Have you ever tried putting together a new appliance or using one for the first time without checking the instructions?

For simple items like plugging in a toaster or a new microwave, it might be easy enough.

But say you got yourself a new fancy smartphone, and you’ve charged it and switched it on, ready to go. It has so many apps and functions, but you really only use it to make calls, text, check your socials and take pictures.

You have an excellent smartphone, but you’re probably not using it to its full potential because you’re unaware of all of its functionalities and how it does its job best.

This might mean you end up wasting important functionalities like having a portable schedule keeping you on track all the time or syncing your device with a fitness tracker to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Learning without knowing how your brain works best is like that. You might be struggling with aspects of work or school because you are unaware of the best brain strategies for the task at hand.

The truth is, there is no such thing as a bad or poor learner.

There are only learners with untrained brains – those who have the potential to tap into their brain’s abilities, but don’t possess the strategies.

You might be thinking, “Well, I’ve come this far without needing to know explicitly how my brain works. How would knowing about the science of it help me?”

That’s what I’m here to tell you about today! Knowing how your brain learns empowers you in your learning, work, self-esteem, confidence, and many other aspects of your present and future.

The benefit is knowing in advance you’ll be successful because you have this understanding. Plus, you’ll shave hours off of learning tasks and improve your productivity!

It can quite literally transform your life!

1. Master Any Skill and Know How to Excel at Any Topic

2. Improve Your Productivity and Enjoy More Free Time

3. Achieve Better Brain Health and Longevity

3 Reasons You Need to Know How Your Brain Works

1. Master Any Skill and Know How to Excel at Any Topic

There is no such thing as being “bad” in a subject, you’re just untrained and your results are inconsistent without knowing how your brain learns.

Whether you’re a student or a professional, knowing how your brain works gives you the blueprint for success in any new learning scenario.

Have you ever wondered why you might be good at certain topics or skills, but not at others?

It’s not because you’re bad at a specific topic, subject or skill – you just don’t have the strategies that help you master it yet.

And isn’t it a waste that you could be performing so much better in specific subjects or tasks, and the only thing holding you back is not knowing how your brain works?

When you are learning in school (and this sets you up for the rest of your life), there is often a mismatch between how you learn and how you’re tested.

Here’s why that matters. Knowing how you learn best and how the testing system is set up allows you to match the two for the ultimate learning success.

Everyone prefers, in different percentages, the three main learning styles – visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

(Take the FREE Learning Styles Quiz on the home page at HowtoLearn.com)

According to numerous brain studies, visual learners, who learn by automatically converting what they’re learning into mental movies in their heads, and process visual information like text, diagrams, charts and graphs better, are at an advantage in school.

Visual memory in images occurs 60,000 times faster than recalling words, so when it comes to written tests, those images translate more quickly into the words you’ll need, and your memory is faster.

But this does not mean auditory learners, who learn and retain better through what they hear, and kinesthetic learners, who learn better by doing and engaging physically with their environment, can’t succeed in school.

All you need is to figure out the strengths of your learning style combinations and add on some other visual learning strategies in what is called cross-modal learning.

This is something I go into detail about in my course, Total Recall Learning: How to Learn Anything 100% Faster.

With the learning style, cross modality, faster reading and memory tools inside this course, you can go into any learning situation, and quickly master it because you have a blueprint and master plan for success.

You’ll be able to quickly match how you learn to how you’re tested.

I’ve watched these strategies transform the grades of students who were barely passing to scoring As and high Bs in the subjects they used to dread!

And the advantages of learning how to learn best aren’t only limited to school.

People have made huge gains in their careers because they could master new information in half the time, too.

Career Benefits of Knowing How Your Brain Learns

In 2020, LinkedIn listed adaptability, the ability of employees to learn on the go and adapt to new work demands quickly and efficiently, as one of the top 5 soft skills companies seek in the workforce.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Future of Jobs report in 2018, an estimated 75 million jobs are expected to be displaced by new technology by next year.

Meanwhile, over 130 million new jobs are expected to arise because of the same emerging technologies.

In the same report, the WEF estimates that by 2021, over half of the global workforce will have to either upskill (advance their current skillset) or reskill (adopt an entirely new skillset) to meet the changing demands of their fields.

To stay recession-proof in a workforce that is changing drastically every single day, the most important skill a 21st century employee can possess is knowing how to learn.

When you know how your brain works, you know how you can use these strategies to pick up any skill as and when needed.

This gives you a massive advantage in the 21st century workforce, which is evolving so quickly that to keep up and get ahead, you’re also going to need to evolve and transform your skillset when needed.

