In this episode 18 protocols
▶ 15:10 Self-Testing by Recall Behaviors “If you look across the total body of research on how best to study and learn it involves doing exactly what we just did which is to periodically stop and test yourself on the material that you learned.” ▷ 17:50 Great Night's Sleep Before Learning Behaviors “Well, here's what everyone should take in order to learn better, which is a great night's sleep the night before... your ability to be alert and focused is going to be greater if you slept well the night before.” ▷ 17:50 Limit External Stress Before Studying Behaviors “Well, here's what everyone should take in order to learn better, which is a great night's sleep the night before, limiting your external stress. Although some stress is good because it cues up your alertness.” ▷ 18:59 Voluntary Attention Engagement Behaviors “The process of being alert and focused on particular material that you want to learn can be enhanced by just having a silent script within your head... you're thinking, okay, I need to learn this, I need to learn this.” ▷ 20:36 Use a Hoodie and Hat as Blinders Tools “Sometimes even putting on a hoodie and hat, you know, literally putting blinders so that you can only attend to the material right in front of you.” ▷ 22:14 Hydration Behaviors “Yes, being well hydrated. Yes, the appropriate amount of caffeine for you that allows you to be alert, but not shaking and agitated can be very useful.” ▷ 22:16 Caffeine Supplements “Yes, the appropriate amount of caffeine for you that allows you to be alert, but not shaking and agitated can be very useful... if you're studying is going late into the night and you're drinking a lot of caffeine, be mindful that the sleep that you get after drinking that caffeine late into the day... those are not serving your learning well.” ▷ 22:23 Mindfulness Meditation Behaviors “The scientific data also support the fact that doing a brief, say five to 10 minute mindfulness meditation each day... People who do that on a regular basis improve their level of focus, they improve their memory and recall ability.” ▷ 23:40 Visual Target Focus Practice Behaviors “You could even do it with eyes open by focusing on a visual target, allowing yourself to blink... and then just making sure that your visual attention and cognitive attention comes back to that visual target over and over again.” ▷ 25:19 Get Enough Sleep After Learning Behaviors “The actual reordering of the connections... that underlie learning... occurs during sleep, in particular during rapid eye movement sleep, which tends to predominate in the latter half of the night. So make sure that you're getting enough sleep for you.” ▷ 27:25 NSDR Behaviors “I highly recommend you explore non-sleep deep rest or NSDR... is a 10 or 20 minute practice that you can do to restore your mental and physical vigor if you haven't slept enough.” ▷ 1:16:14 Use Open-Ended Self-Tests Behaviors “The best tests are open short answer very minimal prompt tests... as compared to multiple choice tests.” ▷ 1:20:45 Think About Material Immediately After Class Behaviors “What's not going to be helpful? Walking out of class and getting immediately onto your phone... you do have this key opportunity right after being exposed to new material to help offset the forgetting by testing yourself on that material as soon as possible after being exposed to it.” ▷ 1:22:17 Gap Effects Behaviors “Gap effects are what I just did, which is to take periodic pauses in the learning of material as short as five to 10 seconds, but even as long as 30 seconds...” ▷ 1:29:06 Use Emotion to Enhance Learning Behaviors “We know that any kind of story, any kind of emotional emphasis on material... is likely to be more readily and stably committed to your memory.” ▷ 1:32:19 Cold Plunge Tools “If you want to take a cold shower after learning some material, or even better testing yourself mentally on that material while in a cold shower or cold plunge. You certainly can, just don't stay in there too long.” ▷ 1:32:19 Cold Shower After Learning Behaviors “If you want to take a cold shower after learning some material... You certainly can, just don't stay in there too long. Use best practices.” ▷ 1:33:29 Interleaving Behaviors “The final tool for studying... is interleaving of information... every once in a while, throws in a little anecdote... or incorporate something that seems pseudo random because it's not actually related to the material you're trying to learn.”