Your brain is the main motor behind most of your learning. How do successful learners take care of their brains?
Although there are probably no two identical brains, there are some things which are consistent for everyone who uses their gray matter for work or study. Here are three ideas which researchers have been working on for a while now. Each one of them can do different things to your brain. There are no miracle cures here, just common-sense techniques to help you enjoy what your neurons do to you.
1. Get (more & better) sleep
Every single sleep deprivation study shows this without a doubt. The less you sleep, the worse your brain function. You lose focus, your reaction time suffers, and your mood resembles that of a grumpy cat on a hunger strike. Don’t just take my word for it: yeah, it really is that bad.
The good news is that all of this is reversible – and that getting enough good-quality sleep will help you come back to your awesome best again. It works for so many people – from army professionals to NBA all-stars – that it’s definitely the most popular piece of advice people can give.
So for your next learning project, or next work mission, make sure that your deadline is managed well enough to get your usual amount of sleep in. Cramming and all-nighters are the opposite of what you should be doing.
OK, about cramming…
2. Don’t overload your working memory
It’s always been a well-known myth in psychology: your noggin can handle about seven “things” at once. This time, though, researchers are more confident about this phenomenon: the number you should be going for is probably closer to five, and the reason has to do with how neurons work in “conversation” with one another. (It’s a fascinating study; click through to find out more)
When you try to remember too much at once – or when there are too many things on your mind – it’s likely that your brain can’t give you that synchronized performance. Things get forgotten and focus is lost.
So break your material down into smaller chunks, and work with only a few things at once. This applies to anything – foreign language words, dates, deadlines, to-do tasks. For everything else, make sure you have useful notes and a good storage system.
3. Meditate (maybe?)
This one gets put here last, because the research still needs to go some way towards being consistent. But from what was studied already, some good conclusions can be drawn.
People who meditate regularly, and for a long time, are (perhaps) able to better remember things, and are (maybe) in better control of their memory and recall. This is an added bonus to the overall goal of many schools of mindfulness meditation: to allow you to get more out of the experience you’re having, and to help you battle stress or anxiety.
This, as I said, still needs more research, and it’s early days for big, un-biased studies of meditation. But the good news is that it’s getting easier, nowadays, to get into meditation, and the practice doesn’t need to take more than 10 minutes of your day.
What else do you do to get your brain in good shape?
Photo by Daniel Hjalmarsson on Unsplash
Wiktor (Vic) Kostrzewski (MA, DELTA) is an author, translator, editor and project manage based in London. When he works, he thinks about languages, education, books, EdTech and teachers. When he doesn’t work, he probably trains for his next triathlon or drinks his next coffee.
BRAVE Learning (formerly known as 16 Kinds) is a lifelong learning and productivity blog. If you enjoy these posts, please check out one of my books and courses.
My recent publications, and my archive, is now all available on my new project: PUNK LEARNING. Hope to see you there!