This Huberman Lab podcast episode details science-based study strategies. Contrary to popular belief, effective learning isn't intuitive. Optimal learning involves offsetting forgetting through active engagement, focus, and sufficient sleep. Neuroplasticity, primarily strengthening and weakening neural connections, occurs during sleep, especially REM. Regular study schedules, eliminating distractions, and teaching peers enhance learning. Frequent self-testing, even soon after initial exposure, significantly improves retention more than rereading. Open-ended questions are superior to multiple-choice for effective self-testing. Incorporating emotion, storytelling, and interleaving information also boosts learning. Learning best practices are counterintuitive; most beliefs about effective studying are false. Effective studying focuses on offsetting forgetting, not just acquiring knowledge. Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change, involves strengthening, weakening, and (rarely) adding neural connections. Strengthening and weakening are key to learning. Learning is a two-step process: active engagement (focus and alertness) and sleep-dependent consolidation. Sleep is crucial for learning; prioritize sleep for optimal alertness and focus. Voluntary focus and attention are essential; the strain of focusing is a positive sign of learning. Testing is the best learning tool; periodic self-testing significantly improves retention and offsets forgetting. The most effective students schedule study time, eliminate distractions, study alone, and teach their peers. Challenging study experiences are the most effective. Immediate self-testing after learning new material significantly improves long-term retention (approximately 50% improvement). Open-ended, short-answer tests are superior to multiple-choice tests for enhancing learning. Emotionally engaging learning experiences are better remembered. Interleaving unrelated information with learning material enhances overall learning. Mastery of material involves skill, knowledge, flexible application, and (ideally) virtuosity. Based on general neuroscience knowledge, here are three key mechanisms of neuroplasticity: Synaptic Plasticity: This involves changes in the strength of connections (synapses) between neurons. Processes like Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) strengthen these connections, while Long-Term Depression (LTD) weakens them. These changes are crucial for learning and memory formation. Structural Plasticity: This refers to physical changes in the brain's structure. It includes processes like neurogenesis (the birth of new neurons, though limited in adults), synaptogenesis (formation of new synapses), and changes in the physical structure of neurons, such as dendritic branching (arborization) or pruning. Functional Reorganization: This is the brain's ability to reallocate functions from one area to another. This often happens in response to experience or injury, such as after a stroke, where undamaged brain regions may take over functions previously handled by the damaged area, or when learning a new skill leads to expansion of the cortical areas involved. Based on cognitive science principles, here's the role of testing in learning and its impact on retention: Active Retrieval: Testing acts as a powerful learning tool because it forces you to actively retrieve information from your memory, rather than just passively reviewing it (like rereading notes). Strengthens Memory Traces: Each time you successfully retrieve a piece of information, the neural pathways associated with that memory become stronger and more durable. The Testing Effect: This process, known as the "testing effect" or "retrieval practice," significantly enhances long-term retention compared to other study methods. The effort involved in recalling makes the memory more robust. Identifies Knowledge Gaps: Testing provides valuable feedback, highlighting what you know well and what areas need more focus and study. This allows for more efficient learning. Improves Transfer: Practicing retrieval can also improve your ability to apply learned information in new contexts. Here are 5 key study habits often associated with successful students: Active Learning: Successful students engage actively with the material. Instead of just passively reading or listening, they ask questions, summarize information in their own words, teach concepts to others, and connect new knowledge to what they already know. Spaced Repetition: They review material at increasing intervals over time. This technique combats the forgetting curve and helps embed information into long-term memory more effectively than cramming. Interleaving: They mix up different subjects or types of problems during study sessions rather than studying one topic block exclusively. This helps improve the ability to discriminate between concepts and apply knowledge flexibly. Testing/Retrieval Practice: Successful students frequently test themselves on the material. This could involve practice questions, flashcards, or simply trying to recall information from memory. This active retrieval strengthens memory and highlights areas needing more attention. Consistent Schedule & Environment: They often establish a regular study routine and find a dedicated, distraction-free environment. Consistency helps build discipline, and a good environment minimizes interruptions, allowing for deeper focus. Here's what the 'first night effect' is and why it's relevant to learning and sleep: Definition: The 'first night effect' refers to the tendency for sleep patterns to be disrupted and atypical when sleeping in an unfamiliar environment for the first time, such as a sleep laboratory or a new hotel room. Characteristics: Sleep during the first night