure out concepts for yourself and determine the vital information you lack, as well as explain complex concepts to other people. It has four steps.

Step one: Choose your concept.

The Feynman Technique is very widely applicable, so let’s choose one we can use throughout this section: gravity. Suppose that we want to either understand the basics about gravity, or explain it to someone else.

Step two: Write down an explanation of the concept in plain English.

Is this easy or difficult? This is the truly important step because it will show exactly what you do and do not understand about the concept of gravity. Explain it as simply, yet accurately, as you can in a way that someone who knows nothing about the concept would also understand.

Can you do it, or will you resort to saying, “Well, you know… it’s gravity!” This step allows you to see your blind spots and where your explanation starts to fall apart. If you can’t perform this step, clearly you don’t know as much about it as you thought, and you would be terrible at explaining it to someone else.

Step three: Find your blind spots.

If you were unable to come up with a short description of gravity in the previous step, then it’s clear you have large gaps in your knowledge. Research gravity and find a way to describe it in a simple way. You might come up with something like, “The force that causes larger objects to attract smaller objects because of their weight and mass.”

Being able to analyze information and break it down in a simple way demonstrates knowledge and understanding. If you can’t summarize it in one sentence, you still have blind spots you need to learn about.

Step four: Use an analogy.

Finally, create an analogy for the concept. Making analogies between concepts requires an understanding of the main traits and characteristics of each. This step is to demonstrate whether or not you truly understand it on a deeper level, as well as make it easier to explain. You can look at it as the true test of your understanding and whether you still possess blind spots in your knowledge.

For example, gravity is like when you put your foot into a pool and the fallen leaves on the surface are attracted to it because it causes a barely-seen impact. That impact is gravity.

This step also connects new information to old information and lets you piggyback off a working mental model to understand or explain in greater depth. The Feynman Technique is a rapid way to discover what you know versus what you think you know, and allows you to solidify your knowledge base.

Sleep Learning

You’ve seen those infomercials. “Listen to this tape in your sleep and wake up a genius and be fluent in French!”

Of course, those are 99% fraudulent, but that 1% represents an interesting recent finding. We can learn some things in our sleep, but there are specific boundaries of this learning. Professor Reber of Northwestern University split pianists into two groups and had them learn a new passage. Then, all the participants took a ninety-minute nap. For one of the groups, the melody was played quietly during sleep for only four minutes, while the other group had complete silence.

The group who had melody while they were sleeping ended up playing the melody 4% better and more accurately than the other group. That’s quite a big difference for only four minutes of apparent sleep learning. Brain scans confirmed that there was increased activity while the melody was played, even during sleep, signaling memory processing.

It’s a fairly significant discovery, but can you really just play a recording while you sleep? Not quite. Reber went on to clarify, “As long as the memory is tied to a specific type of sound, it looks like the sound can re-activate and strengthen the previously learned information. It is possible this effect would help with strengthening memories from a classroom or lecture and that it could even help speed up second-language learning.”

What does this mean for you? Well, you probably can’t learn new information in your sleep, but you can reinforce information you’ve already learned to some degree, as long as hearing sounds is enough of a cue to trigger your memories and thoughts. For example, reinforcing a foreign language would work because you could pick up on the distinct sound. You may not be able to decipher specific information, such as the quadratic equation, but you can recall it better if it you associate it with a specific sound.