Accelerate Learning & Increase Cognitive Capacity | Dr. Tommy Wood

Thank you for watching this episode with Dr Tommy Wood. Please click the subscribe tab and then the "bell" icon to subscribe to our channel here on YouTube and get notified when new content is posted. And thank you for your interest in science! -- Andrew

Key Takeaways 1. Adult brains remain plastic by strengthening, weakening, and pruning neural connections. 2. Maintaining familiar activities preserves existing abilities; learning unfamiliar skills builds new capacity. 3. Choose activities that are challenging, complex, and slightly beyond your current ability. 4. High-value examples include dancing, martial arts, ball sports, learning an instrument, languages, and visual arts. 5. Crosswords and Sudoku have limited transfer once they become familiar and comfortable. 6. Mistakes, discomfort, and feeling like a beginner are necessary parts of learning. 7. Flow expresses an existing skill; effortful “clutch states” are often better for developing that skill. 8. Expect roughly one-third of practice sessions to feel good, one-third average, and one-third bad. 9. Structure difficult practice as 60–90-minute sessions containing focused 20–30-minute blocks and short breaks. 10. Remove distractions completely—especially by putting your phone in another room. 11. Use undistracted downtime, walks, or showers to let information integrate and ideas emerge. 12. Before learning, 20–30 minutes of moderate cardio or resistance training can improve alertness and focus. 13. Avoid exhausting workouts immediately before difficult cognitive work. 14. Combine cardiovascular and resistance training: - Cardio especially supports the hippocampus, gray matter, and memory. - Resistance training especially supports white matter and executive function. - Periodic high-intensity exercise may produce additional long-term brain benefits. 15. Acute, recoverable stress drives adaptation; continuous stress without recovery is harmful. 16. Protect sleep. Consistently getting fewer than roughly six hours is associated with increased cognitive risk. 17. Eat enough—but not chronically excessive—calories from mostly nutrient-dense whole foods. 18. Prevent nutrient deficiencies, particularly vitamin D, iron, omega-3s, B vitamins, and magnesium. 19. Test and correct deficiencies when practical; taking more after reaching sufficiency may provide no additional benefit. 20. Creatine has relatively strong safety evidence, while most fashionable peptides lack adequate human safety and efficacy data. 21. Reduce dementia risk by managing blood pressure, diabetes, LDL, hearing and vision loss, physical inactivity, social isolation, and head injuries. 22. After a concussion, seek medical evaluation, avoid overheating and alcohol, protect sleep, and resume activity gradually under appropriate guidance. 23. The simplest operating rule: **regularly attempt something difficult, accept being bad at it, exercise both your cardiovascular and muscular systems, recover properly, and repeat.**

For me, and many people growing up in our current societies conforming was the rule not the exception. All the challenges I have pursued have been to overcome the limitations both internally and externally imposed by the rigidity of culture and gender. From my point of view having persisted, I can easily say, I have made it on all fronts. Everything about my life is better. This video validates not giving up on myself, by going against comfort. The reward has been the effort. I am 70. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood!

Amazing. A podcast which I was looking for, actually found today. Whenever I try to study, learn something new I get distracted. This podcast helped me to learn more especially about how to keep our brain young and sharp by knowing what are clutch and flow states. I learned to focus more on clutch state by training my brain with novel and challenging tasks rather to perform the things I am mastered in. Thanks for such a great podcast.

Pre-reading is a game changer... Everyone is smarter when they have seen the material before.

Nothing like learning a musical instrument. I can practice a difficult part for days and not get it but after I put it down for a few days it comes right away. Obviously my brain adapting and learning. I get easily into a flow state at home but during performance unfortunately I can only maintain a clutch state so anxiety inhibits that. Also, during practice the strangest thoughts or memories will pop into my mind and I have to consciously let go of them just as in meditation. With virtuosity one can confidently take risks and that's when excellent improvisation can occur.

When Hubberman shares learning, it's time for me to apply my previous learning skills acquired from him to compound my learning abilities. Thanks for sharing as always.

I want to report the miracle that when I started resistance training in my mid-40s, about two or three years ago, I couldn't focus long enough to even keep track of the count of my reps through a set, even just 10 reps. I lost count all the time. This is totally not a problem now. It feels like a combination of nutrition and supplementation, resistance training, and consistent cognitive challenge as a biostatistician, but there is an obvious and marked difference in my cognitive capacity now compared to 3 years ago. It's such a blessing. I also have to acknowledge the role that your podcast has played, Andrew. Such high quality conversations and guests, like this one have given me so many ideas to try. Thank you!

Banger after banger lately!

I am Very Excited to have your book come in, thank you for your work sir. 🎉 🙏