Essentials: How to Learn Skills Faster

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health and performance.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. Today, we're going to talk about and focus on skill learning. We are going to focus on how to learn skills more quickly, in particular motor skills. So if you're interested in how to perform better, whether or not it's dance or yoga or even something that's just very repetitive, like running or swimming, this podcast episode is for you. We're going to go deep into the science of skill learning, and we are going to talk about very specific protocols that the science points to and has verified allow you to learn more quickly to embed that learning so that you remember it and to be able to build up skills more quickly than you would otherwise. Let's talk about the acquisition of new skills. These could be skills such as a golf swing or a tennis swing, or you're shooting free throws or you're learning to dance or you're learning an instrument. I'm mainly going to focus on athletic performance. There are basically two types of skills, open loop and closed loop. Open loop skills are skills where you perform some sort of motor action and then you wait and you get immediate feedback as to whether or not it was done correctly or not. A good example will be throwing darts at a dart board. So if you throw the dart, you get feedback about whether or not you hit the bullseye. That's open loop. Closed loop would be something that's more continuous. So let's say you're a runner and you're starting to do some speed work and some sprints and you're running and you can kind of feel whether or not you're running correctly or maybe even have a coach and they're correcting your stride. That's closed loop because as you go, you can adjust your behavior and you can adjust the distance of your steps or you can adjust your speed or you can adjust your posture, you're getting feedback on a moment to moment basis. There are essentially three components of any skill that involves motor movement. And those are sensory perception, actually perceiving what you are doing and what's happening around you. Then there are the actual movements. And then there's something called proprioception. And proprioception is often discussed as kind of a sixth sense of knowing where your limbs are in relation to your body. Now, skill learning has a lot of other dimensions too. But those are the main ones that we're going to focus on. So anytime we learn something, we have to decide, is it open loop or closed loop? The second question should be, what should I focus my attention on? Auditory attention, visual attention, or proprioception? Should I focus on where my limbs are relative to my body or should I focus on the outcome? Okay, this is a critical distinction. You can decide to learn how to do a golf swing or a dance tango and decide that you are going to focus on the movements of your partner or the positions of your feet, or maybe you're going to sense the position and posture of your body, which is more proprioceptive. Okay, so you have to allocate your attention and I'm going to tell you how to allocate your attention best in order to learn faster. So these are the sorts of decisions that you have to make. So we can really simplify things now. I've given you a lot of information, but we can simplify it. Basically, open loop or closed loop, that's one question. And what am I going to focus on? And then your neurology will take care of the rest. I'd like to take a quick break and thank one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium and potassium in the correct ratios, but no sugar. We should all know that proper hydration is critical for optimal brain and body function. In fact, even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance to a considerable degree. It's also important that you're not just hydrated, but that you get adequate amounts of electrolytes in the right ratios. Drinking a packet of Element dissolved in water makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate amounts of hydration and electrolytes. To make sure that I'm getting proper amounts of both, I dissolve one packet of Element in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I wake up in the morning, and I drink that basically first thing in the morning. I'll also drink a packet of Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. There are a bunch of different great tasting flavors of Element. I like the watermelon. I like the raspberry. I like the citrus. Basically, I like all of them. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to www.drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim an Element sample pack with the purchase of any Element drink mix. Again, that's Drink Element spelled LMNT. So it's www.drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. So now I want to talk about realistic expectations.