2. Improve Your Productivity and Enjoy More Free Time

Knowing how your brain works lets you massively improve your own productivity and efficiency.

If you know how to access motivation on-demand, and focus whenever you need to, can you imagine how much faster and more efficient you’ll be at learning and at work?

How would that enhance your performance, and open up your prospects for career growth or exceptional academic success?

What opportunities would this open up for you in the future?

For instance, did you know that you can regulate your dopamine, one of the chemical messengers that regulates your motivation and mood, to keep yourself motivated throughout the day?

Dopamine is the secret behind the sense of reward you experience when you accomplish something – this could be anything from learning something new to getting a promotion or a raise.

You feel really satisfied and pleased with yourself after something you’ve worked hard on turns out well, right?

It makes you want to try it again – you want to continue learning new things or continue impressing your bosses for more recognition of your hard work and abilities.

This happens because when you accomplish something, your brain experiences a dopamine spike, its reward pathways (also known as the mesolimbic pathways) lighting up.

Your brain enjoys this sensation of reward and satisfaction so much it craves more of it, motivating you to keep doing what you did to unlock that sensation in the first place.

In anticipation of that sense of reward, your brain releases more dopamine, even before you’ve completed the task – this is the secret to motivation.

So how can you use this to stay motivated throughout your learning and your workdays?

There are plenty of brain hacks you can use to keep your dopamine at healthy levels.

From maintaining a balanced diet with sufficient amounts of the amino acid l-tyrosine which helps your body create dopamine, to breaking big tasks down to a series of smaller tasks, I cover plenty of these science-backed strategies in Total Recall Learning!

Dopamine can also help boost your focus, along with strategies like chunking your study or work sessions to 20-to-25-minute long sessions.

This is a neuroscience-backed method of better learning, memory, focus and productivity!

Hermann Ebbinghaus demonstrates in his Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting how you tend to remember more of what you did at the beginning and at the end of your learning session.

The longer the gap between this beginning (primacy) and the end (recency), the more you’re likely to forget.

This is because the type of memory you’re using when you’re focusing on learning something in the present is temporary.

Once this working memory gets overwhelmed, you tend to grow distracted, unable to absorb anything new or concentrate, and lose some of what you already learned.

Taking short, 5-minute breaks in between every 25 minutes of working or learning helps restore your working memory, and also gives your brain time to go over what you learned and consolidate it in your long-term memory.

Total Recall Learning covers many more strategies which are simple but effective and will become second nature with enough practice, to help you double your learning speed and memory!

And the more productive and efficient you become, the more free time you get to enjoy, which is always a plus!

3. Achieve Better Brain Health and Longevity

Knowing how your brain works best also allows you to take care of it better, and make sure your brain continues functioning perfectly in the long run.

For instance, did you know that your brain is capable of limitless learning thanks to something called its neuroplasticity?

Your brain learns by making connections between its brain cells or neurons, and the more new connections you create and (this part is important) maintain, the sharper, better and faster the overall functioning of your brain.

Continuous and brain-friendly learning throughout your life has been proven by scientists to improve and sustain memory into your old age, reducing chances of cognitive decline from conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Meanwhile, knowing how your brain works best enables you to keep learning and experiencing new things throughout your life.

Knowing how your brain works best can also help you make the right lifestyle decisions for your overall brain and body health.

For instance, despite the short-term dopamine spikes you might enjoy from sugary or greasy foods, in the long-term they cause dopamine crashes and can damage your brain’s health and ability to learn.

Not getting enough sleep, meanwhile, damages your brain’s ability to create long-term memory, can worsen feelings of anxiety and stress, and create brain waste that causes brain fog and problems with concentrating.

Often, you might be making lifestyle choices not understanding their long-term impact on your brain and body.

But knowing what makes your brain run smoothly and efficiently helps you look after yourself and your ability to keep learning and growing throughout life!

Have I convinced you, with these 3 reasons you need to know how your brain works, to pick up your user manual for your brain today?

Check out Total Recall Learning for more science-backed strategies on how your brain learns best!

Pat Wyman is the CEO of HowtoLearn.com and an internationally noted brain coach known as America’s Most Trusted Learning Expert.

Pat’s superpower is helping people learn, read and remember everything faster. She has helped over half a million people in schools and corporations such as Microsoft, Intel and Google improve their lives with her learning strategies, learning styles inventory and courses, such as Total Recall Learning™. Use coupon code LEARNMUCHFASTER to make the course $27 today! Save $70!

Pat is the best-selling author of more than 15 books, a university instructor, mom and golden retriever lover!

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