Become a Better Learner: 5 things you can do to improve focus & memory

Doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo. Oh, hi. James from engVid. It's

a beautiful day out here. It's... no, it's not. It's cold. It's really cold.

Canada, in the fall, which I love, but it... it can get cold if you're not

dressed for it, and I am not dressed for it. Today's lesson is going to be on

language learning. Or better to put it this way: It's not going to be on

grammar, or conversation specifically; but I want to give you five things you

can do that you can actually make learning easier. Okay? Things people

don't usually mention, but they're really kind of important. These are the

background things. See, don't you love it? Look, gotta love nature. Anyway. So,

five things I'm gonna talk about are going to help make... prepare you, as an

individual, better, so you can actually be more efficient at learning. So, let's

take care of the machine; then we can take care of the learning afterwards.

So, where do we start when we do that? Well, the first thing I want to talk

about... well, the first thing I want you to do is: I'm going to give you a

list. Okay? And I want you to listen carefully to this list, because this is

what I call a test retest and lesson learning. You're going to listen to the

list, and then I'm going to give you a couple seconds, and I want you to see

how many of these words you can remember. And at the end of this lesson,

I'm going to redo the list, and we're going to see if you got an improvement.

Are you ready? So, don't write it down. Do not write it down. Hopefully you're

by a computer, so you can't. Put your fingers and hands up in the air. Okay?

Word number one: Sun. Number two: Socks. Number three: Traffic light. Number

four... and, sorry. That's words. But you know what I mean, because some

people go: "He said: 'traffic light' — it's two words." Whatever. Traffic

light. Number four: Car. Number five: Glove, which I wish I had some. Number

six: Soda. Number seven: Rainbow. Number eight: Octopus. Number nine: Cat. And

number ten: Toes. Okay? Take five seconds, and see how many of these words

you can actually remember. You got it? Now, repeat and see how many you got.

Don't worry if you didn't get them all; that's not the point. It's... we're

going to do a test retest, so let's see where you are and where we're going to

go after we do this lesson.

Now, now we got that out of the way, let's talk about the lesson for the day

— the five things we can look at. Number one — you probably heard this before —

food. "What? What? I thought we were doing English." We are. You should have

a good breakfast before you go to school. Some people say that, you

know... or a lot of kids should have that. And it's important. Food is

important for how we function — period. There's no difference when we talk about

that and when we talk about learning languages. If you don't eat properly, or

don't fuel your body — "fuel", like gas for your car — you can't learn properly.

But one of the things we don't really take into consideration is: What kind of

fuel is important? Now, I'm not going to talk about all foods, because there's

many theories on, you know... fat in your food, carbohydrates — all these

different things; or apples and oranges. I'm just going to talk about this one

thing that makes a big difference, and it's... it's becoming quite popular in

the news and magazines. You can check it out on... there's "The Obesity Code" by

Doctor Fung, and he's also got... there's a sugar... there's a couple of

books on these, where they talk about how sugar — and yeah, I'm talking about

sugar — sugary foods, specifically, lead to lots of problems. And one of those

problems they lead to, my friends, is learning. It seems what happens when we

take a lot of sugar... and, first of all, I should say: Sugar in small

amounts that we find in fruits, you know... like apples, oranges — is good

for us. In fact, our brain is only two percent of our bodies, but it uses

twenty percent of our energy. And when we get fruits, like oranges, and apples,

and berries — they have... they're full of sugar. But they also have something

called: "fibre" to slow how the sugar is brought into our bodies. And because of

that, our bodies can use the sugar and we don't have that bad in effect. But

you still can't eat twenty apples and twenty oranges. In fact, you'll get sick

if you do. That's the beauty of it. But when you're having chocolate bars, and

other things, like... and it's got a lot of sugar in it — well, it's not so good

for our body.

So, a little bit of sugar helps us think really well. Okay? And that's what

nature gave us. And that's why we're here, building cars and buildings. Same

with language learning. A little bit of sugar gives you a little bit of a spike

to give you the energy to learn, but too much sugar causes what's called:

"inflammation". And if you want to know what "inflammation" is — if you've ever

got hit in the eye and your eye goes: "Bwoo" — that's "inflammation". Right?

But when it happens in your head and your brain: "Bwoo" — well, there's

nowhere for the brain, and the blood and that to go in your body. So, it takes up

that space, and it makes it harder for you to think. Okay? So, one of the first

things you want to do is: Stop eating so many sugary foods, and that will help

with memory and learning. All right? So, if you're sitting there, and I'm sure

you got a soda, going: "He's telling me a good idea. I should..." Put the soda

down. Put it down because it's full of sugar, which leads me to number two:

Water. You didn't see that coming, did you? Food, sugar, water. Sodas aren't

great for you because they're full of sugar, but one thing we do need and we

need a lot of it, is water. Your brain is 80% water, and a lot of us are

dehydrated. We walk around; we don't drink enough water.