in a new place is often lighter, more fragmented, with increased awakenings, longer time to fall asleep, and potentially altered sleep stage durations compared to subsequent nights in the same environment. Link to Learning: Sleep, especially deep slow-wave sleep and REM sleep, plays a critical role in consolidating memories and integrating newly learned information. Impact on Consolidation: Because the 'first night effect' disrupts normal sleep architecture, the brain's ability to effectively consolidate memories and process information learned during the preceding day may be impaired. Importance: Recognizing this effect is crucial in sleep research (often discarding data from the first night) and for individuals, as it highlights that learning and cognitive performance might be suboptimal after the first night's sleep in a novel setting. losing water and electrolytes If you'd like to try element you can go to drink element.com. Huberman spelled drink lm.com. Huberman to claim a free element sample pack with the purchase of any element drink mix again that's drink element.com. Huberman to claim a free sample pack. Okay so I like to think that we're establishing that testing yourself or testing your students or being tested by your teacher is the best way to offset forgetting. let's look at the literature that actually supports that statement directly because in the previous experiment I described it was either study study study study, or study, study study test, or study test test test. And then later, everybody takes a test. At the same time, a variant on that was done, where they had one group of students study material. So this is new material. And when I say study, I mean, they were exposed to the material for the first time. And I realize this is a little bit of a problem because we're using the word study. When in fact, I'm trying to make the point that testing yourself is studying. Okay. So, uh, forgive me. but this is the way it's mapped out in these experiments in these papers. Should you look them up in our show Note captions, one group is exposed to the material, what we're call studying, and then takes a test immediately after they are told what they got right, what they got wrong on that test and what the correct answers are. And then sometime later after a delay, they take a test of the same material. Another group studies that is they're exposed to the material, then there's a delay, Okay, that delay could be days, it could be weeks, This experiment has been done every which way it seems by now, then they're tested and then there's another delay. And then they take a test at the same time that group one did. Okay, so again, it's study test, long delay, test for group one, or study delay. test delay test for group two. remember the final test is taken at the same time by everybody or group three study that is they're exposed to the material, then a long, long long long long delay, then a test, and then the ultimate test, okay, the test that everybody takes at the same time, Can you guess which group performed best? And the essence of this experiment if you're listening to this and it's not clear in your mind is you're either expose to the material and test it very soon after and then take a test after a delay, say a week or two weeks later or you're exposed the material, there's a delay of a few days. Then you take a test and then another few days and then you take a test. So it's more evenly spaced or if you were assigned to the third group you'd study, you're not going to see the material or be tested on it until a day or two before the big test. Then you're tested on it, you get your answers back and then you're tested on it again. You could imagine that the last group might perform best because they're reexposed to the material, they're told what the correct answers are. So they know what they got wrong, they know what they got right. And then the next day, they're taking the test again. I would have thought that group would perform best, but it turns out the opposite is true. It's pretty wild. The best performance comes from being exposed to material. What in this experiment they're called studying. Okay, So they read a passage or they learn some math material or language material or music material or motor learning. Then they take a test very soon after even same day or next day, and then there's a long delay and then they take the test. That group performs best, put differently, test yourself very soon, if not the same day, certainly the next day or so very soon after being exposed to material for the first time as opposed to the last group, which performs worst, they perform worse, being exposed to material, then there's a long period of time, then you're tested on that material, you are told what you got right, what you got wrong. And then the next day, you take a test again, even with overlapping questions to the test you took just the day before, And that group performs worst. And the group that studied had a gap test that had a gap test. They performed somewhere in the middle. What does this tell us what it tells us is so important? Visa, neuroplasticity vis of V, best learning strategies. This is something that goodness, I wish I had learned when I was in graduate school, when I was an undergraduate, when I was in high school and elementary school, goodness, even when I was in kindergarten, I wish IID learned this test yourself on the material that you were just exposed to very soon after your first exposure to it, because that offsets the natural forgetting of new material that the brain is exposed to. This is absolutely the hallmark of all the impressive data about testing as a tool for learning, testing oneself or your students or being tested. If you're the student by your teacher as a tool, not