Mind versus Body

This course has mostly focused on your mind. That isn’t strange, it’s a guide on learning and brain power. But I mentioned at the start that there is a tight, significant link between mind and body.

A fit body will lead to a fit brain.

Research shows many improvements through living healthy and exercising: better memory, better focus, bigger brain, faster brain growth, more motivation and energy to study, etcetera.

I’ve applied this for years. Instead of studying in the evening, or doing homework, I usually just exercised. I’ve told this to others still in school: don’t sit in a chair, going over some textbook until late in the night. Look at it a few times, then go exercise and go to bed at a reasonable time.

For both me and them, this had great results.

I graduated almost cum laude at both my high school and university. Let me state here, for the record, that I am not smart. I’m quite dumb. I am often too creative and emotional to make the highly rational decision. When I studied Mathematics, I always felt like the stupidest person in the room.

But by learning in the way this guide explains, I could keep up. A professor warned me multiple times: “you’ll have to do more to get your degree! More than coming to class and writing your own summary of each subject!”

I ignored that, kept placing exercise and sleep above all, and got my degree just the same. When people ask me how I can be so productive, I usually point them towards this habit.

The take away? The very important take away?

At least 50% of learning and growing your brain is simply a free consequence of living a healthy lifestyle.

Fortunately, I also wrote a course on Fitness & Health! It’s longer than this one, because it’s a huge topic and I have much important things to say. I recommend reading it after you completed this one.

Muscle Memory

Humans have two different types of memory: the regular one and muscle memory (or “motor memory”).

These are not the same thing, but placed somewhere else. They are different.

Muscle memory is extremely strong and well-protected. That’s expected, as we evolved to live in the physical world and move around. If you learn a physical movement, especially at a young age, you’ll be able to do it the rest of your life.

Some movements do seem to degrade. You struggle to perform them after years of not doing them. But those are usually movements that take muscle power and stamina, which you might have lost.

You’re quick to forget anything except a physical skill.

That’s also why I move around and exercise a lot. When possible, I try to make all my learning physical. Because we were meant for that and it’s more effective.

This leads to several simple tips.

• Prefer physical trades: Actual physical skills (like playing an instrument or sewing) are always easier and more fun to learn than other skills. When in doubt, pursue the physical skill first.
• Move: moves around while learning something. Walk, stand, do push-ups, whatever. But combine learning with a physical skill.
• Beware of habits: physical habits are easy to get … and thus also hard to break. If you do some physical action, check if you’re not doing it in a harmful way, and vary your approach as always. This way, a bad thing can’t turn into a bad habit.

Example: singing

I’ve seen quite a lot of vocal coaches. Most of them told me this: most people are bad at singing because of bad habits, not talent or physical issues. The hardest part is teaching them to unlearn all the weird tension and mouth movements they build up over the years.

Again, I fully agree. Several times, it took months of exercise and experimentation to even discover some bad physical habit I had. Because it’s so ingrained, you do it without noticing. Like a reflex. The muscle just immediately does what it wants to do. How do you notice and unlearn a reflex? It’s hard, really hard.

Example: moving

For years, I played soccer in my back yard. Sometimes I was fully focused on the exercise: running as fast I could, trying new tricks, kicking the ball precisely where I wanted.

Most of the times, though, I was just thinking. This happened automatically. Once you get in a sort of “exercising flow”, your brain will go into daydreaming mode. Maybe I studied something the hour before—now my brain was going into overdrive to put it into memory.

Whenever I had a problem in my work (like writer’s block or a programming bug), I’d just go outside and run around for an hour. Usually, when I came back, I had the solution.

Nowadays, I don’t really do that anymore. (For all sorts of reasons, this isn’t possible now.) And I really miss it. I find myself getting stuck and struggling to recall information more. My brain only starts daydreaming when I’m in bed, leading to fewer good ideas during the day.

I did find ways to compensate, though. There are always ways to keep moving and stay active, even without money or easy opportunity.

At the moment, I

• Build my own standing desk by placing a box on top of a regular desk.
• I stand on a “balance board” while working. This forces me to keep a good posture and obviously throws me off-balance once in a while.
• I often just take a walk through the house. Sometimes to get food, sometimes just a few circles around the dining table while I think something through.
• At my revalidation clinic (for my chronic health issues), I was taught to crawl. On fingers and toes, just crawl around instead of walking. This is an incredibly simple but tough thing to do, especially for your upper body. Just crawling around the house instead of walking (sometimes) is always effective in giving me a new perspective and my brain a reset.

Yes, all of these look stupid. I don’t care, and you shouldn’t either. Your health, both body and brain, are too important.

Conclusion

Move around while learning, before learning, after learning. Focus on physical health first, mental health and prowess will follow.

While others stare at their computer screen, I go outside to exercise. While others hang their head over a textbook for hours, I just crawl around the house.

This is perhaps the most simple and practical rule to remember:

When stuck in your learning process, get up and move around.

It’s no use staying in the chair, willing your brain to focus or memorize something better. A blank page will remain a blank page. As mentioned at the start, after a while your brain is just full—and your body is dying to get some exercise.