The Top Study Habits to Improve Learning

00:00:00.000 | Now let's talk about how the best students

00:00:04.680 | structure their days.

00:00:05.840 | Turns out there are great studies on this.

00:00:08.820 | There's a really nice paper.

00:00:10.580 | In fact, that surveyed close to 700 students.

00:00:16.200 | These were medical students,

00:00:17.800 | approximately equal number of male and female students

00:00:22.180 | and analyze the most useful learning habits.

00:00:24.800 | That is the learning habits associated

00:00:26.880 | with the most successful students.

00:00:28.520 | Now, anytime you do a study like this

00:00:30.400 | where people take surveys,

00:00:31.820 | there's always the issue of causality.

00:00:34.440 | In fact, we can pretty much set aside

00:00:36.160 | any possible causality.

00:00:37.480 | For instance, I'm about to tell you

00:00:38.720 | that the very best performing students

00:00:40.380 | tend to study for about three or four hours per day.

00:00:43.280 | But you could easily say, well, they're the best students

00:00:45.920 | because they study three or four hours per day.

00:00:48.760 | They don't study three or four hours per day

00:00:50.600 | because they're the best students.

00:00:51.600 | And you'd be exactly right, okay?

00:00:53.520 | We can get into all sorts of discussions

00:00:55.200 | about correlation versus causation,

00:00:57.120 | about reverse causality and on and on.

00:00:59.920 | However, none of that is the point here.

00:01:01.780 | The point here is to establish what are the habits

00:01:05.040 | that the most successful students

00:01:06.960 | seem to incorporate over and over again,

00:01:09.040 | regardless of what classes they're taking,

00:01:10.680 | regardless of where they are

00:01:12.560 | in their arc of their learning trajectory.

00:01:14.800 | And so what we know based on this study,

00:01:16.840 | and I'll provide a link to it in the show note captions,

00:01:19.520 | is that there are at least 10 study habits

00:01:22.320 | that the highly effective students use.

00:01:23.920 | I'm going to focus on the top five or six

00:01:26.620 | just for sake of time,

00:01:28.080 | because it turns out that most of the effect,

00:01:30.960 | it appears, of being a better student

00:01:33.200 | can be attributed to these top five or six habits.

00:01:36.560 | First of all, they set aside time to study.

00:01:40.160 | They literally schedule time to study.

00:01:42.140 | Now this probably serves several roles.

00:01:44.120 | The first one is that they are able

00:01:46.320 | to clear out other distractions.

00:01:48.060 | And in fact, that's the second thing that they do.

00:01:50.640 | They are very effective,

00:01:52.160 | or they make it a point of putting their phone away and off,

00:01:55.640 | of isolating themselves.

00:01:57.040 | That's right, they're not studying with other people.

00:01:59.240 | They study alone,

00:02:00.720 | which is not to say that people who study with others

00:02:02.800 | cannot be effective in their studying,

00:02:04.940 | but the best performing students seem to study alone.

00:02:08.360 | They put their phone away.

00:02:09.860 | They tell their friends and families

00:02:12.720 | that they are not going to be able to be reached

00:02:14.920 | during that time.

00:02:16.240 | And yes, they study for three or four hours per day,

00:02:19.920 | but they break that up

00:02:21.360 | into a couple of different sessions typically,

00:02:23.480 | two or three sessions.

00:02:24.560 | So they're not doing a three or four hour studying

00:02:26.320 | about all in one shot.

00:02:27.700 | So they're managing their time,

00:02:31.280 | they're eliminating distractions,

00:02:33.000 | and they're studying for a consistent amount of time,

00:02:37.300 | at least five days per week, okay?

00:02:39.200 | Presumably they're taking some weekends off,

00:02:40.980 | although that wasn't made clear from this paper.

00:02:43.180 | The other thing that they do, and this is very important,

00:02:45.160 | is that they make an effort to then teach their peers,

00:02:48.200 | to teach other students in the class.

