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Published Sep 22, 2018

50. How To Think Faster

Louisa Nicola delves into neuroscience techniques for boosting cognitive speed, offering practical advice on using vitamin D, repetition, and exercise to enhance thinking efficiency. She provides strategies for athletes and professionals to improve mental clarity and decision-making in high-pressure situations while debunking multitasking myths and stressing quality sleep and focused tasks for superior productivity.
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  • Vitamin D

    Louisa Nicola highlights the crucial role of vitamin D in maintaining cognitive health. She explains that vitamin D helps prevent neuron loss, which is essential for cognitive function and speed. A study from Duke University supports this, showing that vitamin D supplementation strengthens neurons and supports cognition 1.

    You should all be getting sunlight about 30 minutes a day. If you go and get some actual vitamin D supplementation, you'll see that it helps you and strengthens your neural activity, your cognition, and your neurons.

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    Nicola advises regular sunlight exposure or supplementation to maintain optimal brain health 2.

       

    Repetition

    Repetition is a powerful tool for enhancing cognitive speed and learning. Louisa explains that repeating tasks strengthens neural pathways, creating a myelin sheath that facilitates faster thinking. This process is akin to practicing a math problem until it becomes second nature 3.

    Anytime you want to be able to think faster or have the ability to know something better, getting into the art of repetition pays off well.

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    She suggests applying repetition to daily activities to improve speed and efficiency in thinking.

       

    Speed Reading

    Louisa critiques the effectiveness of speed reading apps, advocating for traditional comprehension methods instead. She argues that reading a variety of materials enhances comprehension and neural network efficiency more than speed reading apps 2.

    Instead of using these speed reading apps, focus on reading comprehension, which does increase your brain's reading speed over time.

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    Reading aloud is recommended to further strengthen neural connections and improve cognitive speed.

       

    Exercise

    Exercise plays a significant role in memory consolidation and cognitive speed. Louisa suggests engaging in physical activity four hours after learning to enhance memory retention 2.

    Just raise the heart rate, get the blood flowing to the brain, to the body, and it will help you retain the information faster.

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    This practice, supported by research, helps consolidate memories in the hippocampus, improving learning efficiency.

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