How can I learn the fastest?

Most of us aren’t taught how to learn and study.  The goal here is to use behavioral strategies along with neuroscience to help you get the most out of your time spent studying.  All these tips have a lot of research behind them.  Using these methods, you can spend less effort and still get a greater reward for your time. 

Tips for Studying and Learning

First off, we have food.  You must be eating and fueling yourself well.  In fact, you should consider eating snacks and extra calories if you are pushing yourself to study a lot.  Your brain burns a ton of calories processing and coding information.  I recommend having a meal higher in fat and protein a few hours before your exam time.

As a bonus tip, try not to study right after a big meal.  Your body will be spending lots of energy digesting, so you can take a break and come back after a couple of hours when energy can be more efficiently put into your studies.

Before jumping into specifics, there are five golden rules to apply.  Prioritize your sleep.  It’s where almost all learning happens. 

• Sleep - Take naps after studying if you can.  And certainly, sleep at night.  Although you can succeed pulling an all-nighter, it’s far from the best path. 

• Study When You’re Focused – reflect on when you can focus best and have this be your primary study time; As soon as you feel that you’ve lost your ability to be sharp/you are at about 70% of your focus, take a break.  Grab a snack.  Take a walk.  Get some coffee.  Trust me, grinding when you can barely focus is not worth your time and will burn you out.

• Split Up Your Learning – by studying in smaller chunks, you will dramatically increase the efficiency of your time and the length at which the information will be stored.

• Exercise – studying after cardiovascular exercise has been proven to provide a major boost to focus, learning, and recall (for high intensity exercise:  10 – 15min, medium intensity exercise: 30 min, low intensity exercise: 45 – 60 minutes).

• Play – there are powerful studies highlighting that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.  Use this knowledge alongside the other golden rules to make yourself a powerful learner.

There are lots of different ways to study.  They are not all created equal.  Simply re-reading material and looking at PowerPoints is awful.  It’s not engaging, and it doesn’t help us retain the information very well at all. 

Here are a few ways to study that stand out above the rest.  These include practice tests, sample problems, and flash cards.  Fortunately, you are in an era where there are wonderful tools you can use to help you quiz yourself. 

These tools will help give you immediate feedback which helps with motivation, and they can be shared amongst friends to boost your learning together. 

Practice Tests and Sample Problems – If it’s a topic like math, there are likely already great practice exams that you can find by Googling the topic you are currently on.  If you are struggling with knowing how to do certain problems, KhanAcademy.com is a tremendous free resource with individual guides for so many subjects.

If you have a mess of PowerPoints or typed notes, you can use different AI programs to organize them into various practice tests which you can then take and retake until you get a perfect score.  Again, pacing the time for which you take these tests will help your memory of them.  QuizBot.AI is a helpful tool.  Time and greed may make these resources less valuable over time.  So, don’t be afraid to search for new ones if the ones I listed are no longer helpful.

Flash Cards – Although effective, flash cards can be extremely time consuming to make.  Tools like Anki are wonderful to save time (Apps.AnkiWeb.net).  On the website, you can flashcards that individuals already made that you can then use or you can make your own.  I strongly recommend using an AI to make the cards.

Bonus Tip: Connecting information with what you already know will help you remember it far faster

Retrieval practice – This happens when attempting to recall that information from memory.  This is something that is naturally built into practice tests, but you can reflect on what you’ve studied when walking or doing basic tasks and it will help your memory of what you’ve studied too. 

Successive relearning – There is no denying that repetition is key when it comes to learning.  Repeating what you’ve learned and how you study numerous times and at different times of the day greatly improves learning.  Don’t be afraid to retake practice tests and ask an AI program to make new tests for you if needed.

There is solid research supporting the following supplements: L-Theanine paired with caffeine (do not go over 200mg of caffeine), bacopa monnieri (herb), L-Tyrosine, and Fish Oil.  If you decide to buy a study pill, it’s likely going to be called a neurotropic.  Do your research if it has much support behind it.  Lastly, be sure to check with your physician to see if any of these supplements may suit you. 

Random Breaks:  using something to take random breaks like RandomTimerGenerator.com is a wonderful way to boost your learning.  The goal is to do nothing for 30 seconds.  Simply breathe when the timer goes off.  Your brain will be coding lots of information you just studied into your memory

Focus tips: As highlighted earlier, focus is essential. Having a specific spot or spots to study in your home can help a lot for building more consistent focus.  For example, having an area of your room that you sit down in (not your bed) and you only turn on this one lamp when you study will help you create habits for studying and even turning on that lamp will create focus.  If this spot is only used for studying, even better. 

Especially for those of us with ADHD, background music without vocals can help greatly. Videogame music or binaural beats are a great place to start.  However, if you can’t listen to music when taking your exam, try to only listen to the music if you need a boost in focus.

Manipulating your environment can make a major difference too.  Study in the same spot that you will be taking the test if possible or in an environment that is as similar as possible.  This is not as major as of the other tips, but it is notable all same.

Confidence: Reminding yourself that you are capable and reminding yourself that you are capable of success will help more than you know.  Reversely, believing you will fail will make a dramatic difference on your efforts beforehand and even during the exams.

I invite you to praise or criticize your efforts rather than your intelligence.  Praising or criticizing efforts increases your performance and doing so to your intelligence actively hurts your performance. 

Lastly, there are three wonderful ways to increase your chance of creating action and sticking with that behavior.  In our case, we will use studying. 

·        Think on the different ways you could study (e.g., with a friend, practice tests)

·        Consider the possible outcomes of your efforts

·        After your exams, reflect on what went well and what didn’t.  Use that learning to help yourself take better actions next time.

Written by Dr. Luke Bieber on June 27, 2025