INCREASE LEARNING EFFICIENCY

Desirable difficulties in learning makes learning more challenging but also more effective and this is taken by article by Annie Brookman-Byrne.

The corkers for me were:

- There are ways of learning that may feel effective and even lead to more errors during the actual learning process by that also leads to better performance over the long term.

- "Spacing" aims to increase the amount of information that is learnt so rather than revisiting the same information in succession, you would spread it out over time.

- Instead of studying information on a topic 3 times in a row, trey studying for the same amount of time overall but split up into 3 smaller sessions in a 24 hour period (30mins v 3 x 10mins).

- "Interweaving" refers to switching between topics rather than staying on 1 specific topic so switch from maths to geography to French than back to maths again.

- The "testing effect" refers to the act of trying to remember information which can improve learning of that material later on.

- Multiple choice encourages you to think about each answer which seems to help recall untested but related information.

- When things feel at their toughest than that's often when the real learning is taking place.

You can read the full article here.

RECURRING PAIN (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT)

I haven't done a pain post for a while so here's a quick reminder of how recurrent pain works via the work of Nick Efthimmiou:

#1 - Pain is a protective output of the brain

#2 - The pain loop is the onset of pain - brain takes action to reduce symptoms - symptoms reduce - stops action - no meaningful or lasting change

#3 - What's MISSING is CHANGE

#4 - Resiliency is about being able to withstand a variety of stressors

#5 - Adaptability is about being able to respond to a variety of stressors

#6 - Desensitise your body to pain through graded exposure which is putting your positions to scare you in a manner that allows you to control your fear

#7 - Optimise your senses by putting more positive input into your system than negative input

So using the squat movement as an example you might have a pain experience after a squatting motion and now you avoid that movement like the plague.

That might reduce symptoms in the very short term but you can't avoid squatting your entire life and like medication, avoiding 1 issue will result in another 3 new one's popping up over time.

So you're starting point would be a movement resembling squatting that you're comfortable with doing and you'd perform that for low volume but with moderate to high frequency.

We're talking 3 - 5 sets of 5 of getting up and down in a chair throughout the day here, not a 10 x 10 GVT weights session.

It's important that you nail the initial training because starting at too high a level will place too much demand on the area too quickly, the slower the better here.

Once you've worked through that little sequence your symptoms will have reduced as you're body starts to desensitise from pain as positive input and put in to the system at a slow, but consistent rate.

This will take disciple, consistency and patience and most people will stop doing the work once it's manageable but you've really only managed the bleeding at that point, the band aid still needs to stay on so full repair can occur.

Do you have recurrent pain? Let me know and maybe I can help.

TIRED BRAINS SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY - IS YOURS 1 OF THEM?

Why Do We Sleep is a Ted Talk by circadian neuroscientist Russell Foster but this is taken from an article of his called "Tired Brains See the World Differently".

I've dabbled on about sleep before in these blogs but it bares repeating because there's a lot of you that see sleep as the enemy so here we go:

- Those who regularly have less then 7 hours of sleep per night are more likely to develop mood and mental health problems

- By depriving your brain of sleep, you impair essential processes in the brain and reduce overall cognition

- What happens to the brain when we sleep defines how effective we’ll be when we're awake

- You lay down memories, consolidate information gathered from the previous day and the brain also comes up with solutions to complex problems

- A tired brain remembers negative experiences and negative facts and forgets the positive experiences

- Tired brains see the world a very different way

- Beta-amyloid, a pre-cursor to dementia and Alzheimers is partially cleared while we sleep and then there's the rebuilding of metabolic pathways/energy reserves throughout the body

- Growth and repair happens at night

- Short term sleep loss effects include being more impulsive, lacking empathy, not being able to lay down memory, lack problem solving, will see a decrease in cognitive function and also a loss of humor

- Long term effects include long term stress, increased cortisol, suppressed immune system leading to infection, cancer, coronary heart disease, metabolic abdormalities, type 2 diabetes and getting hooked on stimulants to stay energised

- You’ll release more gherlin which is a hunger hormone, leading to the ingestion of more carbs/sugars which can lead to weight gain

- You can be more vulnerable to mental health problems ranging from depression to biplor and schizophrenia

- The best indicator of a slide into depression is a change in the pattern of your sleep beforehand

- A newborn needs to 14 – 17 hours of sleep per day, an infant 12 – 16, a toddler 13 – 14, pre-schoolers 10 – 15, school age 9 – 12, teenagers 8 – 10, adults 7+, middle age 7 – 9 and the elderly 7 – 8

- If you have a bad experience then don’t go to bed for 6 – 8 hours so that it doesn’t instill itself in your memories too much