How To Use The Unconscious Mind For Studying

Imagine that there is a test tomorrow that you didn’t study anything for. You have one day to study as much as possible so you decide to do as much as you can and see where it goes. After that, you go through the material and then test yourself to see what you remember. You find that there is too much material to go through and focus on getting the best result possible.

After studying most of the day, you are still not satisfied. You have two options:

1. study more through the night and go to the test half-asleep (or half-awake if you prefer that)
2. judge that more sleep gives you better chances of remembering what you studied

So which option to choose and what does this even have to do with the unconscious mind in the first place?

I am sure all of us had that one (hopefully not more) test which we didn’t start preparing for until the day before the test (if you haven’t, lucky you).

For the first question, I would choose option number 2, and not because I like to sleep (ok maybe I like sleeping a bit more than others, nothing wrong with that). Let me explain:

Throughout the day, while we are awake our brains produce toxins which impede our ability to learn new things. We can still learn, but the longer we are awake, the more toxins we have which means we remember less and less of the material we studied.

Since I chose option 2, you can probably guess that sleeping helps our brain to clear toxins we accumulate during the day, while awake. So if you plan to study a lot in one day, having a 15-minute nap isn’t a bad idea.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that this is enough and then cut your sleep in half to study more!

It is really important that you get a good night of sleep before the test so that your brain has an easier time retrieving the information needed for the test.

Except for this “cleaning of the brain” sleep has another useful function for us. During sleep your unconscious mind starts connecting what you studied during the day with your previous experiences by creating neural patterns. If you studied some material and after sleeping you found that it is easier to remember, this is the reason why.

If this was my first time reading this information, I would start thinking about how I could just start alternating between studying and sleeping (but mostly sleeping) for the whole day. But, you don’t need to do this (please don’t do this, you will ruin your sleep schedule, although one nap in the middle of the day is fine).

There is an easier way to use your unconscious mind for studying. You can “send” the material you are learning to your unconscious mind. But, before I explain how to do that, let me explain how the unconscious mind works.

There are commands that our unconscious mind gives to our body, which we have no control over (mostly the ones that help us to survive). But some of those commands can be given by our conscious brain as well. Here is an example:

Blinking and breathing are usually done by the unconscious mind, but when you start thinking about them your conscious brain is now in charge of those two things as long as they stay there.

Just by reading this sentence, you started to consciously blink and breathe, right? (sorry if you are feeling uncomfortable, it will pass in a short while). Our conscious brain has a much smaller capacity to hold information than our unconscious brain. So, if we put enough information in our brain we can push the information we learn while studying into our unconscious brain.

And the way to do that? Just think of something else.

I am serious. When you are studying something you tend to be really focused on understanding and remembering the material. This is called the focused mode of thinking(see what I did there). You use things you previously learned, and with that, you try to learn something new.

However, you are only using the conscious brain for that. There is much more information in the unconscious brain and the information is more scattered, so making connections there is easier. If you take a break from studying and do something else (while not thinking of the material you studied) your unconscious brain will start processing the material you just studied.

This is called the diffuse mode of thinking.

I think it would be better to see this as a picture, so here is a masterpiece I drew for you.

What can you see in this picture?

The first thing that comes to mind, are my amazing drawing skills (thank you for your praise). After that, we can see the conscious brain and the unconscious mind.

On the left side, we can see that the circles are close one to another, and only the circles in the upper part are connected. This represents the focused mode of thinking. We can quickly go through the information that we have and find the best way to solve some problems.

The thinking here is very focused, ideal for solving problems you already solved, or know how to solve.

But, what if you are dealing with something you haven’t done before (like studying a new material)?

If that is the case, you can turn to a diffuse mode of thinking. You can see that on the right side of the picture, the circles are spread out. This means your brain can make more new connections, which makes you think of things you haven’t thought of before.

You can say that the thinking process here is all over the place, which is ideal in a situation where you are trying to solve a problem you haven’t done before (or study something you haven’t studied before).

If you want to try using diffuse mode, but don’t know when to take a break, or how to distract yourself from thinking about the material, you can try the Pomodoro technique.

The Pomodoro technique consists of these five steps:

1. Pick a material you want (more like have to) to study
2. Set a timer to 25 minutes
3. Study until the timer hits zero
4. Take a 5-minute break
5. Repeat

After going through 4 cycles you can take a 15-minute break, and then start from the beginning again.

This is the Pomodoro technique explained in the simplest way (although, the full explanation isn’t that much different, since this is a simple technique in the first place). If you want to learn how to take full advantage of the Pomodoro technique, you can read more about it here.

Rather than explaining the whole technique here, I will focus on the most important part for entering diffuse mode, the fourth step.

Entering diffuse mode isn’t as simple as just taking a break and thinking about something different, but it is the fastest way to use some power of the diffuse method of thinking. To use its full power, you might have to enter that state between being awake, but nearly asleep at the same time.

I don’t recommend this way of doing things (mainly, because if you are not careful you will fall asleep and ruin your day), but if you want to you can give it a try.

The most effective way to enter the diffuse mode of thinking, that I have found is walking (I know, anticlimactic, right?). But after taking that brief 5-minute walk, and going back to studying, I have found the material easier to understand.

The connections I didn’t have started to form, and material that seemed so hard a few minutes ago, became much easier.

Diffuse mode of thinking isn’t some magical pill that can help you learn new material instantly.

At the end of the day, you will still have to study the material to make use of the diffuse mode.

And, most importantly, you will need at least some understanding of the material.

How else are you meant to rely on your unconscious mind, if you do not even understand what you are learning?

Remember:

There are two modes of thinking that our brain uses: focused mode and diffuse mode.

Focused mode of thinking is best used for solving problems we already know how to solve.

Diffuse mode of thinking is best used for solving new problems we haven’t done before.

Sleeping is important because it clears out toxins your brain accumulates throughout the day, making it easier to remember what you studied.

During sleep your unconscious mind starts connecting what you studied during the day with your previous experiences by creating neural patterns.

* * * * *

By the way, If you are still wondering how this has anything to do with studying the day before the test, let me tell you now.

If you haven’t already studied for the test, and you have one day to do so, being able to use more of your brain power can increase the chances you succeed (I hope you don’t get in this situation in the first place, but if you did I wish you good luck 😃).