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10 Things Only People Who Can't Stop Learning Would Understand
Improving Your Life
Lifelong learners know that reading a book is only the first step. They know that the value lies in applying what they read.
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Key Ideas
Never stop learning
Research shows that people with more education have a greater cognitive reserve and this works as a protection in the face of mental decline.
But there's a twist to it: educated people t...
Crosswords
Cognitive activities like crossword puzzles, reading or playing music may delay memory decline among people who eventually developed dementia.
Stereotype threat
It happens when a person is in a situation where they are anxious that they may conform to a negative stereotype aimed at his or her social group.
Positive stereotypes, or success on previous memory tasks, can help combat this negativity.
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Key Ideas
The Science of Memory
- Encoding - the stage when the brain consciously acknowledges information based on our senses. When we attach meaning or factual knowledge to any of this sensory input, that'...
Lifestyle Changes That Can Improve Memory
- Get a good night's sleep or take a power nap after learning something new, to help retain and retrieve memories better. Sleep deprivation and acquisition of too much information will not help you save those memories.
- Get moving, to improve the flow of oxygen-rich blood in your brain and to trigger neuron growth and new connections in the brain - critical for memory.
- Improve your diet. Fats from food can build up the brain, resulting to poor blood flow.
Mnemonics
Any system or device designed to aid memory:
- patterns of letters or words (common mnemonics)
- ideas (memory palace)
- associations (chunking)
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Key Ideas
Boost Learning Speed
- Learners proficient in fast-paced games are significantly faster at performing new cognitive tasks.
- By pretending you are teaching something to someone using simple language, you understand it better.
- Bilingual people may have a leg up when it comes to understanding new things and processing information, regardless of the learned language.
- Learning new material right before sleeping provides a significant retention advantage.
- Establishing as many connections as possible is an effective way to learn, and the best way to do that is to relate new information to known information.
- The brain processes visual information faster than text. Include relevant visuals (charts, symbols, diagrams…) with learning materials to improve retention.
Perceptual Learning
Is the idea that we learn unconsciously through our senses in a self-regulated way, without requiring external reinforcement.
More simply, you can learn to intuitively identify different situations or images through directly experiencing them in a fast-paced manner.