Learning effectiveness is not fixed but can be significantly improved by understanding and actively engaging with neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change and adapt, by shifting from ingrained, inefficient learning habits to more cognitively aligned strategies.
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Let's say you've got a lot of complex
stuff to learn in a very short amount of
time. It can feel overwhelming, but
there's a very high chance that the
reason it feels overwhelming is because
your brain is stuck in patterns of
learning that are actually making it
harder than it needs to be. And I know
this because I've seen this in thousands
of students and professionals who spend
more than enough hours learning, but
they still struggle. And in fact, across
my 13 plus years of being a learning
coach, this is one of the most common
issues that I see. But the good news is
that you can change these neural
patterns. You can literally rewire the
way your brain learns to make it faster
and better at learning. And it's because
of this phenomenon called neuroplasticity.
neuroplasticity.
So in this video, I'm going to teach you
what neuroplasticity is and how you can
leverage this to make your brain a more
efficient learning machine. So to start
with, what actually is neuroplasticity?
In short, neuroplasticity is your
brain's ability to change and adapt. So
the entire concept that you can get
better at things, that you can learn new
skills, that's because of
neuroplasticity. It's the idea that your
brain is not this fixed static thing,
which seems obvious, but actually wasn't
so obvious pretty recently. We used to
think that you go through childhood,
your brain develops, and then when you
become an adult, it's pretty fixed. And
that's your intelligence. That's how
smart you are. That's how good you are
at learning. If there are some topics
and subjects that you're better at, then
those are your natural strengths and
that's sort of how it's going to be for
the rest of your life. But that's
completely not true. While there are
certain preferences and certain habits
and certain processes that you are going
to be better at either because of your
genetics or because of your childhood
experiences. The brain is surprisingly
very malleable and can learn to be good
at a lot of things even if you start off
being terrible at them. learning being
one of those things. And if you have
found yourself in a situation where you
have a lot to learn and you feel like
you cannot keep compensating for this
just by spending more time learning,
then this is really important because it
means that there is an alternative
pathway here which is instead of just
compensating, you can actually just
upgrade the way that your brain learns.
So in the same amount of time, you can
cover more content or the same amount of
content to a deeper level. And for most
learners, this should be a really top
priority because the benefit you get
from retraining your brain and making it
a more efficient learning machine is
lifelong. But there are some
requirements that have to be met to make
your brain undergo this neuroplastic
change a little bit more quickly because
you probably don't want to be spending
the next 15 years of your life waiting
for your brain to slowly upgrade. But
before I teach you how to do that more
quickly, we actually first need to
understand why our brain isn't wired to
learn that efficiently to begin with.
Because those very reasons are probably
going to be the same reasons that hold
you back from trying to rewire your
brain. And to understand that, we need
to go back to what the brain was
actually well adapted to do in the first
place. So let's say that this is a
person with an enormously large head.
And this is the brain inside here.
This brain is very well adapted to do a
few things. It's really good at looking
at patterns. It's really good at
learning things that are practical. And
it's really good at learning socially
from other people, especially if that
thing that you're learning is really
practical. And it's good at all of these
things because all of these things help
with survival. If you can see the
pattern of a a tiger's face in the bush,
you're likely going to survive. Learning
is a very practical thing that your
brain is really really good at doing.
It's not really good at passing an exam.
So if we take this brain which is geared
to do this type of learning really
really well and then you tell it that
you need to learn this really high
volume of information in a really short
amount of time to a very high level of
detail when it doesn't really seem practical
practical
uh or relevant for your daily life. And
even though technically there are
patterns that you can see, you only
start to see those patterns when you've
learned a lot about the topic. So in the
beginning, those patterns are not at all
obvious. And then you're going to be
examined on this at a extremely high
level of detail with a really high level
of retention that you need on this
seemingly irrelevant, highly detailed
information. You can see that what we're
asking our brain to do is not what it
was kind of built to do. To combat this,
we figure out methods and strategies of
dealing with the artificial modern needs
of learning. So we start doing things
like wrote memorization. We use methods
of learning that are very repetitive. We
write a whole lot of notes, lots and
lots and lots of notes. And usually we
do that repetitively. And we do this, we
use these methods for years.
And these then become habits of
learning. And then when we think about
learning, we no longer think about this
stuff which your brain is really good
at. We think about this stuff. We think
about the methods and the habits that we
built up. And over time we assume that
these habits, this is what learning is.
