Make Mistakes to Learn Better And The Role That Neurotransmitter Acetylcholine Plays in Learning

From 15 min 10 seconds...
Next, we have mistakes, and I know making mistakes is terrifying.
It is really scary, but there's a biological reason behind that.
So that feeling of anxiety and stress you get when you make a mistake, it serves a really important purpose.
So when you make a mistake, what happens is you're releasing neuromodulators like Acetylcholine.
And you're getting increased activity in your focused attention networks.
And that increase in attention and that feeling of anxiety serves a really important purpose.
It's basically saying to us "Hey, you made a mistake. You need to change and do better and become more efficient."
And it's opening up this window for neuroplasticity.
So, whatever happens next, your brain is ready to take in.
Now, if you make a mistake and you feel a bit anxious and you walk away, well: 
A: you're not going to learn that thing, 
B: well you're actually learning to be less able to cope with failure.

Here's what you should do.

You should set yourself up for a little bit of failure, right?
Quiz yourself on that topic as you go. Don't wait until you're ready.
If you're learning something - for example, soccer - don't just kick it straight at the goal.
Change the angle. Make it more difficult, so you make mistakes.
Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you have a go, because at the end of the day if you make a mistake, you'll be releasing neuromodulators that improve your attention. And if you get it right, you'll be releasing things like dopamine in your reward circuits, which makes you feel good, which makes you feel more motivated and consolidates the learning of the thing that you just did correctly, right?

So that's why turning our learning into a bit of a game can work so well. It's a bit of a win-win situation for our brain either way, right?
So when you make a mistake, you know, don't view that anxiety as a bad thing.
Lean into that feeling and keep going because it's really your brain's way of helping you be your best.
It's helping you be better than the person that you were yesterday.    

Tags: Psychology,Behavioral Science,