Three Ways to Accelerate Learning
By: Richard Thomas Scott
Tags: Learning, Physiology, Brain, Neuroplasticity, Science

Structural changes lead to new integrated networks of brain regions that function together to support learning. It also leads to brain regions that are important for the behavior to change the structure or to enlarge.

For instance… people that read braille have larger hand sensory areas in the brain.

Your dominant hand motor region (right-handed or left-handed) corresponds to the opposite side of the brain which rules that hand. So if you are right-handed your dominant hand motor region will be on the left side of your brain which rules the right side of your body.

London taxi drivers who have to memorize the maps of all of London have larger brain regions that correspond to spatial or mapping memories.

So when you learn, your brain changes to support learning. Basically, you learn to learn more easily. Similar to AI which does it much more quickly but not necessarily more efficiently.

Sidenote:

In the time that it takes for you to take a breath before you answer a question, A.I. has the equivalent of a year in our time to research the question. And during that equivalent year it, like us, learns to learn more efficiently as it learns about a subject.

Point is that AI will immediately become the superior intelligence and we should heed Elon musks warnings, which no one seems to be taking him seriously.

The third way your brain changes through learning is by altering brain function.

As you alter brain regions by way of learning, the brain becomes more excitable and it becomes easier to learn again. Which you can see works complimentary with the second way the brain changes, through structural change by way of the first way it changes through chemicals which could be seen as laying the foundation for the change and getting things started.

As your brain shifts and increases excitability, the brain shifts how and when they are activated as well.

This could be seen as represented by how excited you become when you finally nail that chord progression on the piano or catch the bowling pin that you kept missing when learning to juggle. You get excited as you notice progress when learning a new motor skill. Or when you pass that test question that you couldn’t seem to remember.

When you learn, entire networks of brain activity shift and change.

The main lesson from all of this is the best driver or most effective and efficient way to learn is thorough behavior or practice.

Therefore, anything that you do you will get better at. Even things that are difficult to quantify like using your intuition. When you use and trust your gut feeling your brain changes physically, chemically, and functionally to support that behavior and to make you better at it & better at learning to do it. So the increase is exponential as it is constantly increasing.

This is why once you reach a certain level of skill or mastery at something (ie. when you can play chord progressions easily) it becomes much easier for you to learn to play an entire song. You would think that it’s because you know how to play chord progressions and it is, but there is much more going on at all different levels that are at work or, in the case of playing the piano, at play. (pardon the pun)

How can you accelerate learning?

Research shows at least 3 ways.

Brain stimulation, exercise, and learning. All 3 of which you can do on your own at home.

Brain stimulation happens, as we have talked about through learning. Also through exercise, both of which you can do at home.

I recommend yoga which is more or less stretching using the resistance of your body weight.

If you drop any judgment or bias you have about it and try it, you’ll be amazed at how difficult it is, how much of a workout it is, and how much & and how rapidly it changes your body. It opens the body which in turn opens the mind which makes it easier to let go of judgment and bias enhances learning.