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Hi this is Ray,

Currently sitting in front of a plate of holiday cookies and pretending this is “carb loading for cognitive performance.”

Today we are talking about learning and holidays.

The time of year when humans forget what day it is, wear pajamas as formal wear, and tell themselves,

“I will totally use this time to catch up on reading and courses.”

Then Netflix says hello.

But here is the good news.

If you use holidays correctly, they can supercharge your learning instead of sabotaging it.

Holidays and Learning. Why Doing Less Can Teach You More

Most people think learning is about pushing harder. more hours, more material, more coffee.

If that worked, exam week in college would have turned us into a generation of Philosopher Kings.

Instead it turned us into sleep deprived raccoons with a caffeine addiction.

Science is pretty clear.

Rest, breaks, and vacations can massively improve how much you actually remember and understand.

Let’s break down why.

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1. Rest helps your brain “save the file”

You know that moment when you finish a big learning session and your brain feels full.

That is not the time to shove in more information.

That is the time to let your brain save the file.

A series of studies on “wakeful rest” shows that taking quiet breaks after learning helps your brain consolidate memories so they last much longer. In one experiment, people who rested quietly after learning remembered more later than people who immediately did another task.

A 2019 review in Trends in Cognitive Sciences found that even short periods of waking rest after learning can strengthen new memories and support consolidation processes in the brain.

Translation into normal human language.

Study. pause. let your brain file the information instead of piling more junk on top.

Holidays give you these longer windows of rest without guilt.

You think you are “doing nothing.”

Your brain is quietly running the learning update in the background.

2. Vacations reduce stress, and stress wrecks learning

Chronic stress is like trying to study while somebody screams in your ear.

Biology wise, long term stress floods your system with glucocorticoids like cortisol. Over time, that can damage the hippocampus, the part of your brain heavily involved in learning and memory. A chapter from the book “Stress and Glucocorticoids” in the NCBI collection describes how chronic stress consistently impairs hippocampus dependent learning.

So when you try to “work through” December with zero rest, you are basically telling your brain.

“Please function at 40 percent capacity while I ignore all warning signs. thank you.”

On the flip side, research on vacations shows that time off improves health and well being.

A meta analysis led by Jessica de Bloom found that vacations temporarily increase health, reduce fatigue, and boost life satisfaction. even if some of the effects fade after a few weeks.

A 2023 Harvard Business Review article summarized newer research and concluded that vacations improve sleep quality, reduce stress, and help people return to work with more mental clarity.

Better sleep. lower stress. clearer thinking.

Your brain likes these.

And your learning likes whatever your brain likes.

3. Holidays break routine and novelty boosts learning

During holidays, your routine gets shaken up.

Different schedule, different places, different people, different foods your digestive system is confused by.

Novelty is not just fun. It is a learning accelerator.

New environments and experiences demand more attention from your brain. which can enhance cognitive flexibility and creative problem solving.

Think about it like this.

If you always sit at the same desk, with the same mug, staring at the same wall, your brain can go into autopilot.

But studying a little at your grandmother’s table. in a café. or in a quiet corner of the house with twinkly lights can make the same material feel more vivid and memorable.

Holidays naturally add this novelty. You barely have to plan it. it just happens when your uncle decides to host dinner and underestimates how much food humans can eat.

4. Reflection time turns experiences into wisdom

Most of the year you are running.

Course after course. task after task, message after message.

Very little time to ask “What did I actually learn from all this”

Metacognition is the fancy word for thinking about how you think and learn.

A 2021 paper in CBE Life Sciences Education explains that metacognition. awareness and control of your own thinking. is one of the most powerful drivers of better learning and performance.

Other teaching guides, like a 2021 article from the University of Notre Dame’s learning center, highlight that structured reflection helps students retain more, self regulate better, and make smarter choices about where to focus their effort

Holidays give you that space.

A slow walk after dinner.

A quiet morning while everyone else is asleep.

A notebook, a pen, and the question.

“What did I actually learn this year, and what do I want to learn next year”

That reflection is where learning turns from random information into a clear story about who you are becoming.

5. Social connection makes memories stickier

Even if your family gatherings look like a crossover episode between a soap opera and a cooking show, they are still doing something good for your brain.

Social interaction helps create stronger memory encoding, partly because emotions and relationships give context to what you experience.

Think about how much easier it is to remember a story somebody told at dinner compared to a random paragraph from a textbook.

Holidays are full of stories, inside jokes, and shared moments.

Your brain loves connecting those emotional hooks to the ideas you are learning.

So if you talk about what you are studying with friends or family during the holidays, even casually, you are reinforcing it.

Yes, even if your cousin responds with “Cool. but have you seen this meme?”

How to actually use holidays to learn better

Let’s get practical.

Here is how to turn the holiday season into a learning upgrade instead of a guilt spiral.

1. Stop trying to “catch up” with giant study marathons

Big cramming sessions when you are tired, full, and distracted are not heroic.

They are just inefficient.

Instead, aim for micro sessions.

Ten to twenty minutes reviewing notes, flashcards, or one key concept.

Then stop.

Short focused study plus long relaxed rest is exactly the pattern those wakeful rest studies support. Learn. Rest. Repeat.

Not learn. panic. scroll TikTok. regret.

2. Build a simple “three moments” holiday learning plan

Pick just three kinds of moments that already exist in your holidays and attach light learning to them.

For example

• First coffee or tea of the day. read one page or revisit one concept

• After lunch walk. think through one idea in your own words

• Before bed. jot down three things you learned or realized that day

That is it.

No giant syllabus. no 47 point plan.

Just three small anchors that keep your brain engaged without overwhelming it.

3. Use your best mood for your hardest topic

When you are relaxed and happy. maybe after a good meal or a fun call with friends. that is actually a great time to revisit something you find difficult.

Positive emotion is linked with dopamine, and dopamine supports learning and motivation. Several neuroscience and education reviews connect reward and positive affect with better memory and plasticity in the brain

So the next time you are warm, content, and slightly cookie powered. spend ten minutes wrestling with that topic you have been avoiding.

Your brain is in a better state to handle it.

4. Do one “year in review” learning reflection

This can be incredibly simple.

Open a blank page and answer questions like

• What did I genuinely learn this year

• What skills or topics did I start but not finish

• What do I want to be able to do by next December

• What got in the way of my learning

• What one habit would make everything easier next year

You do not need perfect answers.

Just doing the reflection puts you way ahead of “future you” who would otherwise wake up in March wondering why nothing has changed.

5. Let yourself actually rest

Look, I get it.

I am the person who once tried to “relax” on vacation by reading five business books and designing three online courses in my head.

But real rest means giving your brain clear off time.

No learning. no optimizing, no “I will just check one thing.”

Sleep.

Walk without headphones.

Stare at the ceiling.

Watch a movie without also “catching up on email.”

Those quiet gaps are exactly when, as that waking rest research shows, your brain consolidates, reorganizes, and strengthens the learning you already did.

You are not falling behind when you rest.

You are letting the work you already did finally pay off.

The holiday learning upgrade

Holidays are not a pause in your learning story.

They are a plot twist. This is the chapter where you:

• reduce stress so your brain can actually function

• consolidate all the knowledge you crammed in during the year

• see your life and goals from a higher, clearer vantage point

• reconnect with people who give your learning meaning

So this year, do not treat rest as a guilty secret.

Treat it as part of the strategy.

Learn a little.

Rest a lot.

Reflect somewhere in between.

May your cookies be plentiful and your neural pathways flexible,

Ray