Well, think of a sponge. Okay? If you put a sponge in water, and you know...

it's like this and you put it in, it goes: "Puchu" — it gets filled; it

grows. But it's absorbing. "Absorbing" — it means drawing in the liquid. Right?

It's taking... it's taking the... the water in the sponge, and the sponge

grows. Just like your brain when it's properly hydrated — it can suck in the

information. But you get a dry sponge, my friend — it's small and it doesn't do

very much. You got to get your uptake of water. Now, I'm not going to tell you

how much water, like: "You should have eight glasses a day. It should be

distilled. It should come from the Heavens themselves. Tears of the gods."

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying: Get good, clean water; put down the

soda. It'll help. What happens is water helps when it's fully... the brain is

hydrated. "Hydrated" means filled with water. It helps information flow a lot

better. Okay? Think of your toilet; stuff flows better when it's full,

right? Yeah, that's a bad example. I should have thought that went through.

Anyway, but you get the point. A hydrated brain that's filled with water

allows for electrolytes. I know, "electrolytes" — they're little...

whatever. You don't need to know. Science things. Things in your brain

that can... conveys information — they allow them to work better in the brain.

Right? We need to be hydrated. Okay? So, hydration helps with the body

circulating stuff, but really for the brain because it's 80% water. That was

number two.

So, what could be number three? Because we talked about food; we talked about

water. Here's one that probably, if you're sitting at the computer too

long... but don't do it right now. I don't need you to do it now, but you

should do this: Exercise. "What?" Actually you can do it; you can do it

with me right now. Let's do a couple jumping jacks. All right? There you go.

Watch the video; do exercise. You notice, as you do this, you breathe a

little bit more, right? What's that do? Brings oxygen into the body, which wakes

up your brain. Exercise helps with motivation, helps with alert...

alertness, and attention. So, it helps us actually — because we're moving our

blood and our oxygen through the body — to oxygenate the brain and bring blood

to the brain. Blood for energy; oxygen because... well, we need it or we die.

Right? So, when we exercise, we get our bodies filled better for attention. And

what did I say, again? Attention and motivation, and I forget. Awareness.

Whatever. Basically, what it does is it wakes us up and prepares us. Part of

exercise is from our... I can say our prehistory days, where we would have to

— not exercise, which is very funny we call it: "exercise". Back then it was

called: "survival". So, you'd be walking in the forest; where I am right now —

doo, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo — and a tiger would come out, and you would

start jogging. Well, not jogging; you would run. Right? And then maybe... you

want to lift some weights? Yeah, pick up a big rock and throw it at the tiger.

Yeah, there's your exercise; it was called: "survival". But because of that,

we had to be alert; we had to pay attention. We were motivated to survive.

And when you put these things together, our brain was stimulated to pay

attention to our environment and learn as much as possible. So, exercise does

that for us. A couple more jumping jacks. All right. Now, you got that down

— that was number three.

What's number four? Well, it's... number four is... you should... I don't know.

Sleep. Get sleep. All the stuff I talked about works really well, but it's sleep

that is that magic pill that makes it work well. If you don't rest from

exercise, and get a good night's sleep — your body isn't built back up. If you

don't get enough sleep, your body doesn't get rid of the toxins or poisons

in our bodies, or help, you know... move around the food, and help us eliminate,

and all that other... other neat stuff, and the water — help get it out — right?

— and what have you. We need sleep to do that. I'm giving you all that for the

first three to explain what that... how sleep helps with that. But really what

sleep helps with — this is the big deal. I'm gonna use some big words now, so

please forgive me. Consolidation of memories. When you sleep, your brain

takes that opportunity then to take what you've learned in the day and then say:

"Okay, what have we done? Okay, we did this, this, this, this", and it starts

to organize it for you. So, when you wake up in the morning: "Oh". You go:

"Oh, yeah. Bonjour. No. Yeah, okay. Comment ça va? Oh, how about that? Cómo

estás? Muy bien". All of that stuff is what we call: "consolidated". Your brain

goes: "Okay. What does this mean? Buongiorno. Hello. Hello, yeah". It puts

it together. You need that time to do it.

So, a lot of you guys, when you think you're studying and you're learning —

no. You study; if you get good sleep, you learn. Many studies have shown that

when people get poor sleep, they have poor memories because their memories are

not consolidated; put together. So, keep that in mind. Okay? All right. Good. Now

that we've got that out of the way — I got one, two, three, four — I'm going to

give you number five, which is kind of a bonus. It's a really cool one. A lot

of... some people do it. A lot of people in the world, actually, do it. But for

language learning... and I forgot to mention that — language learning, but I

think if I go through them with you again... food — you need the energy to

actually be awake to study. Right? Also, if it's too sugary; the inflammation —

you can't learn. Water for that... for the brain to send the signals through to

get that learning done. You need water; keep your brain hydrated. Number three

was sleep. No, no, nope, nope. Was exercise. Number three was sleep. Sorry.

