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Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

ninds.nih.gov

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Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#51

Post by hnuser123456 »

narag wrote: post #36
mrob wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only 24 hours in a day, so how it is possible to eliminate 28 liters in 24 hours without exceeding 1 liter per hour?

Sweat. The comment above was about kidneys only. Try this: weight yourself before and after sleep.

You're also breathing in your sleep, exhaling carbon, which is normally how you lose weight anyways.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#52

Post by andy_ppp »

lanewinfield wrote: post #43

With both this article and the propranolol one, it sure seems that resting (both short breaks and full sleeps) really help a lot. Wonder why every CEO's boasting 4 hour nightly sleeping schedules?

Lies and testosterone? It also allows you to do more work that you already know how to do, but makes any new work frustrating and difficult.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#53

Post by shard »

Razengan wrote: post #39
tjbiddle wrote: post #24

This is something I've found true in my own personal experimentation over the past few years. Any time I've been training something, if I take a break from it, I come back and I have more skill than I had previously. Recently this occurred with my handstand practice. It's something that I've been working on the past year or two on and off, but more heavily recently. I've made some great strides, but the past week or…

> Any time I've been training something, if I take a break from it, I come back and I have more skill than I had previously. I’ve experienced this first hand, almost like a tangible thing, while learning a language. Whenever I came back to it after a break, sometimes after months of no exposure to the language, I was sometimes surprised to find myself being able to understand some new dialogue without looking at subt…

Although I wonder if the break is really necessary. I have taken an intensive language course (10 weeks, full language immersion and homework from waking to sleeping every weekday), and the full brunt of the language skills I learned didn't hit me until ~2 months later, where I find myself understanding the learned language constructs intuitively without deliberate analysis. It may just be that it takes time for one's subconscious to fully integrate the newly learned material, especially for complicated and non-intuitive subjects such as language, as opposed to any special effect from taking a rest from it. Another aspect is that learned material have an expiration date or a half life, so that if I take too long of a break, it would disappear as opposed to being strengthened. This is where spaced repetition software comes in handy for me, especially for rarely used vocabulary (which are often the most important words in a sentence, and the lack of understanding of would change the meaning of the sentence entirely).

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#55

Post by proctor »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #51
narag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweat. The comment above was about kidneys only. Try this: weight yourself before and after sleep.

You're also breathing in your sleep, exhaling carbon, which is normally how you lose weight anyways.

yes! veritasium did a pretty fun video on this some time back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL2e0rWvjKI

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#56

Post by mikekchar »

I wonder if this is related to desirable difficulty [1] Ironically the idea is that making your task more difficult by making yourself less familiar with it helps with the learning process. One of the main concepts, the spacing effect [2], shows that spreading out learning over time improves learning. However, the interesting thing is that laving a long "lag" time (time between repetitions) is better than having a short lag time. I should note that this effect is similar, but different than the similarly named "spaced repetition" [3] Most spaced repetition systems use the SM2 algorithm [4] to determine the amount of lag time. This achieved a recall rate of 92% in Wozniak's studies, however as far as I know he never justified that target. It's always been interesting to me to consider the possibility that increasing the lag time in order to increase the difficulty (reduce the recall rate) might actually increase learning rates. I've never gotten around to trying it.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desirable_difficulty

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacing_effect

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition

[4] - https://www.supermemo.com/en/archives1990-2015/english/ol/sm...

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#57

Post by astonex »

trillic wrote: post #13

I drink tons of water, I try and drink my 32 oz bottle once an hour when I'm working. I feel more productive for two reasons because I do this: 1. I'm not dehydrated, 2. it forces me to get up to use the restroom a lot more than usual. This forces me to have lots of mini breaks almost every hour or so to walk and fill up my bottle and use the restroom.

That seems like way too much water and surely bad for your kidneys.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#58

Post by o10449366 »

hanniabu wrote: post #31
trillic wrote: post #13

I drink tons of water, I try and drink my 32 oz bottle once an hour when I'm working. I feel more productive for two reasons because I do this: 1. I'm not dehydrated, 2. it forces me to get up to use the restroom a lot more than usual. This forces me to have lots of mini breaks almost every hour or so to walk and fill up my bottle and use the restroom.

I have never gone to the doctor for this, but I'm pretty sure I have ADD and funnily enough I think I am able to concentrate way better when I'm dehydrated. Being on an empty stomach also seems to help. Anybody know if there's an scientific reason for this?

That's interesting that you mention that. I have ADD and I've taken Adderall for most of my life to treat it. One of Adderall's most common side effects is suppression of the appetite. On the days I don't take it I also feel like I'm able to concentrate way better when I'm dehydrated and my stomach is empty. I've always figured that's just because my body has adjusted to the side effects of Adderall after many years, but I'd be curious if there's any research that associates a lack of gut activity with higher concentration because I feel the exact same as you.

Re: Want to learn a new skill? Take some short breaks

#60

Post by chimpburger »

trillic wrote: post #13

I drink tons of water, I try and drink my 32 oz bottle once an hour when I'm working. I feel more productive for two reasons because I do this: 1. I'm not dehydrated, 2. it forces me to get up to use the restroom a lot more than usual. This forces me to have lots of mini breaks almost every hour or so to walk and fill up my bottle and use the restroom.

Dangerous. You can die from water intoxication. It is an extremely painful way to die. Brain swells and is crushed by your skull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
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