English
FrançaisHow works your brain?
1/ The brain: an electrical network and a muscle:
Your brain is not a fixed, frozen anatomical structure. It is organic, alive and in constant renewal and reorganization. The brain has, among other things, the ability to modify its structure and neuronal connections throughout its life. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity.
Imagine an electrical network whose lights go on and off as the current flows. It’s the same in the brain, billions of neural pathways light up, activate when you think, feel or act.
We can also compare the brain to a muscle: the more we train it, the more it develops. The more we stimulate a neural path (for example memorizing a telephone number or a definition, the more we strengthen the connection, and therefore the ease of activating it. It’s like if we were clearing a path covered with snow or clearing a passage in the forest. Or moreover like creating a highway instead of a steep mountain path, information can come and go more quickly and we can access it more easily.
The important thing is to create a habit. New information is like a small path. If you get into the habit of taking it, this little path will turn into a path, then a road, until it will becomes a highway. It will then be easy to follow this path and access the information. But, conversely, if it is unused, this trail will turn into a wasteland that is more difficult to follow.
Of course, all of this can’t be done at once. Connections take time to develop. And like muscles, neural pathways that we don’t use or use little get atrophy : they lose volume.
Practice makes things permanent!
2/ Memory: a school blackboard and a warehouse
There are several ways to represent memory and how it works. Here we will only consider the two main memory systems : working memory and long term memory.
The working memory is the one that supports the information that we want to remember immediately and consciously. It is mainly located in the prefrontal cortex. It is also connected to other regions of the brain to allow access to long-term memory. It can only contain a limited number of elements at the same time (between approximately 4 and 7).
This short-term memory is very useful in everyday life. We use it all the time, for example to follow a conversation or read (to understand the meaning of a sentence), you have to keep the beginning in memory until you get to the end. Working memory is therefore essential, but it is not very efficient. It can be compared to the blackboard in a classroom, the items written on it fade quickly.
The other memory system, long-term memory, is like a huge warehouse that can hold billions of items. This memory mobilizes different brain areas where different types of information are stored.
Researchers have shown that to introduce information into long-term memory, you have to return to it several times. Moreover, it’s necessary to continue even once it is recorded : there are so many elements piled up in the warehouse with memories that it’s sometimes very difficult to find the information which one needs, unless l to have repeated a number of times (and to have created a highway to access it).
3/ Activate your neurons
Several methods, with scientifically proven effectiveness, exist to strengthen a neural pathway.
a) Activate his neurons. When we learn, the brain changes. Neural connections are created and our knowledge is encoded in these neural networks. It’s therefore necessary to create, strengthen, sometimes undo or weaken some and at least adjust the neural connections linked to that learning.
b) Reactivate his neurons. Neural connections are established and gradually strengthened as they are called upon. Just as you don’t become a professional weightlifter by lifting weights once, you can’t learn anything effectively without repetition.
With each reactivation, the neural path is reinforced and the information is consolidated, it’s anchored more durably in the memory and with each revision, the access path is widened to find it.
On the contrary, trying to learn everything at once and at the last minute is not very effective. Rather than a well-cemented knowledge, we will then be dealing with a mess with very bad foundations. Moreover, reviewing something is often faster than learning it, because we have a memory of the information and the path has already been drawn. We just have to reactivate it.
The body always uses the path of least resistance.
c) Make an effort to recall the information. Even if you can’t find the information after a few minutes of effort, this work is not vain: trying to remember stimulates connection and consolidates learning.
This recovery work is sometime not pleasant, but it is essential. Remember that all your knowledge is stored in huge warehouse, immersed in the fog. Trying to remember something is like marking the road and repeating the exercise will intensify the light of the markers. This step of remembering is crucial in the learning process. This requires tapping into its resources and the brain doesn’t like it. He will improve the connections to consume less energy the next time you wake up. The brain likes to make least effort, so he will anticipate!
