Learning About Learning

Chongdo provides an entire module on the learning process. The module provides students techniques to improve their learning rate, increase memory retention, and apply knowledge better. There’s nothing magical about the process, and indeed the techniques are simply practical for all ages. However, that does not mean there aren’t interesting aspects to it. Below are some of the more interesting pieces of trivia that students learn:

There is no truth to the statement that humans use only 10% of their brains. This claim is not a case of outdated science: the origin of this claim is a mystery. In reality, humans use all of their brains. The brain is divided into structures and cortexes that have differently defined functions. At any given moment, the brain is completely active. It may be true to say that on average, a person uses about 4% of his brain at any given instant: but across a few seconds of time, the entire brain “lights up” with neural activity.
The average brain contains a starting total of 12 to 15 billion neurons (about 2,000 per second starting very early in fetal development). A person could lose several thousand neurons (brain cells) per day, and over the course of a lifetime suffer no impairment.
A girl’s brain structures are developed by about age 11, while a boy doesn’t catch up until age 15. By those respective ages, their brains are capable of learning all logic processes, problem solving, and retention at adult levels.
Listening to quiet music while reading new material activates more areas of the brain than almost any other activity performed while learning. Many types of music (especially instrumental) are a definite aid to learning.
Watching television while learning new material forces various areas of the brain to compete between reading, visual processing, language processing, and short-term memory storage. In other words, studying a new subject while watching television is a bad idea.
One frequent misconception is that mental activity decreases with age: it seems the older one gets, the more one forgets. This is an effect generally produced by the passage of time—anyone forgets material over time. Obviously mental diseases that develop in the elderly are an exception, but are only a percentage of all elderly people with memory problems. Most decreased mental activity is produced by hypertension, clogged arteries, smoking, and decreased physical activity, all of which hamper oxygen flow to the brain. Elderly people with healthy, active lifestyles invariably show no decrease of mental ability over time.
Sleep is critical to learning new material. If you are tackling a difficult subject, get plenty of sleep each night, and avoid studying just before bedtime.
Hypnopedia, or listening to recorded material while asleep, provides absolutely no learning benefits since the thalamus is not routing this sound information properly. Indeed, if the recordings are quiet, the auditory cortex may simply stop paying attention to the sounds; if the volume is loud, you may suffer the effects of fatigue the next day.