But that is absolutely not true. And
this is why when I coach someone, the
first thing that they have to understand
is that the way you are used to
learning, the way that is comfortable
for you, the way that you have been
learning for years, and probably the way
that all of your friends have been
learning for years, that is not the way
you should be learning. That is the way
you have been forced to figure out how
to survive in the system and get by. And
it's actually really interesting because
when I work with a lot of business
owners and entrepreneurs and CEOs,
sometimes they weren't very good
academically, but they can be extremely
good learners, very very effective
learners because they were so bad
academically and at school that they
actually rejected these methods. These
methods were so bad for them that they
never turned them into habits and
instead they had to examine how their
brain prefers to learn from a blank
slate. And so the methods and strategies
that they ended up coming up with were
actually more cognitively aligned for
their brain. And I even see the opposite
thing. I work with PhD candidates who
have been academically excellent their
entire life and then when it comes to
hitting a ceiling on their current
methods and needing to upgrade that,
they find it very very challenging to
change their methods because those
habits are so ingrained. And in these
instances, those learners have engaged
in neuroplasticity a lot. Their brain
has changed and adapted and it's molded
itself to be really efficient at this
thing. It's just that the thing it got
really good at is just this stuff. And
these are not processes that are
conducive to effective learning in the
brain. And so if you're in this position
now where you've got this existing set
of methods and processes of learning
that you were really used to and you've
been using that for years and now
suddenly you feel like you're getting
progressively overwhelmed. There's too
much to learn. There's not enough time.
But the way you're trying to learn feels
like how you've always been learning.
It's what's comfortable to you. It
should be working, but it's not. If
that's happening, then that's a sign
that you need to actually retrain and
rewire the brain because you have hit
the limit of performance and result that
you can reach when you keep learning
with those patterns of thinking. So the
question is what are the good patterns
of thinking? What are those processes
and patterns and habits that are
conducive to really effective learning?
Good question. Glad I asked. Uh 20 years
ago, no one would have been able to tell
you this is how learning works because
the research wasn't really there. But
over the last 20 years of research, we
have learned a lot about how learning
works. And so while we don't know
absolutely everything, there are certain
principles that we know must be met. If
you do not meet these certain processes
and principles, the quality of your
learning is not going to be high. So
first of all, we know that memory
is a symptom. It is not that people have
a good memory or have a poor memory. It
is that the processes you use may lead
to a good memory whereas sometimes the
processes you use may lead to poor
memory. We also know that cognitive
processes are much more important than
physical processes. So it doesn't matter
if the way you write notes looks this
way versus the way you read looks this
way. What matters is what goes on inside
your brain when you consume that
information. Once that information
enters your eyes, enters your ears, and
gets inside your brain, what do you do
with that? What thoughts do you have
about this information? Those are the
processes that dictate how good your
retention is going to be and how good
your depth of understanding is going to
be. And we know that more integrative
processes, this is what I often talk
about as higher order learning are
vastly superior to isolated processes.
So when that information comes into your
brain, if you think about that in a way
that's relating it to a big picture,
looking for patterns, seeing how it
connects, looking for relevance and ways
to make it relevant, those thoughts,
even if you don't get to a clear answer
at the end of those thoughts, the
thinking in itself builds a stronger
memory and deepens your understanding.
And hopefully you should see a trend
here, which is that these effective
methods more closely mirror the type of
thinking that your brain is well adapted
to do. You're looking for patterns in
the information. You're trying to make
it more practical and more relevant.
Even if it doesn't seem relevant to
begin with, but even though this is more
effective, most people do not use these
methods. Part of it is because it's
uncomfortable. It's new, new set of
habits. They're not used to doing that
because of everything that I talked
about here. But the other reason is
because we also know that this type of
thinking involves more effort. And
effort is a good thing. Effective active
learning takes more mental effort, which
makes sense because your brain is doing
all of this integrative thinking behind
the scenes. The problem is that a lot of
people see this effort, they feel this
effort, and then they think that because
learning is feeling harder and more
effortful, it's less effective for them.
And therefore, they actually stop using
the methods that would help them the
most. Never underestimate a human
being's tendency to take the laziest,
easiest shortcut. And for learning, it's
exactly the same. Now, obviously, this
is a gross oversimplification. There's
lots more complexity around learning
than this. But even with just these four
points, you can form a mental checklist
about whether a technique is going to be
effective or not. If you appreciate that
memory is a symptom, then you should
understand that you should be thinking
about the processes and trying to vary
the processes. That becomes one
checklist. You should be doing lots of
thinking inside your brain which is
integrative. So you should be doing integrative
integrative thinking
thinking
and it should take a reasonable amount
of effort and it should be mentally engaging.
engaging.
