Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Apr 27, 2017 6:15 pm

the1whoknocks wrote:General health seems to be my ulterior motive behind doing most of this stuff, so I’m not sure it qualifies as a method for improving learning capacity. Still, I think they help.(...)


Did I just read one of my own posts? OK, maybe not.

Two glasses of water every morning. Go through the important stuff in my major martial arts systems (it takes roughly one hour). (Weekly session in one of them.) "Hindu" push-ups and squats. Warrior diet. Vegetarian food. Bike to work. I read. I learn programming. I review (and learn) mathemathics. I play chess. I solve the Rubik's Cube. I maintain and expand a repertoire of +1000 tunes on multiple musical instruments.

Oh, I almost forgot that I also study languages.
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby aokoye » Thu Apr 27, 2017 7:43 pm

Therapy.

I mean I also take care of myself in terms of physical health care as well, but at the end of the day I wouldn't be able to do any of what I'm doing without going to therapy (and more specifically having a therapist who is a very good fit for me).
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby coldrainwater » Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:47 am

I'll bullet out a few things off the top of my head:

  • Sleep
  • Naps
  • Mindfulness (as simple as gently bringing the mind back to the present topic of study as I become aware that it is drifting)/Meditation (same goal)
  • Average two hours daily cardiovascular training daily.
  • Career as analyst and developer which requires daily problem solving.
  • Deliberate practice (even at work, I try not to accept or take on a project unless it is above my current ability level. Directly state that you want challenge).
  • High quality protein daily (I like n-3 enriched eggs and tuna for example).
  • Diet meat, mixed nuts, vegatables, fruits (no dairy, no gluten, no junk, nothing designed to give you brain fog).
  • Eliminate noise pollution aggressively (ear plugs, noise canceling headphones, ear muffs).
  • Picked apartment complex with built in library and 24 hour gym.
  • Supplement with noopept, oxyracetam, and piracetam. Noopept has reputation for calm focus. Racetams have specific reputation for verbal fluency.
  • Supplement with adrafinil if a eugeroic is needed (for me this is hit or miss but it is absurdly powerful for concentation and focus).
  • Multiple study environments and physical positions on the ready (laying down, library, cardio, desk, second bed, comfy armchair).
  • Alternate physical learning devices (desktop, laptop, smartphone, physical books).
  • Interleaving practice.
  • T-shaped learning approach.
  • Automate as many home tasks as possible to create extra time for learning.
  • Embrace being a night own and accept that my best learning time puts me at odds with most cultures. I sleep enough and study late.
  • Caffeine (here timing matters. I sometimes use it strategically to maximize the ups rather than bring life to baseline).
  • Understand and take advantage of unconscious/non-focused learning (such as using a creativity theory based approach).
  • Build my life around good habits. Build them 1 or 2 at a time and don't look back.
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Fri Apr 28, 2017 2:12 am

My learning capacity depends on motivation, and I usually get get some kind of motivation from talking with people or going for a long walk.

The only substance I take daily is nicotine, about enough to kill a horse.
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby the1whoknocks » Fri Apr 28, 2017 2:17 am

Voytek wrote:
the1whoknocks wrote:Would ‘green’ smoothies count as ‘subliminals’?


I'm afraid, they would not. :)

the1whoknocks wrote:I would like to look more into that.


In nuce, I've been using sublimals for over two years and words can't desrcibe how massivley my life has changed, how many positive changes has happened in my mind thus my life. But we're talking here particualrly about a subliminal which increases learning speed. It not only instils into your mind (into the subconscious ) beliefs that you're a "super learner" and lets you act upon them in the daily life but actually improves your learning capacity.

I don't know if I can give you the name of this product here since it would be marketing and as far as I know it's against the rules but, of course, if you want to know it, just PM me.


Oh, I see.

I tried googling ‘subliminals’ last night and the only result I got that made sense had a YouTube video with something that looked like a green smoothie. I’ll send you a PM, it’d be nice to learn a bit more about the whole thing. I’d never heard that term, until now.

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
the1whoknocks wrote:General health seems to be my ulterior motive behind doing most of this stuff, so I’m not sure it qualifies as a method for improving learning capacity. Still, I think they help.(...)


Did I just read one of my own posts? OK, maybe not.