00:02:50.240 | Now, some of you may be thinking,

00:02:51.800 | and I'm thinking back to college here mostly,

00:02:54.520 | that if you spend all this time learning the information

00:02:56.720 | and you are in a competitive scenario

00:02:58.460 | with the other students,

00:02:59.560 | that teaching them the information

00:03:01.120 | is kind of a freebie for them and it's harder for you,

00:03:03.780 | meaning you're putting yourself

00:03:04.720 | at a competitive disadvantage,

00:03:06.460 | or you're giving them an unfair advantage

00:03:08.720 | for not having done the work.

00:03:10.320 | Now, while this paper didn't do an analysis

00:03:12.040 | of whether or not these students that served as the learners

00:03:15.000 | from the other students got an unfair advantage,

00:03:17.640 | it's very clear that students who make it a point

00:03:21.200 | to learn material in isolation,

00:03:22.960 | then bring that material to other students

00:03:24.820 | in the same course and teach them,

00:03:26.840 | perform exceedingly well in comparison to the other students.

00:03:30.260 | So don't be afraid to be a teacher of your peers

00:03:33.320 | in order to test, this is key,

00:03:35.340 | to test and develop mastery of the material.

00:03:39.480 | Now, in my laboratory for years, we used to have a saying,

00:03:43.140 | which I simply picked up from the laboratories

00:03:45.480 | I was trained in, I didn't come up with the saying,

00:03:47.080 | which was watch one, do one, teach one.

00:03:49.280 | And that was referring to doing surgeries or suturing,

00:03:52.440 | or doing an antibody reaction, or a Western blot,

00:03:55.480 | or things that you do in laboratories.

00:03:57.380 | Watch one, do one, teach one.

00:04:00.840 | Watch one, do one, teach one, of course,

00:04:02.360 | should be reserved to anything

00:04:03.520 | where no one's going to be put in danger

00:04:05.380 | by the watch one, do one, teach one procedure, right?

00:04:07.840 | Some procedures, especially in laboratories,

00:04:10.200 | can be dangerous given the materials you use, et cetera.

00:04:13.400 | And of course, today we're talking about learning

00:04:14.960 | and studying generally.

00:04:15.960 | So provided it's safe, watch one, do one, teach one,

00:04:18.920 | is an excellent means to learn,

00:04:22.260 | that is to study new material,

00:04:23.920 | to develop proficiency and even mastery.

00:04:26.780 | And over time, perhaps even virtuosity.

00:04:29.080 | We'll return to that later, those distinctions.

00:04:31.420 | So going back to this idea

00:04:33.840 | that the best students set aside time,

00:04:35.640 | they designate time to study alone, without distractions,

00:04:40.280 | that is sure to help them anchor their focus and attention.

00:04:43.400 | They know that they're going to need

00:04:44.800 | to use their focus and attention during that time.

00:04:47.160 | And we know with absolute certainty

00:04:50.000 | that focus and attention are a limited

00:04:53.280 | but renewable resource in the human brain.

00:04:55.840 | The longer you're awake,

00:04:56.760 | the more is the buildup of a molecule

00:04:58.840 | called adenosine in your brain and body.

00:05:00.600 | It makes you sleepy, makes it harder to focus.

00:05:03.080 | When you sleep, adenosine levels are pushed down again.

00:05:05.680 | You're able to focus again, you feel more alert.

00:05:08.000 | You can think of adenosine

00:05:08.960 | as limiting your attentional budget,

00:05:10.960 | which is not to say that some people don't study best

00:05:12.940 | in the afternoon or in the evening

00:05:15.080 | or even late at night, right?

00:05:16.460 | I recall times during university when I'd study

00:05:18.840 | between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

00:05:21.120 | I don't do that any longer,

00:05:22.200 | but scheduling time where you know

00:05:25.800 | you're going to need to be focused and attending

00:05:28.520 | is perhaps one of the most important things

00:05:31.440 | toward being able to focus and attend to the material.