So let's take a technique like reading
and rereading something. Are you
focusing on the process of learning that
you're using? Not really. You're just
doing the same thing over and over again
hoping that it leads to a different
result. So there's an X here. When you
read that stuff, are you doing complex
engaged thinking mentally with what you
read? Not really. You're hoping that
when those words enter your eyeballs,
somehow that's going to translate into
memory with enough repetition. So, big X
there. And how difficult, how much
effort, how engaging is it? Not very
because if it was, you probably wouldn't
be falling asleep every time you do
this. So, big X on that, too. Now let's
contrast this with another technique
which is very popular and genuinely
pretty effective which is to teach
someone else what you've learned. So the
very fact that you are trying to use a
different process to consolidate your
learning that's good. You are also
having to recall what you've learned
bring it together figure out a logical
way to teach someone else and actually
generate that teaching. That's good. And
if you've ever tried teaching, it's a
lot harder than just passively reading
something. So on this one, that's also a
tick. This is why the idea of teaching
to a 10year-old is especially effective
because it takes this integrative
thinking part and it increases the
amount of effort and engagement. Because
if you're teaching it to a 10-year-old,
you have to not only organize your
thoughts, create a flow that's logical
and intuitive and makes sense, but then
you have to simplify it. So you have to
evaluate how well you understand this
thing to make something that is simple
and accurate and comprehensive. That is
very difficult and very mentally
engaging. And a person who is wired to
learn really effectively naturally leans
towards using methods and strategies
that promote this kind of thinking.
Whereas the person whose habits and
comfortable strategies of learning are
generally like this, not very
integrative. They're more just doing the
same technique over and over again and
thinking about information in isolation,
usually not involving much effort. When
you've been doing this for years, these
people will have brains that have become
wired to find learning more difficult.
And so the way that you go from a brain
that is not wired effectively to
becoming wired more efficiently is to
understand what these processes are, the
ones that you should be doing and slowly
practice them. You immerse yourself in
these patterns of thinking and over time
your brain adopts this neuroplastic
change and will slowly rewire and mold
itself. At least that is the big
picture. But like I mentioned before,
there are certain requirements that have
to be met. It's not as simple as saying,
"Hey, just start learning like this and
everything's going to change for you
magically." There's actually certain
conditions that you need to meet in
order to make neuroplasticity work for
you more effectively. Otherwise, like I
said, it's going to take you years and
years and years. Now, I will quickly
mention that these requirements for
neuroplastic change, there are eight of
these core requirements and I'm going to
go through them fairly quickly in this
video because I don't want this to
become a 6hour video. But if for any of
these you want to go a little bit more
in depth, one good place that you can
find that information is in my free
weekly newsletter. I go through some of
these things with a bit more examples,
some more walkthroughs in some of those
newsletters and it can give you a few
more ideas in terms of how you can
implement these requirements for
neuroplastic change. So, uh, if you'd
like to join that, it's totally free.
Uh, each newsletter takes a few minutes
to read. I'll leave a link to that in
the description down below if you'd like
to join. So, starting with the first
requirement for rapid
neuroplastic change, which is intention.
Now, it's going to be a lot easier for
me to explain intention and all the
other principles if you can sort of
visualize what's actually happening
physically in your brain with the
neurons. So, I'll just draw this quick
diagram here. This thing here, this is
called an axon. It's like a highway for
the electrical signals in your brain.
So, when you have thoughts, uh, they're
going up and down this highway and it
terminates at this area called a
syninnapse. The syninnapse is the
connection between two neurons. So this
here is neuron number one and this here
is neuron number two. Okay? And this is
another axon. So if you have a thought,
what's going to happen is that it's
going to travel down here and it's going
to cross this connection, this
syninnapse, and then it's going to
travel down this axon as well. And so
your brain is made up of billions or
actually maybe trillions, hundreds of
trillions of these synapses and these
connections. and they form this
extremely dense intricate network and
that is pretty much your brain. And so
let's say we kind of zoom out from this
view. Uh and it looks like this. So
we've got these different brain
connections. So each of these lines is
an axon
and each of these little circles here
that's a synapse. So it's a connection
between two different neurons. Now when
your brain is doing a certain type of
thinking and especially when there's
patterns of thinking it's using certain
pathways. So one pattern of thinking
might look like this. You'd start from
here, you go down here. Uh maybe you
come like that and that becomes a
pathway. Another pathway might be that
you you know start over here and then
you you know you come down here and then
you you you go back up over to here. So
that would be another pathway. And the
idea is that the pathways that are used
more frequently are the ones that get
reinforced and strengthened over time.
