Practice
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A: What is practice?
B: Practice is the repetition of an action with the goal of improvement. It helps us perform with more ease, speed, and confidence
A: What does practice do in our brains to make us better at things?
B: Our brains have two kinds of neuron tissue: gray matter and white matter. The gray matter processes information in the brain, directing signals and sensory stimuli to nerve cells. White matter is mostly made up of fatty tissue and nerve fibers. In order for our bodies to move, information needs to travel from the brainâs gray matter down the spinal core through a chain of nerve fibers called axons to our muscles
A: I still donât understand. How does practice or repetition affect the inner workings of our brains?
B: Itâs a little bit complicated. The axons that exist in the white matter are wrapped with a fatty substance called myelin. This myelin covering, or sheath, seems to change with practice. Myelin is similar to insulation on electrical cables. It prevents energy loss from electrical signals that the brain uses, moving them more efficiently along neural pathways. The repetition of a physical motion increases the layers of myelin sheath that insulate the axons. The more layers, the greater the insulation around the axons changes, forming a super highway for information connecting your brain to your muscles
A: So the more I practice, the faster and more efficient neural pathways. But how much should I practice?
B: There are many theories that attempt to quantify the number of hours, days, and even years of practice that it takes to master a skill. While we donât yet have a magic number, we do know that mastery isnât simply about the amount of hours of practice. Itâs also the quality and effectiveness of that practice
A: What do you mean by âquality and effectivenessâ?
B: Effective practice is consistent, intensively focused, and targets content or weaknesses that lie at the edge of oneâs current abilities
A: So, if effective practice is the key, how can I get the most out of my practice time?
B: You should focus on the task at hand, and minimize potential distractions by turning off the computer or TV and putting your cellphone on airplane mode. You could start out slowly or in slow motion. Coordination is built with repetitions, whether correct or incorrect. If you gradually increase the speed of the quality repetitions, you have a better chance of doing them correctly.
A: Do I have to do it all day?
B: No. You should divide your practice time into multiple sessions of limited duration with breaks between each session.
A: Okay. I get it
B: And there is one more tip
A: What is that?
B: Practice in your brain in vivid detail. Once a physical motion has been established. It can be reinforced just by imaging it