00:05:34.340 | Now, if you're taking courses,

00:05:36.120 | you probably are going to be a slave

00:05:38.080 | to the timing of the courses.

00:05:39.160 | You aren't going to be able to tell the instructor,

00:05:40.920 | "Okay, listen, I want you to do this course at 3 p.m.

00:05:43.940 | because that's when you learn best or at 8 a.m.

00:05:46.300 | because that's when you happen to be able to attend best."

00:05:48.700 | However, to the extent that you have any control

00:05:51.020 | over the time in which you're going to study,

00:05:52.620 | keeping that at a regular time or times,

00:05:55.220 | perhaps one block early in the day,

00:05:56.680 | one block later in the day,

00:05:58.220 | perhaps two blocks early in the day and so on,

00:06:00.780 | is going to be beneficial.

00:06:01.820 | It turns out that's also supported

00:06:03.460 | by the research literature,

00:06:04.860 | that the brain, just like with its sleep-wake cycles,

00:06:09.740 | that entrain to a regular schedule,

00:06:12.080 | that is your brain and body get used to being active

00:06:14.880 | and inactive at particular times

00:06:16.560 | based on your exposure to sunlight,

00:06:19.040 | your exposure to activities, your social rhythms, et cetera.

00:06:22.200 | If you regularly, meaning for the course of about three days

00:06:25.200 | make it a point to focus and study at particular times,

00:06:29.160 | again, pulling your attention back,

00:06:30.580 | it's not an automatic process,

00:06:31.760 | but pulling your attention back to a specific location,

00:06:34.980 | perhaps on a page or that you're listening to in a lecture,

00:06:38.240 | your body and brain will start to entrain to that rhythm

00:06:42.580 | such that you will be able to focus and attend better

00:06:45.900 | simply by virtue of the regularity of the timing

00:06:49.260 | of the exposure to the material, okay?

00:06:51.100 | So you probably need about two or three days

00:06:53.620 | to break into a regular schedule

00:06:55.580 | of focusing and attending and studying at a given time

00:06:58.940 | or times, allow yourself that transition period,

00:07:02.060 | but then make it a point to schedule those times to study,

00:07:06.060 | set aside your phone, tell people you're going offline,

00:07:09.740 | turn off the wifi if you need to or have to,

00:07:12.340 | you may need it for your studying, I don't know,

00:07:14.300 | depends on what you're studying,

00:07:15.620 | but limit distractions at all costs

00:07:17.940 | and learn to just focus on the material.

00:07:20.700 | And this is a skill,

00:07:22.020 | this is the most important thing to understand.

00:07:23.460 | It's a skill to be able to focus and study.

00:07:26.100 | And it's a skill that you can learn very quickly,

00:07:28.660 | especially if you schedule it for regular times

00:07:31.100 | and you give yourself two or three days

00:07:33.420 | in which to adapt to those schedules and times

00:07:35.620 | and then try and stick to them as regularly as possible,

00:07:38.200 | perhaps even on the weekends,

00:07:39.520 | if you're approaching the end of the quarter or semester,

00:07:42.460 | perhaps even on the weekend,

00:07:45.380 | even if you're not in the quarter or semester,

00:07:47.900 | keeping those regular times will entrain your nervous system

00:07:50.920 | to study and learn at its best at those particular times.

00:07:54.860 | There's one other point that I wanted to pass along

00:07:57.200 | from this really nice study on the study habits

00:07:59.740 | of highly effective medical students

00:08:01.700 | that I've been referring to.

00:08:03.700 | And that is when one examined,

00:08:06.380 | or these people were asked

00:08:07.780 | about their motivation for studying,

00:08:10.780 | the best performing students had an interesting answer.

00:08:14.220 | They had a very long-term understanding of how,

00:08:18.340 | or belief rather,

00:08:19.700 | about how their success in medical school

00:08:23.340 | would impact their family,

00:08:25.980 | how it would impact their life arc,

00:08:27.780 | how it would change them.

