Six Brain Hacks To Learn Anything

Faster
Research proves there are ways to learn new skills and
concepts with speed and ease.
Whether it’s a new technology, a foreign language, or an
advanced skill, staying competitive often means learning
new things. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers have taken a
course or sought additional training to advance their
careers, according to a March 2016 study by Pew
Research Center. They report that results have included an
expanded professional network, new job or different career
path.

Being a quick learner can give you an even greater edge.

Science proves there are six ways you can learn and retain
something faster.

1. TEACH SOMEONE ELSE (OR JUST PRETEND TO)

If you imagine that you’ll need to teach someone else the

material or task you are trying to grasp, you can speed up
your learning and remember more, according to
a study done at Washington University in St. Louis. The
expectation changes your mind-set so that you engage in
more effective approaches to learning than those who
simply learn to pass a test, according to John Nestojko, a
postdoctoral researcher in psychology and coauthor of the
study.

Sleeping between two learning sessions greatly improves

retention.

“When teachers prepare to teach, they tend to seek out key

points and organize information into a coherent structure,”
Nestojko writes. “Our results suggest that students also
turn to these types of effective learning strategies when
they expect to teach.”

2. LEARN IN SHORT BURSTS OF TIME

Experts at the Louisiana State University’s Center for

Academic Success suggest dedicating 30-50 minutes to
learning new material. “Anything less than 30 is just not
enough, but anything more than 50 is too much information
for your brain to take in at one time,” writes learning
strategies graduate assistant Ellen Dunn. Once you’re
done, take a five to 10 minute break before you start
another session.

Brief, frequent learning sessions are much better than

longer, infrequent ones, agrees Neil Starr, a course mentor
at Western Governors University, an online nonprofit
university where the average student earns a bachelor’s
degree in two and a half years.

Changing the way you practice a new motor skill can help
you master it faster.

He recommends preparing for micro learning sessions.

“Make note cards by hand for the more difficult concepts
you are trying to master,” he says. “You never know when
you’ll have some in-between time to take advantage of.”

3. TAKE NOTES BY HAND

While it’s faster to take notes on a laptop, using a pen and

paper will help you learn and comprehend better.
Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that
when students took notes by hand, they listened more
actively and were able to identify important concepts.
Taking notes on a laptop, however, leads to mindless
transcription, as well as an opportunity for distraction,
such as email.

“In three studies, we found that students who took notes

on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than
students who took notes longhand,” writes coauthor and
Princeton University psychology professor Pam Mueller.
“We show that whereas taking more notes can be
beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe
lectures verbatim rather than processing information and
reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.”

4. USE THE POWER OF MENTAL SPACING

While it sounds counterintuitive, you can learn faster when

you practice distributed learning, or “spacing.” In an
interview with The New York Times, Benedict Carey,
author of How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When,
Where, and Why It Happens, says learning is like watering a
lawn. “You can water a lawn once a week for 90 minutes or
three times a week for 30 minutes,” he said. “Spacing out
the watering during the week will keep the lawn greener
over time.”

To retain material, Carey said it’s best to review the

information one to two days after first studying it. “One
theory is that the brain actually pays less attention during
short learning intervals,” he said in the interview. “So
repeating the information over a longer interval–say a few
days or a week later, rather than in rapid succession–sends
a stronger signal to the brain that it needs to retain the
information.”

5. TAKE A STUDY NAP

Downtime is important when it comes to retaining what

you learn, and getting sleep in between study sessions can
boost your recall up to six months later, according to new
research published in Psychological Science.

In an experiment held in France, participants were taught

the Swahili translation for 16 French words in two
sessions. Participants in the “wake” group completed the
first learning session in the morning and the second
session in the evening of the same day, while participants
in the “sleep” group completed the first session in the
evening, slept, and then completed the second session the
following morning. Participants who had slept between
sessions recalled about 10 of the 16 words, on average,
while those who hadn’t slept recalled only about 7.5 words.

“Our results suggest that interweaving sleep between

practice sessions leads to a twofold advantage, reducing
the time spent relearning and ensuring a much better long-
term retention than practice alone,” writes psychological
scientist Stephanie Mazza of the University of Lyon.
“Previous research suggested that sleeping after learning
is definitely a good strategy, but now we show that
sleeping between two learning sessions greatly improves
such a strategy.”

6. CHANGE IT UP

When learning a new motor skill, changing the way you

practice it can help you master it faster, according to a
new study at Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine. In an experiment, participants were asked to
learn a computer-based task. Those who used a modified
learning technique during their second session performed
better than those who repeated the same method.

The findings suggest that reconsolidation–a process in

which existing memories are recalled and modified with
new knowledge–plays a key role in strengthening motor
skills, writes Pablo A. Celnik, senior study author and
professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

“What we found is if you practice a slightly modified

version of a task you want to master,” he writes, “you
actually learn more and faster than if you just keep
practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row.”