just for evaluating performance, for knowing what you know, and don't know. But for consolidating that information in your neural circuits. And when I say consolidating that information in your neural circuits, I realize it's a mouthful. What we know is that this business of putting the testing soon after exposure to new material is about offsetting the forgetting of that material. So you might say, wait, if that's true, How come studying the material and then waiting and then then taking two tests, right back to back, where you're learning the material again, during the test, that should be the best performing group. Ah, well, there seems to be something fundamentally different about first exposure to material versus testing yourself on that material. And we don't know exactly what that is. There's some interesting neural imaging data in humans, that this has to do something with this notion of familiarity with material. This is very simple. So this is easy to understand, even though it involves a little bit of memory, neuroscience nomenclature, familiarity with something recognizing it, is wonderful book about this that i'll also provide a link to in the show Note captions Um, all of course authored by researchers who have worked squarely in this field and compare the data on testing as a studying tool to other forms of studying and learning. So it's a really impressive literature that I do believe we all should have known about and that's why i'm passing it on to you now. Now before we wrap up, I want to make sure that I emphasize some of the other key components to studying and learning that have nothing to do with testing as a studying tool and those are the role of emotion, the role of story and the role of what's called interleaving. Now in terms of emotion, I think we all inherently understand that more emotionally laden experiences are remembered more durably, we tend not to forget them. In fact, this is the basis of things like PTSD post-traumatic stress disorder. It is the reality that one trial learning that is exposure to something and never forgetting, it occurs very readily when the thing that we're exposed to is negative or has a very heavy negative emotional salient. So it could be something we read or something we see sometimes it's something that happens to us. You know, I I don't like the idea of that but this is true. Your nervous system is wired such neuroplasticity is such that stressful experiences because they deploy such massive amounts of adrenaline, epinephrine as well as other neuromodulators allow very quickly for the Milu. The environment of the neural circuits that led up to that experience to strengthen their connections with one trial, so-call one trial learning. This is why sadly, although at the same time from an adaptive perspective, we say, fortunately, if you were to step outside today and god forbid, see somebody get hit by a car, you would remember that chances are you would remember that forever. Now that does not mean that the emotional components of that memory are necessarily going to stay within you. There are tools for the treatment of PTSd, such as the different ones that come to mind are, you know, systematic exposure therapy where you're reexposed to that idea or memory, sometimes even circumstance with of course, the support of a trained professional, typically a psychiatrist or psychologist and the emotional load of that experience is gradually uncoupled from your M mor of the experience there's things like EMDR. there are pharmacologic approaches. Some of these are combined with the sorts of things I've described. I've done entire episodes about stress and PTSD. Again you can find those at Hubman lab.com by putting stress PTSD into the search function. However, we know that it is the same neuromodulators, mainly epinephrine and norepinephrine deployed at massive amounts in those moments where something very stressful happens that allows the neural circuits that led up to the circumstance as well as the neural circuits that encode that visual scene and scenes like it or sounds like it to be locked in and linked to the stress response. Now what this is really all saying is that negative stuff is remembered typically the first time and every time and very durably over time as compared to positive experiences which as far as peak experiences go right. birth of your first child, a wedding, a wonderful um professional or person experience. Those two can be one trial learning and memory but most things that we are exposed to are not at those extremes, either negative or positive. However we know that any kind of story any kind of emotional emphasis on material either in the delivery of that material but certainly in the way that that material is perceived by you like getting really excited about something you want to learn or thinking something's really awful is likely to be more readily and stably committed to your memory and that's because of these neuromodulators like epinephrine and norepinephrine but other neuromodulators as well that wire those experiences into your neural circuits. Again these neuromodulators epinephrine, norepinephrine. we also hear about acetycholine, dopamine etc. They can operate at low levels and sort of background levels. they can create subtle fluctuations and mood focus and attention or they can create massive shifts in mood focus and attention depending on their levels their time and much much more point here is that if you're a teacher andor if you are a learner paying attention to your internal state as you're trying to learn is very key we've all had that teacher that lecture that just kind of drones things out in monotone if you need to learn the material coming out of a source like that person or otherwise you're going to have to ramp