Optimal Protocols for Studying & Learning

The episode opens with the host, who introduces himself as Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine, setting out the topic: what scientific data say about the best way to study so that information is remembered and can be used effectively. The intended audience is broad. It includes students at any stage of school and also people outside formal education who are learning from the internet, podcasts or other sources.

The central warning comes early. The host says the best learning practices are not intuitive, and tells listeners to

keep in mind that whatever you believe about how best to learn for you is probably incorrect.

The host presents this as a personal lesson too. Despite years as a student and current teaching of medical, graduate and undergraduate students at Stanford, the host says the literature was humbling and states that "most of what we believe about the best ways to study are absolutely false." The claimed basis is a research literature going back well over 100 years, where education, psychology and neuroscience have come together to define study strategies. The host also states that the podcast is separate from the Stanford teaching and research roles.

Before the main material, the episode runs sponsor reads for Eight Sleep, BetterHelp and Waking Up. The Eight Sleep read includes the claim that body temperature has to drop by about one to three degrees to fall and stay deeply asleep, and rise by about one to three degrees to wake refreshed. It also mentions tracking of slow-wave and rapid eye movement sleep, a discount of $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra, and shipping to the USA, Canada, the UK, select EU countries and Australia. The host says they have slept on the product for well over three years.

In the BetterHelp read, the host reports doing weekly therapy for well over 30 years, initially as a condition of being allowed to stay in school. The host lists three things good therapy provides: rapport with someone you can trust, support in the form of emotional support or directed guidance, and insights. The Waking Up read says the host began meditating at about age 15 and asserts there are thousands of peer-reviewed studies on mindfulness meditation for focus, stress and anxiety, and mood. It also describes yoga nidra, or non-sleep deep rest, done for about 10 or 20 minutes. The offers are 10% off a first month of therapy and a free 30-day app trial.

The main discussion begins by naming common preferences: learning by reading, studying in a group, highlighting, or identifying as an auditory or visual learner. The host claims that when one looks at the research on preferred learning styles, "pretty much all of that melts away." On this account, the best way to study is defined by whether it engages memory systems that counteract forgetting, and the medium matters much less: audio or visual, slides, textbook or short videos. This part of the episode asserts the research conclusion without naming specific studies.

The host calls this the theme that will recur throughout the episode:

Rather than think about studying to learn and retain information, I want you to think about studying to offset the natural process of forgetting that everybody experiences when they are exposed to new material of any kind

The framing applies across cognitive and motor learning, music and math. The host describes the goal as trying to "inoculate against forgetting" and promises to explain how using data from the peer-reviewed literature.

The host offers a short primer on neuroplasticity, described as the ability of the nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord, to change in response to experience. Any form of learning involves it. At the cellular level the change generally involves three mechanisms. The first is strengthening of synaptic connections. Synapses are the points where neurons communicate across a gap, technically the synaptic cleft, through chemicals that can activate or inhibit other neurons. The second is weakening of connections. The third is neurogenesis, the addition of new neurons.

The host plays down neurogenesis. It gets heavy media attention, but the host says it is very rare, especially in the adult human nervous system, and accounts for "a near trivial amount" of the plasticity relevant here. New neurons do appear to be added throughout life in two specialized places: the olfactory bulb, which handles smell, and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, a memory-related area. Even so, the host says the major mechanism of human learning and memory is strengthening, weakening or forming connections between neurons that already exist.

A key point is that weakening is not inherently bad. People tend to equate weaker connections with forgetting or a worse brain. The host argues instead that much of the plasticity behind acquiring a new motor skill reflects removal of connections, and that neither strengthening nor weakening maps directly onto forming or losing particular memories. The example is a child's motor development. A baby of around nine months eats far less precisely than the same child at six or seven, or as an adolescent. The host says this improvement, in humans and other species, largely reflects removal of neural connections, with the remaining connections becoming more robust and reliable.

The host then interrupts with a two-question quiz on the material just covered. Listeners are asked how many mechanisms of neuroplasticity there are and to name two of the three. Answers stay private, which the host frames as a way to avoid the stress a test can bring on. The answer: strengthening of connections, weakening of connections, and neurogenesis.

The host says getting the answer wrong is fine and is even useful. Recognizing errors in what you retained is described as another way to retain more, "especially if you got the answer wrong or you didn't know." The quiz was meant to model what the research recommends overall: stopping periodically to test yourself on what you have learned.

Testing is not just a way of evaluating what knowledge you've acquired and which knowledge you have not managed to acquire. It also turns out to be the best tool for offsetting forgetting of any kind

In this part of the episode the supporting data for this claim are promised "in a moment" but not yet presented. The host also says there will be no formal test at the end, and promises a free, fast tool at the close of the episode for evaluating one's own knowledge and ability to study.

Turning to practice, the host describes converting study into retained knowledge as a two-step process. Step one is what is often called active engagement, which the host calls "a fancy set of words for focus." Focus requires alertness. The act of focusing and attending is described as a cue to the nervous system, at the level of neurochemicals, that something is important and that neurons will need to change their connections so the information can be used later.

Asked what to take to learn better, the host's answer is a good night's sleep the night before and limiting external stress. That comes with a qualification. Some stress is described as good because it increases alertness and can help certain things be remembered, and the host notes that no one can remove all stress. The firmer claim is that alertness and focus will be greater after good sleep. The host calls sleep "without question, the best nootropic" while saying they dislike the term "smart drug," because learning also involves attention, creativity and flexibility with ideas.