Blog Detail

• 01-08-2023
• 11:45:31 AM

The following tips apply to learning across different situations, and they can be used by everyone.

Focus on brain health. All learning and memory formation is heavily dependent on brain health. The foundations of brain health include exercise, nutrition, cognitively challenging activities, minimizing excessive stress, and cultivating positive social interactions.   

Various types of exercise are beneficial for brain health. The exercise can vary from low to high intensity. Nutrition recommendations include eating a balanced diet (mixture of carbohydrates, protein, and fats). Cognitively challenging activities are activities that are challenging but not too far beyond your current level of skill or knowledge. Some stress is important, but excessive stress is detrimental and can have a negative impact on brain structure and function. Social interactions are good for brain health, but only when they are positive interactions. Positive social interactions can occur in a variety of situations, so if you are learning something and/or having positive emotions, you are doing your brain good.

Practice elaborative rehearsal. When trying to learn information, think about the meaning and how it is related to information you already have stored in memory. The more connections you can make to the memories you already have, the stronger the learning. The more connections often mean the easier you can retrieve the memory and the more likely it is to last for a long time. When information is elaborated upon, it is better learned.

Take advantage of the testTaing effect. The testing effect, sometimes referred to as the retrieval effect, occurs when learning is enhanced by quizzing or testing yourself. Quizzing/testing yourself on a regular basis tells you what you know and don’t know and therefore where to focus further study. Also, retrieving what you are learning helps strengthen connections to what you already know.  

Space your learning/training sessions. Memory is best when you spread your studying or training across multiple sessions (spaced learning). For over a century, it has been known that learning and/or memory is strengthened when information is studied over time compared with the same amount of information studied in one or fewer cramming sessions (Sisti et al. 2007) Learning is a process, and that process is enhanced when it occurs over time. One of the key reasons that spaced learning increases memory is that each time you study, you may perceive the material from a different perspective. Seeing the material from different perspectives allows the creation of different connections that you didn’t see before.

Develop focused attention; it is a foundation of learning. Whether you are learning to play tennis or learning math, focused attention is a key requirement. Focused attention involves being attentive to desired sensory inputs while ignoring distraction. Focused attention requires you to keep in mind what is important to your current goal. Cognitive scientist Amishi Jha refers to attention as our human superpower (Jha 2021). Attention is a skill; it can be learned. Research indicates various forms of mindfulness, meditation, and other strategies can lead to improved attention.