So the idea with this first requirement,
which is intention, is that when you
deliberately intend to think in a
certain way and you try to use a certain
pattern of thinking, it's more effective
at activating those specific pathways.
This is fairly obvious. Like if you're
just kind of randomly thinking about
things, not very intentionally, maybe
your brain is doing this sometimes,
maybe it's doing this sometimes, maybe
it's doing this sometimes, maybe it's
doing that. It's going to be a mix of
all of those things. The intention
basically means that we want to be very
clear about how we are thinking and very
purposeful so that we try to use the
pathways that we know are more
beneficial and therefore it means that
they're more likely to be activated and
strengthened over time. This is the
reason why I spent time talking about
all these different prerequisites and
requirements for effective learning. You
have to understand what effective
learning actually looks like at a
process level so that you can be
intentional with how you think. It's not
good enough for me to say use this
technique and you will be a good
learner. It doesn't work that way. Even
if you know the technique, you have to
understand how it's meant to make you
think cognitively. And that intention is
what drives that neuroplastic change.
Well, is one of the eight things that
drive the neuroplastic change. The
second point is intensity.
Let's say you've now learned about these
effective methods and processes of
thinking and learning and you've watched
some my other videos taking my course.
Maybe you've learned about these things
and so you give it a go. You sit down
with your material. You're about to
study. You read a few lines and you try
to draw a mind map for like five
minutes. you're not going to really get
any neuroplastic change because the
intensity of that stimulus wasn't
enough. It's kind of like going to a
gym, lifting up a weight for one rep,
and being like, "Am I stronger yet?" No,
not not even a little bit. The threshold
that you need to reach in terms of
intensity for that neuroplastic change
to actually kick in is sometimes
actually fairly high. And a simple rule
of thumb that I recommend is that you
should calibrate the intensity so that
it's always challenging. When you're
learning a new skill, if you want to
improve at that skill, get better at it,
get used to that skill, you should
practice in a way where you feel
challenged. You don't get good at
something by getting to perfection at an
easy level. You get good at something by
getting good enough at a certain level
and then moving on to the next level
where you're rechallenged. So if you uh
let's say that being really really good
at this kind of learning is a 10 out of
10, right? You can do all of these
processes really really well. That's
that's a 10 out of 10. Let's say that
one out of 10 is that everything you do
is you know very very isolated. You're a
very passive learner. Uh probably you
know memory not very good struggling
with learning a lot. So challenging for
you if you are at 1 out of 10 maybe just
to get to a 2 out of 10 or a 3 out of
10. At this point all of your problems
with learning are not being solved. You
do not have phenomenal memory. It is a
little bit better than it was before.
There is incremental bits of progress
that's being made and to achieve that is
challenging and it's effortful and after
a while it's not going to be effortful
and at that point maybe you're at a 3
out of 10 and now your next step is a 5
out of 10. Obviously, if you're starting
from a 5 out of 10, then your next step
is going to be a 7 out of 10. You don't
need to stay at 5 out of 10 or aim for a
3 out of 10 like everyone else. And so,
this is really important for learning
because your own sense of mental effort
and challenge is the only way that you
can tell whether the intensity is enough
for you. You are the only one that will
be able to feel that you are really
trying your best to think in this way
and learn in this way. And it's up to
you to recognize whether you are able to
persist through that challenge and feel
that difficulty and stay there or
whether you hit that difficulty and then
bounce back and retreat into what's more
comfortable for you. This is probably
one of the most common reasons why
people really struggle with creating
this neuroplastic change with learning
is that every time it gets difficult
they instinctively come back to their
comfort zone which is actually
preventing their brain from rewiring.