Do not forget the brain is a muscle and it’s because we provide an effort that the body increases the strength or the muscle mass. The same goes for your brain. Fortunately, this application is there to prevent you from sweating too much!
d) Explain the information in your own words. Developing your own explanations is a powerful little exercise that will allow you to get a concept, test your understanding of it and create links with other information. You will be able to find it even more easily as if you were taking a shortcut!
e) Gradually space out neuronal activation over time. This is called “spaced repetition”. The more information is repeated over time, the more it anchors itself in our memory, the more we can space out reminders. Sleep strongly contributes to the consolidation of information, it acts as a cement which would fix the connections between two bricks, two neurons.
f) To have rapid feedback of the information sought, the importance of feedback. When you give an answer, whether good correct or bad wrong, it is important to have quick feedback on it to quickly adjust the neural connection and avoid repeating mistakes. That’s why you must test yourself. This “test effect” tells us immediately whether the information is correctly recorded or not. A wrong answer shows that this is not the case. The brain is then alerted to the neural modification to be made. And when the answer is right, the brain releases dopamine, this neurotransmitter that causes a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction.
g) Cultivate a dynamic spirit. Believing that we can continue to improve and accepting to make efforts in this direction are two sine qua non conditions for your brain to be in a condition to learn. Have faith, everyone can evolve everyone can progress.
4/ The balance between effort and rest
Like any living structure to function well, your brain needs balance and therefore a healthy lifestyle. Studies have shown that sport allows you to create neurons and that sleep is a very important moment in learning. Sleeping well helps:
a) To consolidate the information learned.
b) Eliminate toxins. You may be surprised to learn that we produce toxins as soon as we are awake. How does the brain get rid of these poisons. While sleeping ! When we sleep, brain cells shrink. The space between them increases fluids can then circulate and carry away the toxins. It’s a bit like opening the floodgates. Conversely, the lack of sleep causes an accumulation of toxins which prevents having clear ideas. It’s like if too much snow fell for the snow plow to mark the track. The knowledge stored in the memory can no longer be accessed. So, if sleep can sometimes seem like a real waste of time, it is actually the best way to be effective as the brain is cleansed. On the contrary, taking an exam without getting enough sleep is like driving with the sugar tank full, the engine is dirty, it doesn’t work very well.
c) To create connections. Certain areas of the brain are activated when we sleep. Neural connections are dynamic, constantly changing. We don’t wake up from a nap or our night with the same brain as at bedtime.
d) To memorize and learn. It’s during sleep that the brain puts order in the ideas that you have thought about during the day, in the concepts that you are learning. It erases the less important information and, at the same time, it reinforces the ones you need, the ones you want to remember.
5/ Procrastination
Sometimes, out of laziness, lack of interest, bad will, we procrastinate : we put off until later what we should have done now, but which we find unpleasant. Procrastination is a bad habit that can have long-lasting harmful effects term and which shares a number of characteristics with addiction both offer temporary excitement and relief in a sometimes boring reality. We fool ourselves, we invent irrational excuses that seem to be reasonable. It always happens in the same way we think about what we should do we experience an unpleasant feeling when we turn to something more pleasant (watching a series, smoking, chatting etc.), and we feel better… but only temporarily. Because it will be still necessary to resolve and accomplish that task that we reject.
Scientific studies have shown that the unpleasant feeling, the feeling of discomfort disappears just a few minutes after starting the activity that we don’t like.
The next time you find yourself tempted to procrastinate, remember that the inconvenience is only temporary. Use the “pomodoro” technique to remedy this. You will feel proud to have accomplished this task that repels you so much, and you will be able to enjoy real moments of relaxation without feeling guilty. Sweet feeling, I assure you!
Rewarding good habits is important for escaping procrastination.
Sources and insights
1) Steve Masson, Activate your neurons to better learn and teach Odile Jacob, March 2020
2) MOOC Coursera, “Learn how to learn”, by Barbara Oakley, Dr. Terrence Sejnowski and Nicole Marie Thérèse Charest https://www.coursera.org/learn/aprendre-comment-apprendre]
