Below are some resources that explain what is happening in your brain when you are learning, and how stress and sleep affect your learning. At the bottom are some mindfulness resources to help with stress.

The Brain and Learning

Myths about the Brain

First, skim through this list of myths about the brain. There is no such thing as right-brained or left-brained people, for example, or that you only use 10% of your brain.

What Happens in the Brain when You Learn

There are two primary systems in the brain involved with learning: the hippocampus and the neocortex. See below for a description of some of the key concepts involved in neural learning.

Hippocampus

This is a little horseshoe shaped area in the middle of your brain. It is the only area of the brain where you continue to grown brain cells (neurons) throughout your life.

This area is associated with things like short term memory and spatial navigation. A study found, for example, that taxi drivers in London each had a bigger hippocampus than normal. People who experienced extended periods of high stress had a reduced hippocampus.

The hippocampus stores short-term memories of specific events. They start to decay within minutes or hours.

Neocortex

The neocortex is the outer part of the brain, the "gray matter." There are multiple cortices like the visual cortex, the motor cortex, and the frontal lobes, etc.

This is where long-term memories are stored and where higher-order thinking and reasoning occurs.

The Neuron

We each have around 100 billion neurons, each with on average around 10,000 dendrites connecting them (via synapses), for a total of 1000 trillion (quadrillion) connections, which is more than the known starts in the universe.

Synaptic Plasticity

This is strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections and growth or pruning of dendrites based on activity.

Memory Consolidation

This is how short-term memories of events and experiences stored in the hippocampus become permanently stored in the neocortex.

The neocortex requests 'replays' of events from the hippocampus. Synaptic connections in the neocortex are activated and strengthened or weakened, changing long-term memory.

Recall and Recognition

Recalling something from memory is an effortful process that uses the neocortex. It is often hard to remember something you learned in class, but that is actually a good thing. That effort is engaging more of your neocortex. The issue is, you need to practice this hard recall BEFORE the real test. You don't want to have to just hope that you will be able to remember during the real test.

Recognizing something that you see in front of you is more automatic and perceptual and may use more of the hippocampus.

You will engage and strengthen your long-term memory more by practicing recall instead of recognition. Don't just look at a problem solution and think that you have learned it or think that you will recognize it during a test. Practice it yourself with recall and test yourself, just like you will be tested for real.

It's also important to get feedback on your recall, because when we recall something, we don't simply remember that something, we remember remembering it. Which is why memories are easily distorted. If you don't get feedback, you might assume that your recall was correct when there might be a mistake - in effect creating false memories.

Sleep, Health, and Learning

Lack of sleep impairs your cognitive functions and your immune system. It impairs your reasoning abilities and your attention to detail.

You should try to get 7.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep every night.

“individuals who obtained fewer than 7 hours of sleep per night were about three times as likely to catch a cold than individuals getting 8 or more hours of sleep” (Britz & Pappas, 2010).

Sleep and the Brain

During sleep, two things are happening in the brain: memory consolidation (see previous section) and the flushing of toxins from the brain.

Sleep and the Flushing of Toxins

Throughout the day, toxins build up in your brain as part of the normal metabolic cellular processes. These toxins build up and make it harder and harder to concentrate, to focus, and so forth. This is why your head might feel a little cloudy after a long day or when staying up late or cramming for a test.

The only thing that can clear those toxins is to sleep. Try taking a quick nap if it isn't bedtime yet. Try just closing your eyes for a while.

See How Sleep Clears the Brain for more information.

Sleep and Memory Consolidation

When you sleep, your brain is making long-term memory connections in the brain. Your brain is replaying events from the day before, which strengthens synaptic connections in the cortex. Sleep helps you remember things better and longer.

See Sleep's memory role discovered and Sleep and memory.

Stress, Health, and Learning

Stress releases a hormone called cortisol, which damages the hippocampus (dendritic spines disintegrate rapidly), where we store short term memories.

See How Stress Affects the Brain During Learning and the Effects of stress on memory for more information.

Please also see this handout on Stress and the College Student and infographic for tips on handling stress.

Changing Your Beliefs about Stress

Your beliefs about stress may affect you more than the stress itself. See this video:

Mindfulness Techniques to Help Cope with Stress

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Another thing you can do to reduce stress is to practice mindfulness techniques.

It can be as little as stopping for a few seconds now and then to pause and reflect:

See also this longer raisin meditation activity, as well as the activities in this Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course and this self-assessment of mindfulness skills.