How we learn: the secret to all learning

Nowadays, it seems like everyone with an Internet connection has some kind of miracle shortcut or fast-track step-by-step plan to help you learn anything and learn better, whether it’s a language, cooking boeuf bourguignon, developing rippling abs, or becoming a lawyer.

Meditation retreats, speed reading, pills and supplements, superfoods, gamification of learning, mnemonic devices … you name it, someone has an opinion on it being the “miracle solution” to learning better than ever before.

Sorry to be a total party pooper but these things are all just short-term hacks or marginal productivity boosters. There really is only one guaranteed long-term growth tactic for human development and it’s spaced repetition. In this guide, we’re going to explain exactly why it’s the secret to how we learn and how it can be harnessed to improve your:

Studies,
Mental health, and
Biological capabilities

You see, spaced repetition is the way your brain is hardwired to learn. The more it sees information—or rehearses skills or thought patterns—the easier it’ll remember that information/skill/thought pattern. It’s biology, baby.

Austin Powers in a blue suit with puffy white shirt and the quote "It's biology baby, yeah!" right next to him in pink font.

It’s well-established science that spaced repetition is the best, most efficient method for human development. (It's why Brainscape’s adaptive learning platform helps millions of people master knowledge, facts, and languages multiple times faster than traditional methods.)

But it’s also the mechanism behind literally every biological development that involves cell memory! Particularly brain cell memory, when combined with motivation and deliberate cognitive processing.

So if you want the ultimate toolkit for human development—whether skills-based, knowledge-based or even a mindset—stick around. We’re going to explain the science of learning right now! You can also watch this short video with Andrew, Brainscape's CEO:

(Improve your mental and physical well-being with these small life-changing habits that take ZERO time! Also, did you know you can use the Brainscape app to achieve your personal growth goals—like improving your health, wealth, mindset, emotional intelligence, etc.?)

The secret to how we learn (with spaced repetition)

Let’s say you just tried a new card game today, playing a couple of rounds with friends before packing it in and doing something else. You'll probably need to play that game again very soon if you want to remember it. Otherwise, the next time you play, you'll basically have to re-learn it from scratch.

(This is called the “forgetting curve” and it explains how acquired knowledge fades from memory over time.)

The same applies to learning a more complex, long-term skill like guitar. If you want to learn a new chord transition or riff today, you'll probably need to repeat it like 100 times before you get it down perfectly. Then, you should ideally practice it again 30 times in an hour from now. Then 10 times tomorrow, 5 times next week, and finally at least once a month before the new guitar technique has become fully "internalized".

These numbers are, of course, theoretical. The point is that you can't learn anything new unless you are systematically refreshing the foundations of everything you have learned before, through the right pattern of repetition.

Your brain cells and their connections need continual strengthening. Otherwise, they decay, and you can't build upon them. This is the whole premise of spaced repetition, and the science of learning shows that the right interval between repetitions is the longest interval before which you would have otherwise forgotten the concept.

So, if you can figure out how to practice a skill or repeat knowledge you need to learn in the short, medium, and long term, you’ll have a solid plan for learning it so much more efficiently. (Read about the different spaced repetition systems and which one would be best for you!)

Pro Tip: The sweet thing about Brainscape is that we have built spaced repetition into our app’s algorithm, and the rate of knowledge refresh automatically adjusts based upon your unique pace of learning! For more on the science of spaced repetition—and how to harness it to learn more efficiently—check out our guide 'The science of never forgetting: Spaced repetition for fast learning that lasts'.)

The secret to improving mental health (with spaced repetition)

a side profiel of a face with the sun shown in the spot for brain with clouds in the sky

The "forgetting curve" I mentioned earlier can also apply to abstract mental health skills like reducing anxiety, improving sleep, practicing gratitude, and even forgiving people who have wronged you. How many times have you vowed to adopt a better, more positive mental attitude?

Every New Year’s Eve, right?

Well, the reason you think and respond the way you do to certain emotional or physical stimuli is that your brain is caught up in a pattern of thinking. And you don’t change patterns by simply telling your champagne-soaked brain at midnight that “this year, I’m going to practice gratitude every day!”

It takes practice and repetition to ingrain new habits, even if—especially if—those habits are ways of thinking that aren’t working for you anymore. Spaced repetition helps shift out that forgetting curve in just the same way it does with studying or learning!

Defeat the forgetting curve with spaced repetition — The more often you practice a skill or are exposed to information, the longer you’ll remember it, shifting out that "forgetting curve" until you hit a critical mass and that information / skill becomes a permanent part of your memory bank.

Let’s look at an example: imagine you have just been exposed to a new skill like quieting your stress and become at peace with yourself through the power of practicing gratitude. Your initial exposure to this new skill is depicted in the above graph in line i.

If you only practice that gratitude once, the effects will eventually decrease to zero within a few days, and you will have "forgotten" all that inner peace you had gained from your initial gratitude session.

But if you repeat your gratitude practice over time, then each repetition will push out the "forgetting curve" further (all the way out to curve iv in the above graph), in the same way, that well-spaced flashcard repetitions make your Spanish verb conjugation skills more permanent.

Read: ‘How to study effectively: the ultimate guide’

Eventually, your brain will “permanently remember” your new happy, peaceful mindset, and you will be able to devote your daily mindfulness practices to other mantras besides just gratitude, thus building upon those stronger foundations you'd established.

This is the same reason why a meditation retreat isn't going to permanently solve all of your mental health challenges. Sure, going on a two-week Vipassana outing in the mountains with minimal food, no speaking, and no iPhone can be an incredibly powerful meditative experience that brings you mental peace for several weeks.

Yet, unless you continue to apply those daily mindfulness tools during the weeks, months, and years after that retreat, you're eventually going to slip back into your old destructive mental patterns and habits.

Daily habits compound over time graph — Trees growing in areas of consistent winds respond by developing stronger fibers, greater flexibility, and even by bending away from the wind (so as to reduce resistance) as you see in the above picture.

Woman rock climbing on red mountains with just a tether around her waste and hanging on rock fron by hands feet outstretched — Trees growing in areas of consistent winds respond by developing stronger fibers, greater flexibility, and even by bending away from the wind (so as to reduce resistance) as you see in the above picture.

How we learn: the secret to all learning & human development

The secret to how we learn (with spaced repetition)

The secret to improving mental health (with spaced repetition)

The secret to human (biological) development

Spaced repetition: the next chapter in human development

References