How to Study & Learn With Scientifically Proven Best Method | Dr. Cal Newport & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Tell me what you think about this, what I always call protocol, if I want to

learn

something from a manuscript I read or a chapter in a book, I usually highlight things. And I had a very elaborate system, drawn from my college days, of stars and exclamation points and underlines that mean a lot to me, that, yes, return me to a certain segment within the chapter. But a few years ago, I was teaching a course in the biology department at Stanford, and for some reason we had them read a

study

on information retention. And I

learn

ed from that

study

that one of the

best

things we can do is read information, in any form, a magazine, a research article, etc., a book, and then take some time away from that material, maybe walk, maybe Maybe close your eyes, maybe leave them open, it doesn't matter, and just try to remember specific items.

How much does one remember? Then go back to the material and watch it. And I've been positively surprised by how much additional information I can learn when I'm not just following motor commands of underlining things and highlighting them, but stepping away and thinking, "Okay, yeah, oh, I don't." I don't remember how many subjects there were. I'll come back and check that out, maybe make a note. And okay, they did this, then they did that, and then," and then it crystallizes. And as I say this, I realize that of course this should work, this is the way the brain learns.

But of course Somehow, that's not the way we're taught to learn. Yeah, well, I'm smiling because when I was 22, I wrote this book called "How to Become an A Student," right? : “I'm going to talk to real college students who have straight A's and who don't seem completely burned out, right? Not exhausted. And I'm only going to interview them, right?" And the protocol was, "How did you study for the last test you studied for? How did you take notes for the last one?" So I was just asking them to review their

method

ology. The central idea of ​​that book was active recall.

That was the central idea, that replicating ideas, what I was saying is "Replicate the information from scratch as if you were teaching a class without looking at your notes." That's the only way to learn. And the thing is, it's a trade-off. It's efficient, it doesn't take a lot of time, but it's incredibly mentally exhausting, right? So That's what students tend to avoid. It's hard to sit there and try to retort and say, "Okay, what did I read here? How did it work?" It's very mentally exhausting, but it saves a lot of time, right? If you're willing to endure that, that pain, you learn very quickly.

And not only do you learn very quickly, but you don't forget. It's almost like If you had a pseudo-photographic memory when you study this way, you sit down to take a test and you are replicating entire lines of what you studied, the ideas come out fully formed because it is a fantastic way to learn. It was my key, the premise that led me to. writing that book is that I went through this period as a college student where I came in as a freshman, I was a good student, not a great student, but a good student I was on the rowing team and I was very excited to do it.

And then I developed heart disease and had to stop doing it. Congenital wiring in the heart, atrial flutter thing. It meant I couldn't row with the crew anymore. So some kind of prolapse? extremely fast heart rate. It's very fast, like tachycardia, right? You get between 200 and 250 beats per minute and it could be induced by exercise, right? Which is not optimal, you could take beta blockers, which would moderate electrical synchronization, but beta blockers reduce your maximum heart rate. And if you're an athlete where the only thing that matters is your maximum heart rate, so you do something like 2000 meter rows, your performance on beta blockers just goes down.

It doesn't make sense, it's like being a basketball player who wears weighted shoes, it's too frustrating. Sure, and it also makes you feel super calm. I was a pretty quiet guy. But I was the worst rower. So I left that and said, "Okay, I want to get serious about my studies." I said, "I can get serious about my studies and write," right? That's when I really made the decisions that I stuck to for the next 25 years. But one of the things I did to get serious about my studies was I said, "I'm going to systematically experiment with how to study for exams and how to write papers." And I would try this: "How did it go?" deconstruction experiment.

Try this: "How did it go?" deconstruction experiment. And the active memory was what made me completely change. And so I went from being a pretty good student to a 4.0 every quarter, sophomore year, junior year, and senior year. I earned an A minus between my sophomore and senior years. It was like this miraculous transformation. It was an active memory. I rebuilt all my studies, so that if it was for a humanities class, I had a whole way of taking notes based on active memory. For math classes, my main study tool was a stack of blank papers. “Okay, take this test,” a white sheet of paper and just “Can I do this from scratch?” If I could, I know that technique.

If I don't, "Okay, I'll come back and try again later." Completely transformed. I did very well academically, which is why I ended up writing that book that basically spread that message to other people. That's why I'm a big proponent of active remembering. It's really difficult, but it's the way to learn new things. And as you pointed out, it saves a lot of time. Oh yeah. Yes. I mean, it was a problem, it was a social problem for me that I had to pretend during final exams that I was going to the library to study because I had already finished studying.

This active withdrawal is brutal, but incredibly efficient. You sit there, I would have my cards and I would mark them, “Okay, I struggled with this,” I would put it in this pile, “I made it,” I would put it in this pile. And then you'd just go back to the "I had trouble with that" pile and work on that. And then make a new pile, "I had trouble with that." And these would decline exponentially. And so, in a few hours, you could really master, with a few other tricks that worked, you could really master the material pretty quickly.

And then what am I supposed to do? I didn't stay up all night. It wouldn't make any sense. Active recovery is how you prepare, it will take four hours and it will be difficult, so do it in the morning when you have energy and you're done. I love it. I learned essentially all of neuroanatomy by looking at tissue samples under the microscope. And then I was trying to take pictures with my eyes, I don't have a photographic memory. But then I would come home at night, flip through the neuroanatomy textbook, go to bed, and try to fly through the different circuits of my mind.

And then, if I came to a structure in the brain that I couldn't identify, I would review my notes and come back. Ah, that's perfect. Basically, I learned neuroanatomy, which I'm poor at a lot of things in life, but neuroanatomy I'm solid, and then some, if I may say so. And it's because there's a mental map and you can move through it, fly through it dynamically. Thank you for tuning into the Huberman Lab Clips channel. If you enjoyed the clip you just watched, check out the full episode by clicking here.