Now having said that uh you don't want
to make it too challenging. So if you
are at a 1 out of 10, you don't want to
aim for 5 out of 10 or 10 out of 10
straight away. The idea here is that
your patterns that exist might look like
this. The pattern that you need to get
to might be this. But this connection
for your brain, it doesn't actually
exist yet. So you're basically trying to
use a pathway that you don't have. This
is tied to this idea of the zone of
proximal development which is a term
that was coined famously by a
psychologist called Vigodsky and they
basically said the best point of
learning is just outside of your current
comfort zone and ability. So if this is
your current level of ability, you want
to be in this zone of proximal
development here which is the things
that are just beyond what you're
currently capable of doing. And the way
we know we are in that area is that we
have some errors. It feels challenging
and we probably don't feel confident
with it. So these are actually good
things. So that was to do with
intensity. So I write here there's a
sort of goldilocks
zone that you want to hit which is your
zone of proximal development. Not too
easy, not too hard. The third one here
is in variety.
The most effective way of getting good
at something and rewiring your brain is
not to do the same challenging thing
over and over again. It's to do slightly
different challenging things over and
over again. So, for example, let's say
that there's a specific type of math
problem that you want to get really good
at solving and you want to wire your
brain to be better at thinking about
mathematics. So there might be a
particular question that you're
answering that's very challenging for
you. Answering that question and just
very very similar questions over and
over again runs the risk of turning your
brain into autopilot. Which means that
you do figure out that this is a good
pathway to take. But instead of really
consciously activating this pathway, it
starts operating on autopilot. And this
is actually detrimental in the early
stages of learning because when your
brain starts operating on autopilot too
early, the brain chemicals that are
released actually change and the
chemicals that drive pathway
strengthening and creation that drive
neuroplasticity actually start going
down. Now, on the other hand, when you
challenge yourself with a bit of
variety, so instead of just solving the
exact same type of problem, you're
choosing similar problems related to
similar concept, but you're hitting it
from very different angles and
challenging yourself in more novel ways.
Then this introduces more
unpredictability. Sometimes it
introduces errors. And that
unpredictability and those occasional
errors actually help your brain to
calibrate which pathways are better and
which ones are worse. And it makes it
clearer and more intentional at
strengthening the ones that are
effective. This principle actually
applies for all forms of learning.
Whether you're learning knowledge or
learning a skill is that introducing a
level of variety helps your brain to
learn that thing faster. I've often
talked about this concept using the term
interle which is very closely related to
Now the good thing when it comes to
learning to learn is that it's easy to
get this variety because you're
naturally going to be studying different
things and learning different topics
with different pieces of information. So
as long as you're continuing to learn
different things and you keep
challenging yourself in different ways,
you're going to hit that variety
automatically. Now, what you may find is
that when you hit that variety, you have
inconsistency. You're able to really
make it click and get really effective,
efficient learning in one session, but
then the next week it might be just as
bad as it's always been. That's actually
perfectly normal and it's part of your
brain figuring out how to replicate that
success more times. So, don't worry
about the fact that you might have
inconsistency or you're making errors.
It's just all part of the learning
process. Now, the fourth point here is frequency.
frequency.
Like I said before with going to a gym,
lifting up a weight one time, doing one
repetition, and wondering if you're
strong or not. You can't go to the gym,
do a single workout, and then expect
that you're going to be stronger after
that. You have to go back to that gym
regularly. There has to be a certain
frequency at the intensity. So this
intention, this intensity, this variety,
this all has to happen at a certain
level of frequency for it to promote
that neuroplastic change. Otherwise,
what's going to happen is that you're
going to send this concentrated burst of
signals to the brain saying, "Hey, here
are some pathways we want to strengthen
and make more efficient." And then it's
going to start making it more efficient.
And then a week later, it's going to
realize, "Hey, guess we don't need this
anymore." And it's going to prune them
back down. You know how they say that
once you learn how to ride a bike, you
never forget? That's false. If you give
it enough time, you will forget how to
ride a bike because your brain is
constantly pruning out pathways and
connections that it doesn't need. Now,
again, practically speaking, if you're
learning to learn, part of this is easy
for you to implement because you're
probably learning continuously. You're
not just learning something for one week
and then you're just never learning
anything for the next year. every single
week there's probably something new for
you to learn. So all you need to do is
make sure that when you have those
learning sessions, you're trying to hit
a relatively intentional method of
learning at a certain level of intensity
that is in that Goldilock zone with that
level of variety. And again, naturally
the frequency should take care of
itself. Now I will mention one thing
though, which is that thinking about
challenging yourself is not the same as
actually challenging yourself. I have a
lot of people who will watch my videos
or go through the program and they spend
a lot of time thinking about the methods
and the strategies and the theory and so
the frequency at which they are engaging
with the material is very high but they
actually only practice and apply that
skill maybe like once or twice. It's not
about how much you've thought about it.
