3 Ways Repetition Reshapes Your Brain and Helps You Learn New Skills
Neuroscience says heavy repetition and making errors is the key to learning.
We’ve all been there: we get a bright idea, decide we want to build on it, and take the first steps toward learning something new. Then, we realize the learning is more difficult than we thought it would be. We skip a practice session, then another. Sometimes we get angry and throw things (hopefully not). Sometimes, we abandon the project completely. Every once in a while we wonder “what if I’d really learned that? How good could I have been?”
Learning new skills and concepts can be a struggle. No matter how excited we initially are about learning something new, it’s sometimes hard to follow through.
It’s a terrible feeling to wonder “what if?” In the face of a seemingly insurmountable new task, how can we push through the tediousness and maintain interest when the learning process loses its luster?
The latest neuroscience has the answers.
The key to learning is brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to modify and rewire itself. Like plastic, it can be molded and shaped to fit our needs. While it’s much easier to reshape the brain when we’re children, adults can do it too — if certain key parameters are met.
Repetition is the main key. That may sound obvious, but there are particular aspects of repetition that are essential to learning and are not widely known.
Here’s three ways heavy repetition reshapes your brain, helps you learn, and can put you on the path to meeting your goals.
The More Times You Repeat A New Task, The More Times You Fail — And Failing Is The Key To Learning.
It seems counterintuitive — how can repeatedly failing help you learn a new skill? As it turns out, failing is absolutely necessary to getting good at everything we do.
Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., a Stanford neuroscientist, professor, and host of the Huberman Lab podcast, says “The way to create plasticity is to send signals to the brain that something is wrong, something is different, and something isn’t being achieved.”
And how can that help? Huberman says that when you make mistakes, “certain neurochemicals are deployed that signal the neural circuits that they have to change.” Dopamine, acetylcholine and epinephrine are the main neurochemicals involved. All facilitate learning.
When you make a frustrating error, your brain focuses and pays more attention. It has a natural inclination to fix the error, to clean things up. When you hit the wrong key on a piano or string on a guitar, sing off-key, miss a free throw, or fail to remember the speech you’re trying to memorize — your brain springs into action, releasing the chemicals that promote learning.
The best thing you can do when you mess up? Keep going. Repeat. Play the music sequence again, attempt the high note again, figure out why you missed the free throw and keep shooting. Look at the speech again, and then keep trying to memorize it. Keep repeating the task until you feel like you need a break. And don’t get down on yourself for making errors.
Says Huberman, “making errors over and over again is the route to shaping your nervous system so that it performs better and better…failing repetitively, as well as telling ourselves that those failures are good for learning and good for us…accelerates plasticity.”
Imagine that — making errors is not just good, it’s great. It’s the first step in getting better. If you quit and walk away instead of repeating the task, your brain will get the signal that the task is not very important.
A crucial note: Huberman says that the brain is more suited to incremental learning rather than long sessions that can exhaust you. For instance, it’s easier for your brain to learn if you practice for 2 hours per day for 5 days, rather than trying to learn for 10 straight hours in one day.
What You Repeat Gets Mapped Onto Your Brain
“What you spend your time on changes your brain,” says David Eagleman, another Stanford neuroscientist and professor. Read that sentence again, slowly — what you spend your time on changes your brain. It’s a very powerful fact.
In his new book Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, Eagleman says “neural networks appear settled only because every region is trapped in a cold war, tightly wound, ready to compete for the future borders of the internal globe.” In other words, the different regions of your brain are competing for space — and whatever you give your focus to takes up that space.
If you want to develop a skill, give it as much attention as you can, and give less attention to things that aren’t as important to you.
Eagleman also points out that massive amounts of repetition cause the new skill to be burned into the “unconscious circuitry” of the brain. In Livewired, he describes a study which compared the use of conscious and subconscious circuitry in soccer player’s brains.
The study found that during competition, the elite players use far more subconscious circuitry than amateur players. Amateur players used far more conscious circuitry than elite players.
The better you are at something, the less you have to consciously think about technical details while performing. This leaves the conscious circuitry open to focus on advancing to higher levels and achieving expertise.
But there’s one caveat, says Eagleman — achieving expertise requires a strong desire to achieve expertise.
If you’re repeating a task that you don’t really enjoy, you won’t get much better at it, because your brain won’t release the motivational and reward-associated chemicals required to make changes. You must be passionate and driven towards your objective in order to achieve a high level of competency.
Another important note is that without positive feedback, rewards, or incentives for getting better, the brain won’t reorganize itself as effectively. “Reward is a powerful way to rewire the brain…change is tied to anything that is relevant to our goals,” says Eagleman. “When a task is roughly aligned with our larger goals, our brain circuitry comes to reflect it.”
In order to achieve highly, your repetition must be goal-based, you must receive positive feedback on your progress, and you must be committed, passionate, and ambitious.
Learning a New Skill Makes It Easier To Learn Other New Skills
Once you spend time repeating the same thing over and over until it’s burned into your brain, your ability to focus increases — your brain has been rewired. When you see progress in one area, you’ll realize that you can apply the same tactics to learning other things.
You’ll also learn that the process of learning can be just as rewarding as the final product, if not more so.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones writes, “when you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running.”
Far too often we become obsessed with the end product and don’t take the time to truly experience and enjoy the process of learning itself — the glory, toil, strife and grandeur of the venture. There is beauty and prestige in the act of simply putting the work in.
The more you learn to enjoy the process of learning, and of failing and making mistakes, the more you’ll want to attempt new endeavors. Your newfound abilities of concentration and acceptance can be applied to anything you want to learn.
Summary
At the outset of learning a new skill, you can now expect a few things: it will require many hours of repetition and concentration, mistakes will be made, and the mistakes are good for you. Knowing this in advance can help you accept and tolerate those mistakes. You’ll be prepared to learn anything.
We’re all born with gifts and abilities, but it’s what we choose to spend our time on that determines what we excel at. Showing up, making mistakes, correcting those mistakes, and repeating this sequence over and over and over again is the best way to learn the skills that will enhance our lives.
