Perfecting new skills

Learning new speech patterns, myelination, white matter, speech skills, speech super highways, speech skills, myelin coated axons, improving speech, speech habits, practise makes perfect, the more you practise the better you get, learning to speak more clearly, practising how to speak clearly, muscle memoryHow can we speak more clearly?

How quickly can you pick up a new skill? Have you ever tried juggling? Juggling demands a series of highly complex coordinated muscle movements to be carried out within a short space of time. 

 A new skill, like speaking more clearly, takes three important stages to master.

A new skill which many of our clients want is the skill of speaking clearly. Learning the skill of speaking more clearly is similar to learning a new skill like juggling. It involves new muscles being activated and used in a series of subtle, highly coordinated movements. 

This new set of extremely complex learning comes in three stages. 

The first stage is called the cognitive stage. We watch and listen, then hesitantly, start to practise. 

Learning any skill takes a lot of practice. To begin with, lots of different parts of our brain have to communicate with each other and form a network, whether for juggling or speaking more clearly. Without this new network in place, we feel clumsy and uncoordinated. 

However, after repeating exercises a number of times, we edge towards the second stage of learning, where the practice starts to pay off. 

As long as you know in your mind what you need to do, you can visualise it, then it is a matter of practising over and over again to perfect the skill. Improving your clarity of speech relies on using the tongue, lips, teeth and soft palate in a highly coordinated way. You speak more clearly when your articulators are moving and connecting in the right way.

Information gathered through the setbacks is used to refine our movements as it is fed back to the brain and then as we practise the skill over and over, the network is tweaked and perfected. Until something remarkable happens. 

Our brains begin to use a messaging shortcut to use every time we practise speaking using a new speech pattern. With enough hard work, practice and perseverance, something magical happens. 

That new brain network is in place and we reach the third stage of learning, where the skill becomes effortless. This is sometimes known as muscle memory. 

The key to making a skill effortless is “white matter” in our brains and as we grow older, there is less of it. Learning as we grow older is not impossible, just harder. 

We now know that to master a new skill, we literally need to change the physical structure of our brains. The way this happens is that as a new skill is practised, the pathways (or axons) that are used most often to perform the new skill slowly start to transform.

The increased activity in these pathways, attracts the attention of cells called oligodendrocytes. These oligodendrocytes wrap their branch-like extensions around the pathway, or axon, and build a myelin sheath. This, is white matter. This myelination increases the speed of the electrical signal sent along the pathway, transmitting information 100 times faster. 

And it is this process that creates the sense of everything clicking into place. Once these pathways in the brain have become myelin coated super-highways, a new skill will feel effortless. This is how perseverance in practising new speech patterns, to make your speech clearer, will pay off. 

And the latest research has shown how critical myelination is to learning. Even as an adult, we can’t master a new skill without it. 

It’s the same process that has helped us to walk, to write, to read; activities that now feel second nature. 

We all have these superhighways, even if making new ones as we get older is a bit more of a challenge. With a good coach, a good model and good feedback, your speech, your clarity and your articulation can improve noticeably as your practice creates more white matter in your brain. 

With practice, clear speech can replace mumbling; confidence can replace nervousness; impact can replace mediocracy to really boost your presentation skills.  

For more information, get in touch. 

This month’s newsletter was inspired by the BBC’s documentary series The Human Body: Secrets of Your Life Revealed

Voice Synergy – it’s all about clarity, confidence and impact