It's how much you actually immerse
yourself in the practice of challenging
yourself. And not only do you have to
immerse yourself in that frequently
enough, you have to do it for a long
enough prolonged period of time, which
is the fifth one here, the D, which is
for duration. You have to hit yourself
at the right intention, intensity,
variety, and frequency
for a long enough duration of time.
Let's say you go to the gym 3 days a
week doing some good workouts. You need
to do that three days a week for years
to get really strong. Now, you might be
thinking, how long do I need to practice
this for to get really good at it? And
the research is very unclear about this.
And so, actually, rather than drawing on
the research, I'm going to have to draw
from my own personal coaching experience
and what I've seen with the students
that work through my program and in my
coaching practice. The short answer is
that it really depends. It depends first
of all on all these other factors. the
intention, the intensity, the variety,
and the frequency. And it also depends
on your current baseline level. I've had
students who were haphazard with their
intention, didn't really expose
themselves to much intensity. Every time
they feel it was difficult, they would
kind of pull back into their comfort
zone again. They weren't challenging
themselves very frequently. They were
only practicing this maybe once or twice
a week. and they will go years like two
three years they'll be working on this
practicing and not really make much
progress because they're never really
hitting that threshold for sustained
neuroplastic change. So in that case
it's sort of an infinite amount of time.
You're never going to get there because
you're never staying above that
threshold for long enough. Whereas I'll
have other learners who maintain that
optimum level of intention and intensity
and variety and frequency and they're
able to see changes within four to six
weeks. And these could be two learners
that have the exact same baseline level
of skill. Uh but I did say that the
baseline level does matter. But the way
that it matters is how fixed those
habits tend to be and how willing you
are to change and experiment with them.
Now, normally if someone is really
really struggling with learning and
they've been struggling for a long time,
they've never really been a great
learner, then it also probably means
that there are a whole host of habits
that are not working well for them.
There's bad habits there. And so, it
actually takes them longer to see
improvement because they have to do more
work, not just using that neuroplastic
change to become a better learner, but
just to get them from bad to neutral.
Likewise, a high achiever who's really
stuck in their ways and doesn't want to
change anything, is really rigid, they
will again spend months, maybe years
never really improving. But if you want
a short answer for this, then the
duration you need to maintain this
pressure for even though it's possible
to do it in weeks, if you have the right
guidance and the intensity and the
structure and everything, I would
normally say you should expect that it's
going to take you months up to years.
But the good thing about this process of
actually upgrading and rewiring how your
brain learns is that it's not a binary
process. It's not like you have to train
yourself meditatively for months and
then only after 10 months do you finally
get your first good result. Every single
week, every single month that you are
engaged in this process, things are
getting easier and easier for you. Your
results are getting better and better.
Your memory is getting better. Your
understanding is becoming deeper and
clearer. So, you're getting incremental
improvements consistently. The thing
that takes months or years is for that
to start being more consistent, for it
to be easier, and for you to be faster
at doing it. But compared to what you
may normally be doing or are used to
doing, this is still the safer strategy
because what you've previously been
doing, if you're already hitting the
ceiling of it, there's no real
possibility for future improvement
there. You're just going to continue
having those same problems forever.
Whereas with this one, you will have to
do a little bit of hard work, but that
hard work is actually going to pay off
with something. And that payoff is going
to be lifelong. So these are the first
five. And you you'll notice that I've
arranged them like this because they
kind of build on each other. Uh but then
there's three more factors and
requirements for neuroplastic change
which set as a foundation to all of
these ones which mean that you need to
have these three also really locked in.
Otherwise the impact of these first five
is going to be significantly reduced. So
the first one of these more fundamental
requirements is emotion.
This is a really interesting one because
research says that when a experience is
more emotional and that this could be
positive or negative it leaves a bigger
imprint on your brain. And while you
can't really make every study session a
thrilling, exciting, memorable
experience, and I also don't recommend
trying to make it like a traumatic
experience either. Uh there is an
element of emotion that you can and
should tap into, which is the idea of
trying to create a level of dopamine.