Two glasses of water every morning. Go through the important stuff in my major martial arts systems (it takes roughly one hour). (Weekly session in one of them.) "Hindu" push-ups and squats. Warrior diet. Vegetarian food. Bike to work. I read. I learn programming. I review (and learn) mathemathics. I play chess. I solve the Rubik's Cube. I maintain and expand a repertoire of +1000 tunes on multiple musical instruments.

Oh, I almost forgot that I also study languages.


Might be some serious déjà vu involved here :lol:

It's always cool to meet someone with similar hobbies. I used to take it for granted, but I now see that good health has so much carryover into my productivity in other areas of life. Not to mention it’s fun, well, for me at least.

I had an interesting intro to Hindu push-ups a few years ago. They used to be a part of the finishing routine every single day after training; I hated them. After a few months, they turned out to be one of my favorite exercises.
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:06 am

Health,

a very very interesting topic indeed. I'm going to discuss below the things that I have come to discover that work for me.

The better your health, the better you function, including mentally.

How can one focus if one is unhealthy, it takes a lot more energy to do so, if one is unhealthy, which also means one has less energy.

• I agree waking at around the same time each day is healthy.
• Sleep enough hours according to your body's needs.
• Drink ample water (WITHOUT fluoride!).
• Vitamin D reduces cancer risk substantially- as does fluoride elimination, avoiding sugar, avoiding EMF radiation and a ketogenic diet.
• Sleep with wifi off, or avoid it altogether. A search (like many of these topics) if you know where to dig will reveal the truth of dangers of EMF. Wifi disrupts sleep and lowers immune strength, among other things.
• Eat as little amount of processed foods as possible (ie reduce toxic waste in your body). Toxic waste means your body has to work harder to eliminate it and requires more energy to do so = more sleep = less energy for other tasks and likely increased irritability and reduced ability to focus and increased likelihood you will just skip study altogether.
• Eat organic where you can (less toxic waste).
• Don't eat genetically modified foods.
• Eat good quality fats (not processed).
• Follow a ketogenic diet - fat is good, carbohydrates for the most part ought to be avoided or remain an exception in your diet. Researchers are beginning to show numerous benefits of a body that uses fat (in place of carbohydrates) for energy such as, when the body produces ketones your immune strength is massively increased = less likelihood to become sick, less reliance on pharmaceuticals which are also taxing on the body.
• Do not eat refined sugar! Sugar attacks protein cells- your brain included- collagen in your skin too and a whole host of other proteins. (spikes in blood sugar caused from refined foods, simple sugars predominantly, or sustained elevation of blood sugar from complex carbohydrates leads to an unstable hormonal and endocrine environment or one in which ketones are not present = less ability to focus, and increased likelihood of becoming ill).
• Eat some alkaline foods- lemon, green leafy foods, raw foods. Processed foods rob your body of important minerals such as calcium (think osteoporosis) as the body (kidneys) uses them to stabilise pH. Fill your body with processed foods, expect bone density/thickness to drop over time.
• Be present - the more you are the better your level of focus and energy.
• Be critical- the modern medical system is flooded with corporations with invested interests in selling medications- you think these companies will thrive if everyone is healthy? Think beyond standard science and media!
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Apr 28, 2017 3:54 pm

I respectfully disagree with a lot of the above but since it is not relevant to language learning - I'll leave it at that.
If it works for you -- carry on.
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby Cavesa » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:23 pm

Ok, as finding a way to improve my ability to focus and learn is an important topic for me, I'll add another answer. Biased, as I am a medecine student, critically looking at both medecine and the alternatives (more critical about the alternatives, based on experience with some stuff).

Sleep is important, no discussion about that. I have experience with insomnia, so you should trust me on this :-D