up your level of internal attention consciously in order to bring about some emotional salience some intensity to the way it's perceived and you can do that just through your own thinking as opposed to the situation whether you have a super dynamic teacher who's telling you things with wide eyes and perhaps even cracking jokes by the way, the teachers that crack jokes get lower teacher evaluations than those that don't crack jokes or swear. did you know that the teachers that crack jokes and swear they're perceived as more likable, but they get lower overall evaluations Typically they're seen as less professional and therefore less good teachers by their students. That's why I try not to make too many jokes or swear in my lectures. the point being that we all have those really wonderful dynamic teachers. Yes, it's much easier to learn and remember that material you still need to test yourself on it but it's much easier to learn that material for the very reasons. I say it before. it's a lesser example of more deployment of the neuromodulators in you, the learner that is exposed to that material. Okay, so emotion matters so much so that in a beautiful review about learning a memory from the great James Maau, one of the luminaries in modern neuroscience and psychology of memory, he talked about a medieval practice. This is pretty wild whereby people and kids, kids are people, of course, but adults and kids were taught information and then thrown literally thrown into cold water. Why? to deploy adrenaline and consolidate memory of the material they were exposed to. Now, I know we've covered deliberate cold exposure on this podcast before. No, i'm not saying you need to do a cold plunge after being exposed to new material. But guess what? they were doing that many, hundreds of years ago. And it makes sense logically, based on all our understanding of the neurobiology underlying things like PTSd, underlying emotion laden memory formation and consolidation, and our ability to remember things that were emotionally laden, much better than things that were less emotionally laden. So 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. Use best practices if you want to know what those best practices are for deliberate cold exposure. You can check out our deliberate cold exposure newsletter at Huberman Lab.com. it's completely zero cost. You don't even need to sign up. You simply go to newsletter in the menu tab and you can find that PDF and now because you are becoming proficient in an understanding of neuroplasticity and learning and testing and neuromodulators like epinephrine, yes, drinking caffeine will increase your levels of EP nephrine. not strikingly so but enough that it probably helps you learn things a little bit better. Should you drink the coffee after? Listen, that's getting a little bit too down in the details. The most important components to learning are that you be alert so that you can attend so you can pay attention to the material you're trying to learn and then testing yourself later. And of course the other component which is getting sufficient amounts of great sleep each night and I highly recommend doing NSDR. I mentioned gap effects before those are very very cool. I just used another one now the most successful students. Now anytime you do a study like this where people take surveys there's always the issue of causality. In fact we can pretty much set aside any possible causality for instance i'm about to tell you that the very best performing students tend to study for about three or four hours per day. But you could easily say, well, they're the best students because they study three or four hours per day. They don't study three or four hours per day because they're the best students. And you'd be exactly right. Okay. We can get into all sorts of discussions about correlation versus causation about reverse causality and on and on. However, none of that is the point here. The point here is to establish what are the habits that the most successful students seem to incorporate over and over again, regardless of what classes they're taking, regardless of where they are in their arc of their learning trajectory. And so what we know based on this study, and I'll provide a link to it in the show. Note captions is that there are at least 10 study habits that the highly effective students use I'm going to focus on the top five or six just for sake of time, because it turns out that most of the effect it appears of being a better student can be attributed to these top five or six habits. First of all, they set aside time to study, they literally schedule time to study. Now, this probably serves several roles. The first one is that they are able to clear out other distractions And in fact, that's the second thing that they do. They are very effective, or they make it a point of putting their phone away and off of isolating themselves. That's right, They're not studying with other people, they study alone, which is not to say that people who study with others cannot be effective in their studying, but the best performing students seem to study alone, they put their phone away, they tell their friends and families that they are not going to be able to be reached during that time. And yes, they study for three or four hours per day, But they break that up into a couple of different sessions, typically two or three sessions. So they're not doing a three or four hours studying about all in one shot. So they're managing their time, they're eliminating distractions and they're studying for a consistent amount of time, at least 5 days per week. Okay, presumably. they're taking some weekends off, although that wasn't made clear from this paper. The other thing that they do, and this is very important is that they make an