How to make difficult concepts easy to gulp like a cup of a tea?

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I know we all have been through this phase—too many concepts, a pile of books, and an ocean-like syllabus where just eating a loaf of bread like Nobita to memorize concepts doesn’t work.

I am going to share a few interesting techniques from my experience that helped me remember difficult and numerous concepts from the vast syllabus of medical subjects.

  1. Involve your senses

Good memorization demands full attention. That’s the reason movies and lyrics of songs stay with you for so long.

To stay attentive while studying, make use of a number of senses, like using hands to make notes; eyes to study through or make diagrams, mind maps, or flowcharts; and ears to listen to the teacher in the class and both eyes and ears to watch YouTube videos of your topic.

This technique helps as it increases the efficacy of memorization, as a large part of your brain is actively involved.

  1. Teach the topic

Teach the topic to someone. Let me tell you how it helps:

  • You try to simplify a complex topic to explain it to someone.

  • You identify your knowledge gap about the concept.

  • Teaching makes the concept stay with you.

Bonus tip—if you don’t have someone to teach, use your teddy bear as a person or just turn on your camera and teach.

  1. Connect with real world

One thing I love about medical subjects is all the concepts we study are real, not fictional or just theoretical. So, study them by connecting the topic with the real world.

  • It makes you familiar with the topic practically too, not just theoretically.

  • It makes the subject interesting for you.

  • Our brain remembers more of the knowledge that comes into use.

e.g., to remember drug names from pharmacology, I checked for the medications at my home, like my grandpa has heart disease, so it helped me remember the names of beta-blockers, diuretics, and blood thinners for longer.

  1. Give time

    As relationships and people need time to be understood, a subject or a topic also needs time.

  • Study the topic patiently even if you study one topic a day.
  • Read or revise it again, as with the number of readings, your understanding about the topic gradually improves, and slowly even a difficult topic will become familiar to you.

So, just gamify the process of studying by figuring out techniques that make studying, understanding, and memorization easier for you.

Do share your thoughts below on what technique you liked from the above, and also share what works for you to make studying easy-peasy :smiley:.

MBH/PS

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I particularly liked your point about gamifying the process. Medicine is often taught with such gravity that we forget that curiosity and play are the fastest ways to learn. Turning a study session into a “teaching performance” or a “real-world scavenger hunt” for drugs in a medicine cabinet removes the “chore” aspect of studying.

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Yeah, retention automatically follows curiosity and eliminates the perception of studying as a chore.

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Teaching a topic truly exposes gaps you didn’t even know existed painful but powerful

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Yeah, one of the study methods that polishes your concepts.

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I personally have tried and used teaching as a technique as well as connecting with real world. Recently attended a seminar on using games in medical education. That can also be tried for the future generations I think.

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Yes, I personally feel study shouldn’t be a burden but an interesting process to learn maybe through games.

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You have given excellent tips. And from trial and error only we can select the one that works best for us.

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Thank you ma’am for your feedback.

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Such practical tips. In medicine, explaining concepts and connecting them to real-life cases makes retention so much stronger. Definitely trying some of these methods.

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Glad you liked the tips explained by me. Thank you for reading.

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I agree, the 4th point worked for me I do it many times.

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I mostly try to teach the concepts out loud, like I am giving a TED talk. This forces me to paraphrase the text in my own words, thereby increasing my retention and deepening my understanding.

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Smart method Shalom. It increases attention via active use of senses and helps with understanding and memorization.

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4th point is one of the most important that one should always remember.
Patience is the key.
Even if you read gamify the process. Still without patience you’ll not able to learn. Cos everything in life takes time, not only studies but career also.
Also one of the method i like to use and tried many times is studying musically.
Finding patterns and relating it to music and rhythm that’s it starts to get easy and fun

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I really liked the technique of teaching the topic. Teaching the topic is very good because when we try to teach something to someone, we understand the topic more clearly ourselves. This is helpful for making things simpler, finding out what we do not know about the topic, and remembering things for a long time. Teaching the topic makes us learn actively, which is better than reading the topic. Teaching the topic is stronger than reading about the topic because teaching the topic helps us learn the topic.

What works for me to make studying easy is active recall and revision. After studying a topic, I try to close the book and recall the important points. Revising the topic multiple times also makes it more familiar and easier to remember. Connecting concepts to real-life examples also helps in better understanding and retention.

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Rightly said, Yash, the learning process takes patience. And thank you for adding one more technique, ‘music,’ to the list.

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Teaching others strengthened retention and revealed my knowledge gaps.

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Yes, Neha, undoubtedly teaching is the best method for deepening your understanding.

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For me its always connecting it to reality .when studying the drugs pharmacology i personally read it by comparing how it actually works in our body. Connecting things with the real life process makes the topic easy and more understandable.

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