About food: yes, good quality nutrition is very important. But I would like to add a bit to some of the points mentioned:
-ketogenic diet, which is very popular these days, can be very useful in the short term. In the long run, consult your doctor, please. You should definitely have your liver and renal functions measured before such a huge and longterm change.
-the brain eats glucose. That's it. It doesn't matter where do you take it from, what does your body make it of. It does matter to your other organs. Today, medicine completely agrees refined sugars and added sugars in general should be avoided, or the intake should at least be reduced. It also agrees that the old tendency to leave out fats and eat more carbohydrates was wrong, misguided, and harmful. Avoid "light" products like plague.
-One of the problems tied to eating crap is fatigue. If you don't eat enough protein (I am leaving aside the issue of the proper source of protein, that is not the important thing here, and there are more opinions about it, I am for good quality meat in the appropriate quantity, not too much and not too little), you are likely to be tired. You are therefore not gonna learn much, logically.
-Yes, drink a lot of water. Headaches are not good for learning either. Again, medicine agrees.
-Vitamine D is still being underestimated, but mainstream medicine is finally taking note of it. It can help against season based depression, and therefore improve your learning capabilities, if you tend to suffer from it. Many people do, perhaps the vitamine D could help you. It cannot hurt. Vitamine C can help against tiredness sometimes as well.
-Organic isn't always the best. Sometimes your local farmer can give you the same or better quality food, just without the expensive badge (yes, the "organic" or "bio" certification is a huge business, not a pure paradise island in the cursed world of the supermarkets). Sometimes the officially organic product isn't that different from the rest either. And technically speaking, most stuff we eat has been genetically modified. Selective breeding. We have been genetically modified too, as our ancestors were always trying to find a good quality mate, not a random one. Usually, no extreme is good, choose your own position on the whole scale.

Simply, use your brain while deciding how to feed it. We are different. What suits one person, may not suit another. One of my best friends and I have lost over 12 kg over the same period of time. The same height, the same weight at the beginning. But one of the most important things for me was starting to eat much more meat and diary. For her, it was important to leave most stuff like that out and focus on plant based alternatives. That is just a real life example why you should not blindly follow advice, even from someone with great results. It's your body. It's your brain. Get to know them both.

I wholeheartedly agree: Be critical. Make informed choices. Don't blindly follow any advice, learn. As House MD says: "Everybody lies." :-)

As I am already seriously responding to this, I would like to add a few more things I have tried, or I know others who have tried them.
-Omega fatty acids. Quite popular these days, I am trying them out too. Cannot hurt, and it looks like they really can be helpful. After all, whole generations grew up hating fish oil. Their mothers knew, why they were forcing it in their kids :-D
-Cognitive drugs: I wouldn't ever risk that. Some medicine students do and it supposedly works nicely (which makes sense). And I am pretty sure they are not getting those from their doctor (the insurance companies would eat them alive). But there are no long term studies concerning the possible secondary and long term effects. Please, don't risk that, any medicine playing with your brain can be dangerous.
-Ginko, Lecithin, and so on. I tried some stuff like that, I didn't notice any effect, some people use it. Either it helps them or it is a good placebo. It cannot hurt and that is important.
-Treating psychiatric problems. There are many untreated depressions and anxieties and other such stuff in the population, as there is still the stupid stigma. If you think you may have the symptoms, please, consult a good specialist. Either they'll tell you "you are within the norm. Come again, if it worsens" and you can be just as calm as if you went to your dentist for a check up and heard the same stuff (and your supposed symptomes may even improve, based on such a reassurance). Or, you can get help (which doesn't have to be pharmacological in many cases. A good psychiatrist is definitely NOT trying to prescribe stuff to everyone they meet. The 21st century has arrived even to this field. And there are as well non-medical specialists, a good therapist is more helpful than a doctor in a huge spectrum of problems.). In such a case, your performance in all areas of your life is likely to improve.

I have found methods like the pomodoro useful, but there are many people better at time management than I am, I am sure their posts concerning this subject are worth reading at least twice.

One more thing: the support from people around you. Either they are supportive, or they don't need to know about some stuff at all (almost noone needs to know about my Italian experiments :-D). It helps not to listen to things like "give it up, you are not gonna succeed at both this and that, you are not good enough" regularily. A loving partner, who believes in you and your abilities, can do miracles. Family that reassures you, that is a huge gift. Friends reminding you how awesome you are and helping you get up after a failure. Confidence is highly important. During the last month, I have been struggling with my studies A LOT. Both medicine and languages. Lack of confidence has been a big part of it (I've heard a lot of "give up" talks lately). Let's fight that!
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby Carmody » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:46 pm

Cavesa

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply.

I never heard of Pomodoro before, but my sense is we all have to apply the concept in one form or another if we study languages. I use timers and a spreadsheet to monitor my efforts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
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Re: Do you have any particular method to improve your learning capacity?

Postby Voytek » Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:59 pm

Carmody wrote:Cavesa

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply.

I never heard of Pomodoro before, but my sense is we all have to apply the concept in one form or another if we study languages. I use timers and a spreadsheet to monitor my efforts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique


I've heard about that technique but never taken it seriously, I guess, I'll reconsider it since I study for at least 10 hours a day.

Thanks. :)
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