Learning How to Learn - Week 1

2 Thinking Modes

1. Focused
2. Diffused

Simple pinball analogy

• Focused
  • tight spacing rubber bumpers
  • prefrontal cortex
• Diffused mode
  • wide spaced rubber bumpers
  • walking, exercising, etc.

Procrastination

When preparing for a weight-lifting competition, one does not slack off and wait till the day before the competition to work out. Building muscles does not work that way. To gain muscular structure, you need to do a little work every day, gradually allowing your muscles to grow. Similarly, to build neural structure, you need to do a little work every day, gradually allowing yourself to grow a neuro-scaffold to hang your thinking on a little bit, every day, and that's the trick

Practice makes Permanent

Brain

• A 3-pound organ that consumes 10 times more energy by weight than the rest of the body
• There's constant turnover in the single connections between neurons called synapses (We're a new person when we sleep and wake up)
• Q: According to the video, what happens on the dendrites of neurons when you learn something new?

A; Many new synapses (connections) are formed on the dendrites.

1. Working Memory
   • There's as many as 4 chunks of information
   • Working memory is the part of memory that has to do with what you're immediately and consciously processing in your mind.
2. Long-term memory
   • long term memory is wide a storage warehouse, and just like a warehouse, it's distributed over a big area. Different kinds of long-term memories are stored in different regions of the brain.

Sleep

• allows the brain to wash away metabolic toxins
• allows your brain to strengthen important parts of memories even as it erases less important memories
• allows your brain a chance to rehearse difficult material--going over and over the tougher aspects of what you are trying to learn
• makes a remarkable difference in your ability to figure out difficult problems and to understand what you are trying to learn
• Dreaming - about something helps your ability to understand it

Tip

• Pomodoro, 25 minutes, no interruptions, focus
• Practice makes permanent - 4 slots of memory -> with practice -> move to leng-term memory
• Spaced repetition - is good because it builds stronger neural structures by repeating them over a number of days
• 2 top methods of learning:
  • Learning by doing
  • Learning by osmosis
• Success in life reached through passion and persistence