Dopamine is the the happy hormone. When
you have high levels of dopamine, which
is a type of neurotransmitter, you feel
good. So let's say you eat some food
that you really love and you you know
you eat it and you think a so good and
you feel happy. That's dopamine. The
reason you feel that way is because of
dopamine. And actually learning can
produce dopamine if you do it right. And
this is where it gets quite interesting
because these processes that I talked to
you about before where you're doing
things really integrative and it's it's
involving cognitive effort but that
effort pays off because it's so much
more effective. These are the ways that
your brain initially is well adapted to
learn. So your brain is really good at
learning in that way and it really
enjoys learning in that way. So when you
learn with these processes, you should
actually feel this sense of satisfaction
or excitement
about the fact that things are clicking
together. You feel the knowledge taking
shape. And yes, there's confusion and
there's overwhelm at times. But when you
get that moment where it clicks and it
starts to make sense, that releases
dopamine. And there's actually two
reasons that the emotion and this
dopamine uh increases that rate of
neuroplastic change. The first reason is
purely chemical. The chemical reason is
that dopamine directly reduces the
threshold that you need to reach for
neuroplastic change to occur. That means
that you can actually create that change
with a lower level of intensity, less
variety, less frequency and with less
duration. You don't need to do that as
intensely to still get that change. So
it reduces the threshold directly.
Dopamine also directly increases the
gene expression
of certain chemicals in the brain that
create neuroplasticity. So these
neuroplasticity chemicals are actually
expressed more because dopamine triggers
it. But the other reason is not chemical
at all. This is purely psychological.
Dopamine makes you feel good. When you
feel good, you're more likely to do this
thing again. It creates a positive
feedback loop
and this increases your level of motivation.
motivation.
So, when I said it's going to take you
months or years of duration to maintain
this and create this change, well, those
months and years are going to fly by if
you're actually having fun doing it. And
that's important because everyone, every
human brain is capable of neuroplastic
change. But not everyone, very few
people actually are able to successfully
rewire the way that they think. And in
my experience, the key differentiator is
not the brain of each person, but how
long they're able to stick with it. So
that's where emotion comes in. The next
one here is sleep. Apart from all the
other things that sleep is so important
for just in terms of your overall life,
please don't sacrifice sleep. And anyone
that tells you to sacrifice sleep, just
unfollow them, please. They're not good
for your health. Uh but sleep when it
comes to learning and memory and the
brain is incredibly important. One of
the best pieces of advice, which was
actually just a throwaway piece of
advice that someone told me uh back when
I was 18 years old, was you can cram as
much as you like. Do as many allnighters
as you want, but the night before your
exam, get really, really, really good
sleep. And that was because in sleep
your brain does this thing called sleepd
dependent memory consolidation which is
basically all the stuff that you've been
cramming in it actually moves that
information into a more usable
retrievable part of the brain. So if you
don't get enough sleep that means that
you may do all of the studying and you
crammed all this information in your
brain but then when it comes time to
actually needing to use it for an
interview or for an exam or you know
just for work you're not actually able
to draw on that information which is a
shame. I don't agree with that advice.
don't do all nighters all the time. Uh
but I agree with the idea that sleep is
extremely important. Now when it comes
to neuroplastic change, it's actually
even more important because during
sleep, your brain goes into this kind of
maintenance mode and uh it's during this
time that it replays certain neural
pathways that were activated during the
day to strengthen them. It also prune
the ones that are not necessary. And
this is all very crucial for keeping
your brain in good health. And so if
you're constantly sleepd deprived, your
brain isn't able to perform this
maintenance properly. So not only do you
feel terrible cuz you're sleepd
deprived, but your concentration goes
down, your focus goes down, your actual
thinking capacity and your executive
capacity goes down and your brain's
ability to adapt and change and grow
also reduces. So I'm sure you've heard
this hundred times before. Get your
sleep sorted. But if your sleep is still
not sorted and you've heard it a hundred
times, then let me tell you again, get
your sleep sorted. I'm talking to you.
It's not worth it to be sleepd deprived.
Let's move on to the next one. The next
one here is exercise. Specifically, uh
especially aerobic exercise is good for
brain plasticity. So, you know how I
said that there's this neuroplasticity
chemical that's released in your brain?
Well, one of those chemicals is called B DNF.
DNF.
It stands for brain derived neurotrophic
factor and it's one of the key chemicals
that's involved in strengthening
pathways, maintaining the brain and
pruning unnecessary pathways and aerobic
exercise actually seems to directly
increase the expression of BDNF. So how
much exercise do you actually need? What
type of exercise? Uh when do you need to
do it? There's actually a surprisingly
large amount of research on this which
is great. The good news is that any
level of aerobic exercise, even done for
a short amount of time, oneoff, has
benefits. But there is a sweet spot. And
that sweet spot is roughly three to five
times per week, roughly 30 to 45 minutes
per session at around a 6 out of 10 intensity.
intensity.