00:08:29.300 | And they weren't particular about the ways

00:08:31.260 | in which it would change them or their family.

00:08:33.100 | In fact, it was a rather broad, abstract,

00:08:35.560 | aspirational way of thinking about their study efforts.

00:08:39.640 | So what I like so much about this paper is that,

00:08:43.220 | in addition to having a fairly large sample size,

00:08:45.740 | close to 700 students that were evaluated,

00:08:48.100 | and yes, it's purely self-report and this kind of thing,

00:08:52.620 | nonetheless, it bridges the two extremes

00:08:55.740 | of studying and learning.

00:08:57.260 | It gets right down into the nitty gritty

00:08:58.900 | of how long they study, when they study,

00:09:00.940 | the things they do to limit distraction

00:09:02.860 | that we just discussed,

00:09:04.660 | but it also gets to their underlying

00:09:06.900 | psychological motivations and the thing that they use

00:09:09.540 | in order to pull them forward through their study efforts,

00:09:12.640 | perhaps, especially when their desire is waning

00:09:16.200 | or their level of fatigue is increasing.

00:09:18.680 | I don't know that, I'm speculating here,

00:09:20.480 | but this is this aspirational component

00:09:23.400 | of going to medical school,

00:09:25.060 | which it turns out in the country

00:09:26.340 | in which this study was done,

00:09:28.140 | only very, very select few of the very best students

00:09:31.460 | are able to achieve that.

00:09:33.300 | And they have to learn the information

00:09:34.460 | in a different language altogether, which is incredible.

00:09:37.960 | I always marvel at that.

00:09:39.300 | I have friends that did their PhD thesis in Italy,

00:09:42.180 | they're Italian by birth,

00:09:44.020 | they now happen to run a laboratory in Italy,

00:09:47.020 | and they had to do their PhD training and write papers

00:09:49.980 | and give their thesis dissertation and defense in English,

00:09:54.060 | even though English was their second language.

00:09:56.100 | So talk about a challenge,

00:09:57.300 | and that's just one example that I can think of.

00:10:00.940 | There are many examples of that.

00:10:02.540 | These students that I'm referring to in this study

00:10:06.440 | are not necessarily constantly thinking about

00:10:09.860 | how their efforts will transform themselves

00:10:12.420 | and their families,

00:10:13.680 | but they certainly were able to report

00:10:16.100 | what it was specifically that they are seeking,

00:10:18.420 | what they're aspiring to,

00:10:19.980 | besides just trying to do as well as they can

00:10:22.620 | getting into and through medical school.

00:10:24.700 | So the high-level aspirational stuff within you,

00:10:28.720 | whatever that is for you,

00:10:29.900 | it's going to be highly individual,

00:10:32.220 | is certainly important,

00:10:33.700 | and it offers a bookend to the nuts and boltsy

00:10:37.280 | kind of stuff that you're going to do,

00:10:39.020 | I would hope, in order to best study

00:10:40.820 | and learn the specific material.

00:10:42.680 | So the specific actions that you're going to take each day

00:10:45.080 | to learn specific bits of information

00:10:46.880 | that will pull you toward those important aspirations.

00:10:50.140 | And now, again, if you love the material you're learning,

00:10:53.520 | this aspirational component

00:10:55.140 | is probably not as important, right?

00:10:56.800 | I can recall during university and graduate school

00:10:59.920 | and so on, thinking, oh my goodness,

00:11:02.560 | this is like the coolest thing I've ever heard.

00:11:03.960 | I've probably said that about a million different topics.

00:11:06.140 | Oh my goodness, circadian rhythms, seasonal rhythms,

00:11:08.360 | melatonin, neural circuits, dopamine.

00:11:10.080 | I was just awash with excitement about what I was learning.

00:11:12.840 | But of course, sometimes I would take a course

00:11:14.640 | where the material was,

00:11:16.260 | I don't know if it was more challenging or not,

00:11:17.680 | but I had a harder time getting engaged by the material,

00:11:20.880 | either by virtue of how it was being taught to me

00:11:23.160 | or the material itself.