See? I need some sleep. Number three was exercise, because what happens? It helps

us with alertness and motivation. Right? And the aware... awareness of our

environment. Number four was sleep, and it helps to get those memories all

together. As you start putting it together, you're getting a picture.

But there's a movie called: "Limitless", and I love this movie. Anybody who

studied with me at the school I used to teach at, they were like: "Oh god,

teacher's playing that movie again?" I go: "Yes, it's amazing". This man would

take a pill, and what a pill it was. With one pill, he could do anything.

With half listening, he could learn a language. And he's running down the

street, listening to some French, and then he's talking to French people the

next five minutes; talking fast. But my point was this: A magic pill that we

have that's free, available to everyone, and you just need to play with a little

bit that can help all of the other stuff work better is meditation and

mindfulness meditation. They've done studies that show that meditation lowers

stress. Do you remember we talked about blood and oxygen, and moving around?

Well, meditation releases stress. When you're stressed, you're like this. And

when you relax, see more movement? Well, when you're stressed physically...

that's why you're always tired when you're stressed because your muscles are

a bit tight. But when you relax, you release and you let that energy flow;

you can breathe deeper, get more oxygen, which helps with energy production. I

know, this is really... "I thought this was an English lesson." It is. Because

if you do these things correctly, English learning will be easier, more

effective, and more efficient. Meditation helps to release stress in

the mind and the body, so you get better oxygen flow, you get better blood flow,

you get better sleep. And I told you sleep is incredibly important. Okay? And

it helps increase your focus, so when you're actually doing something, you get

better at doing it. Cool? Now, if you keep all of that in mind... I've given

you five things you can do right now to help. Because you're taking hours to

study, why wouldn't you take the time to prep your system to make the

most-effective study you can get? Right?

Now, I'm going to give you a little bit of a tool. We're going to work together,

here. We're going to practice this. And you remember that test retest we talked

about before? We're going to do that again. Yeah? So, step over this way with

me for a second or two. Yeah? So, we're going to be looking at breathing, and

what I want you to do when you breathe is this: You're going to breathe in or

inhale, breathe in for seven seconds; breathe out for eight seconds. This is

from a book called: "Willpower" by Andrea McGonigal. She was at Stanford

University. It's one of the most famous classes that was taught there. Okay? So,

this is a focus meditation to help you focus. All right. Are you ready? Let's

do it. We're gonna do this a few times, and then we're going to go back to that

list of ten and see if we can improve your standing. Ready? So, let's go.

Inhale. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Exhale. Eight, seven, six,

five, four, three, two, one. Now, inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. One more

time. Ready? Inhale. Exhale. Got an extra thumb, there. Thumbs up for you.

All right. Now, let's do that list again. One: Sun. Two: Socks. Three:

Traffic light. Four: Car. Five: Glove. Six: Soda. Seven: Rainbow. Eight:

Octopus. Nine: Cat. Ten: Toes. See how many you got right this time. I'm

smiling because some of you probably went: "Hey!" if you got three; now

you're like: "I got five", or you got seven or more. We've had, like, a

ten-minute class that I just taught you, so you didn't have time to remember

these words; I asked you not to write them down. And you might say: "Well, I

heard it the second time." But if you didn't do so well, you've had time to

forget. And now we've done it again, you might have noticed that that focus on

your breath helps you focus your mind. And that's the pill of meditation I just

gave you. Cool? All right.

So, what I want to do now is give you some homework, and the homework's quite

simple. You're going to do that seven and eight meditation for focus. Do it up

to ten. Like, repeat it ten times — that cycle; and do it every day for the next

30 days. It's a really good idea to do it just before maybe you're studying.

You'll probably notice that you're able to focus a little bit better. Okay? Now

that I've given your homework, I want to end the class with a quote, and this is

by Andrew de Waal. And it's: "You are anywhere... anywhere is your home when

you learn languages". And I think that's true. When you know more than one

language, you can go almost anywhere. Right? And since you're here learning

languages, you can come to my home sometime. Well, not my literal home, but

you can come visit me over here. Anyway, it's been a pleasure. I'd like you to go

to www.eng as in English, vid as in video.com, and there's no quiz, but

there are great lessons there in which now you can go and study. Take what I've

taught you today, and apply it to grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons,

conversation, reading, and writing. Cool? I'll see you in a little bit. Take

a look at this place, man. It's great.