So 6 out of 10 intensity is like a
pretty moderate like vigorous level of
activity. And it's at this level when
you hit this criteria that it's shown to
produce long-term changes to your
hypocample volume which is a a key part
of the brain involved in memory as well
as long-term improvements in your memory
and a higher baseline level of this BDNF
chemical. But like I said, even a short
amount can help. So you can just do like
a 20 15 to 20 minute session at a
moderate level of intensity and that can
also produce a short-term increase in
BDNF. And actually some studies have
even found that you can do 15 to 20
minutes of exercise and then follow that
in the next sort of few hours with some
kind of mental task like studying or
learning something. And it's shown that
there's an improvement to your memory of
what you learn in those few hours in
that window compared to not having any
exercise beforehand. So doing a little
bit of exercise uh in the morning and
then having a great focused deep work
session that can be a really great
combination plus getting good sleep. I
mean what kind of what a great life
you're living there. Yeah, I'm sure
you're jealous of this hypothetical
person already. Now, if doing this level
of exercise this frequently is, you
know, not easy for you, you can also do
lower intensity exercise. So, even just
going for a brisk walk can increase your
BDNF levels, uh, just not to the same
amount, but it's still better than
nothing. Now, if you're like me and you
really hate doing aerobic exercise,
honestly, I I really hate jogging, uh,
you might be wondering, what if you just
do strength training? You know, you go
to the gym, you lift some weights. So
the answer to this is that unfortunately
it doesn't seem to be quite as good.
There are some benefits because there
are other chemicals in your brain that
go up that do improve neuroplasticity.
So it's it's for sure better than doing
nothing. Uh but it's not as good as
aerobic exercise. So unfortunately that
does mean I should be talking to a
mirror right now. You need to do some
aerobic exercise. So anyway, these are
the requirements for creating rapid
neuroplastic change. You may also be
wondering, is there a limit to
neuroplastic change? Like, if I am truly
starting at a 1 out of 10, can I one day
be a 10 out of 10? And also, is there an
age limit? Like, am I too old to be
changing the way that my brain works?
The answer is that there isn't a clear
limit to neuroplastic change, but there
definitely is a limit. So some of the
best ways that you can think about this
is that if you have a really really
severe brain injury or brain trauma,
there are certain functions that at a
certain level of damage, you will never
be able to get that back. Uh so your
brain is not able to neuroplastically
just like heal itself from anything. So
what that suggests is that there is some
kind of limit to the pathways that your
brain can create and prune. In my own
experience as a learning coach for the
past decade plus, I found that pretty
much everyone is able to create really
significant changes in their learning
ability. Like you can start from having
really really bad memory to developing,
you know, like very very good memory
beyond what you may normally have ever
thought you were possible of. However,
someone that is a let's say a 1 out of
10, it's pretty rare for someone to get
all the way through to a 10 out of 10.
But also most people don't ever need to
be at a 10 out of 10 anyway. So in terms
of answering that question as is it
possible for anyone to improve and
rewire their brain to be able to learn
more effectively so much so that it
makes a significant difference to their
lived experience? Definitely. Everything
that I've seen in my coaching experience
supports that. Is there an age limit to
this? Not that I've seen. In fact, I
would actually say that my most
successful learners have been in their
40s and 50s plus. And that may just be
due to maturity that allows them to uh
hit this threshold and maintain that
threshold for a longer period of time
more consistently than younger learners.
I do know that um neuroplasticity is
much higher in children, especially
young children. I don't really have a
lot of experience working with young
children, so I can't comment on that.
But certainly within adult learners
between a 20-year-old and a 65 year old,
I haven't really seen any significant
difference. But I hope this helps. And
again, I go through some of these
concepts with more examples and
practical takeaways in my newsletter as
well. So, uh, remember the link to that
to join is in the description below. And
if you're interested in learning a
little bit more around the processes of
effective learning to make sure that you
are really intentional about that, then
you should check out this video here
where I break down that process in a lot
more granular depth. In this video, I
kind of just gave you the the cliffnotes
summary of it. But this video is the one
to check out if you want to familiarize
yourself. Thanks so much for watching
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