00:11:24.640 | So the ability to attach to some aspirational goal,

00:11:27.160 | to pull you through, can be very valuable.

00:11:30.760 | You're not going to love every topic you have to learn.

00:11:33.620 | However, I will say that, at least in my experience,

00:11:37.840 | some of the courses that I look back on most fondly

00:11:40.640 | are the courses that I struggled with the most.

00:11:43.520 | And in fact, that's the basis of the next

00:11:46.200 | and easily one of the most important studying tools.

00:11:49.700 | So a key theme in all of the excellent literature,

00:11:53.800 | that is the peer-reviewed research on how best to study,

00:11:57.620 | is that studying that feels challenging

00:11:59.900 | is the most effective.

00:12:01.620 | I know nobody wants to hear this.

00:12:03.380 | Everyone wants to hear about flow.

00:12:05.620 | Everybody wants to hear about information

00:12:08.100 | just sinking into their brain by osmosis.

00:12:10.220 | I think it was a Garfield cartoon

00:12:11.700 | where he talked about learning by osmosis.

00:12:13.820 | There's this very cute real-world video

00:12:15.740 | of a kid in a classroom.

00:12:17.980 | I believe it's in China where he's taking the book

00:12:20.900 | and he puts it on his head.

00:12:21.820 | Maybe I can find this clip.

00:12:22.820 | And he's just kind of like trying to wash it into his brain.

00:12:24.900 | It's super cute clip, but guess what?

00:12:26.920 | That doesn't work.

00:12:27.900 | I mean, it works to put the book on your head.

00:12:29.700 | It doesn't work.

00:12:30.580 | It's not going to get the information into your brain.

00:12:33.740 | Perhaps someday there will be ways

00:12:35.420 | to rapidly download information into neural circuits.

00:12:38.260 | Right now, we know, we've known for hundreds,

00:12:41.820 | if not thousands of years,

00:12:43.260 | that effort is the cornerstone of learning.

00:12:48.260 | So I know there are probably some groans about that.

00:12:50.660 | I know some of you perhaps were hoping

00:12:52.140 | that today I was going to tell you how to study

00:12:54.420 | so that studying wasn't painful.

00:12:56.820 | I think I can accomplish that by the end of today's episode.

00:13:00.760 | But in order to do that, let's take another quiz.

00:13:03.780 | Can you name or list off in your mind three tools

00:13:08.120 | that the most effective students have been shown to use?

00:13:12.340 | I can think of limiting distraction

00:13:16.220 | by virtue of putting away phones

00:13:17.700 | and telling others you won't be in contact with them too.

00:13:21.300 | And I'm getting these out of order, I realize,

00:13:24.060 | is to isolate, to study alone.

00:13:26.380 | And the third that I can recall

00:13:28.580 | is to teach others in the same course.

00:13:33.460 | Okay, you can probably think of a few others.

00:13:35.900 | Now, why are we taking these silly little quizzes?

00:13:39.140 | Well, it turns out they're not so silly

00:13:42.300 | when one considers that hopefully

00:13:44.380 | you'll remember the information from today

00:13:47.540 | so that you don't have to listen to it over and over again,

00:13:50.220 | but that if ever there was a strongly research-supported tool

00:13:55.220 | in the literature, in the peer-reviewed literature

00:13:57.580 | about how students can learn information better,

00:14:00.440 | it's testing.

00:14:02.400 | And I know, I know, I know we think of tests

00:14:05.180 | as a way to evaluate our knowledge,

00:14:08.500 | but it turns out that testing is one of the best ways

00:14:10.980 | to build our knowledge, to retain our knowledge,

00:14:14.100 | and again, to offset forgetting.

00:14:16.580 | [upbeat music]

00:14:19.160 | (upbeat music)

00:14:21.740 | (upbeat music)

The Top Study Habits to Improve Learning | Dr Andrew Huberman

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