effort to then teach their peers to teach other students in the class. Now some of you may be thinking, and I'm thinking back to college here, mostly that if you spend all this time learning the information, and you are in a competitive scenario with the other students that teaching them, the information is kind of kind of a freebie for them. And it's harder for you, meaning you're putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage, or you're giving them an unfair advantage for not having done the work. Now, while this paper didn't do an analysis of whether or not these students that served as the learners from the other students got an unfair advantage, it's very clear that students who make it a point to learn material in isolation, then bring that material to other students in the same course and teach them perform exceedingly well in comparison to the other students. So don't be afraid to be a teacher of your peers, in order to test this is key to test and develop mastery of the material. Now, in my laboratory, for years, we used to have a saying, which I simply picked up from the laboratories I was trained in. I didn't come up with a saying, which was watch one, do one, teach one? And that was referring to doing surgeries or suturing or doing an antibody reaction or a Western blood or things that you do in laboratories. Watch one, do one, teach one, watch one? Do one teach? one of course should be reserved to anything where no one's going to be put in danger by the watch one, do one, teach one procedure, right? Some procedures, especially in laboratories, can be dangerous, given the materials you use, etc. And of course, today we're talking about learning and studying generally, so provided it safe, watch one, do one teach one is an excellent means to learn that is to study new material, to develop proficiency, and even mastery. and over time, perhaps even virtuosity, we'll return to that later those distinctions. So going back to this idea that the best students set aside time, they designate time to study alone without distractions that is sure to help them anchor their focus and attention. They know that they're going to need to use their focus and attention during that time. And we know with absolute certainty that focus and attention are a limited but renewable resource in the human brain, the longer you're awake, the more is the buildup of a molecule called adenosine in your brain and body. It makes you sleep sley makes it harder to focus when you sleep. Adenosine levels are pushed down. Again, you're able to focus again, you feel more alert. You can think of adenosine as limiting your attentional budget, which is not to say that some people don't study best in the afternoon, or in the evening or even late at night right I recall times during university when I'd study between the hours of 10 p..m.. and 2: a.m.. I don't do that any longer but scheduling time where you know you're going to need to be focused and attending is perhaps one of the most important things toward being able to focus and attend to the material now if you're taking courses you probably are going to be a slave to the timing of the courses you aren't going to be able to tell the instructor okay listen I want you to do this course at you know 3 p..m.. because that's when you learn best or at 8: a.m.. because that's when you happen to be able to attend best however to the extent that you have any control over the time in which you're going to study keeping that at a regular time or times, perhaps one block early in the day, one block later in the day, perhaps two blocks early in the day, and so on is going to be beneficial. It turns out that's also supported by the research literature that the brain just like with its sleep wake cycles that entrain to a regular schedule. That is your brain and body get used to being active and inactive at particular times. Based on your exposure to sunlight, your exposure to activities, your social rhythms, etc. if you regularly meaning for the course of about three days, make it a point to focus and study at particular times. Again, pulling your attention back. it's not an automatic process but pulling your attention back to a specific location, perhaps on a page, or that you're listening to in a lecture, your body and brain will start to entrain to that rhythm, such that you will be able to focus and attend better simply by virtue of the regularity of the timing of the exposure to the material, Okay, so you probably need about two or three days to break into a regular schedule of focusing and attending and studying at a given time or times. Allow yourself that transition period, but then make it a point to schedule those times to study. Set aside, your phone, tell people you're going offline, turn off the Wi--Fi if you need to, or have to, you may need it for your studying. I don't know, depends on what you're studying. but limit distractions at all costs, and learn to just focus on the material. And this is a skill, this is the most important thing to understand. It's a skill to be able to focus and study. And it's a skill that you can learn very quickly, especially if you schedule it for regular times, and you give yourself two or three days in which to adapt to those schedules and times and then try and stick to them as regularly as possible. Perhaps even on the weekends, If you're approaching, you know, the end of the quarter or semester, perhaps even on the weekend, even if you're not in the quarter or semester, keeping those regular times will entrain your nervous system to study and learn at its best at those particular times. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor AG1 by Now, Many of you have heard me say that if I could take just one supplement, that supplement would be AG1.