Relax Rest and LEARN ENGLISH

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. Relax. Rest. And learn English. Learn to speak English fluently and powerfully and effortlessly.

In a relaxed way. And that's our topic today. Why relaxing and specifically how to relax and how to rest while you learn English. To get the best results and why this is in fact a much better way.

than getting stressed, than doing too much at one time. So relax, rest, and learn to speak English is our topic today. And it comes from, again, the same book that I did last time. I'm going to be talking about another technique from the book.

And the book is called The Book of Talent. The Book of Talent. It's the same writer that wrote The Talent Code. The Book of Talent, 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills.

So this writer studied how do we, like humans, how do we learn new skills? How do we improve new skills, new abilities? He looked at sports, he looked at music, and also things like language and music.

All the different coaching methods and learning methods and practice methods, brain studies, and what are different techniques. There's not just one. There's not just one way. There are lots of different things that are effective, that work.

And many of them are different than the normal traditional ways that we learn, that we practice. So today we're talking about the importance of resting and relaxing and taking breaks and why this can actually help you learn faster and better.

So as always, go to my website, effortlessenglishclub.com. Join my VIP program. Now's a good time to join my VIP program. Become a member and make a push now.

We're in October. We've got a few more months. You can make big progress in the next few months. So you start the new year strong. Don't wait until new year.

Start now. And make a big strong push in the fall, in the winter, if you're in the north. And you can really make a big strong push and still improve your English speaking a lot this year. You still have a few months left, a couple months.

So join my VIP program. Go over to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com is my website. All right, let's read the section from this book.

One second. Actually, I'm going to check something real quick. Got to look at something. Sorry, guys. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Okay. All right. Here we go.

All right. From the book. Here we go. Let's read. I'm going to read this. So it's tip number 35 from this book. And... It says, use the 3x10 technique.

Now, we might have to modify this for language learning a little bit, but the basic idea will still work. It says, this piece of advice comes from Dr. Douglas Fields. That's his name. He's a neurologist at the National Institute of Health, whatever, in Bethesda.

Okay, so a neurologist is a doctor who studies... basically the brain and the nervous system, right? Neuro-nerves is connected to the word nerves, neurologist, typically brain and the nervous system.

And this guy specifically researches memory and learning. Okay, so Dr. Douglas Fields, who researches memory and learning, he discovered that our brains make stronger connections...

when they are stimulated three times with a rest period of ten minutes between each stimulation. Aha! Real-world translation. So here's how we use it in the real world.

To learn something most effectively, practice it three times with ten-minute breaks in between. Interesting. Ten minute breaks. And the guy says, this doctor, neurologist says, I apply this, I use this all the time in my own life, and it works.

For example, music. In mastering a difficult piece of music on the guitar, I practice, then I do something else for ten minutes, then I practice again, and so on.

Okay, so this is very simple. And this is something you can definitely use with English, right? So, you practice something. So, for example, a mini story.

You could take something from my lessons, okay? So, you join the VIP program and you get several kinds of lessons. You have a mini story. You might have a point of view story.

You might have a main audio, right? And you might have a commentary. Well, you just take one of those and you listen to it. So that might be 15 minutes, might be 20 minutes maximum.

And then what do you do? Do you immediately then do the next lesson? So maybe you do the main lesson. Do you then immediately go to the mini story? No.

Take a 10-minute break first. Take a 10-minute break. Then do the next one. then take a 10-minute break, then do the next one. So in other words, you're always taking these 10-minute breaks in between so that your learning time, your listening time, your study time, maybe it's listening, maybe it's reading, maybe you're reviewing vocabulary, whatever you're doing, you do it 15 to 20 minutes, something like that, then you take a 10-minute break, at least 10 minutes.

You could take longer, but at least 10 minutes. Then you do it again. So you're taking constant breaks. You're constantly giving your brain, your nervous system, yourself, breaks, little breaks.

Because why does this work? Because our brains can only handle so much, right? Just like that if you do, if you listen to a lot of English, right? Especially if it's a little difficult or there's new words in there, new phrases, new pronunciation, something.

that's new or difficult or challenging, then it takes energy. You need to concentrate. That takes energy, mental energy, possibly emotional energy, especially with effortless English because I always tell you when you're doing your lessons to have your shoulders back, your head up, using good energy, walking around, using a loud voice when you answer the questions in the mini-stories.

So you're using energy. mental and physical and emotional energy, as you are learning, as you are practicing. That's good, but you can't do that forever, right? Because you do that maybe 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and then your energy will start to drop, right?

Your concentration will drop. It's natural. It happens. We're human, and it's very difficult to have 100% concentration, 100% energy, for you know one hour two hours three hours it's hard to keep doing that right so what do we do we take a lot of breaks you take a lot of breaks 10 minutes 15 minutes 20 minutes or maybe longer and then you come back and then you practice more because now your energy will go back up again right so you listen to a lesson

Then you take a 10-minute break. Do something else. Don't think about English at all. You could just take a little micro nap, a little mini small nap.

You could do anything. Go get some food. Do a little bit of exercise, jumping around. Watch a YouTube video about some completely different topic. Anything you want, just not English learning.

Okay? Something totally different. Then come back to it and do it again. Listen to more English. Or read. Or study. Then take another break. And then you could do this all day.

And by doing this with all these little small breaks, you can actually do a lot more during the day. Your total English time for the day will be much higher.

Much better than if you just try to do it constantly with no breaks. If you try with no breaks, just one hour, two hours, three hours, you'll start to get tired. Maybe you can do it. Maybe you're doing three hours.

But the truth is, your concentration will not be great. Your energy will drop and yeah, you're listening to English, but you're not really focusing so much. You're not focusing as much. Your concentration is not as good

It's better to take these breaks. It's kind of like weightlifting. Any of you who lifted weights or who do lift weights or do strength exercise, you know it's the same idea, right? You don't just keep lifting weights for like five hours, right, with no break.

You can't do it. To do that, you have to have such a low weight that basically you're not lifting weights at all and you're not really working. Then you're just doing something that's just endurance only.

Not really going to make your muscles stronger by doing that. To make your muscles stronger, you have to do something that's a little bit hard, maybe very hard, very, very difficult, and then you take a break. You have a rest, possibly a very long rest, and then you do some more that's kind of difficult, and then a long rest again, right?

So, if you want to do something for a long time, you want to listen to English for a long time, it needs to be something very, very easy. Something very, very easy. If there's something very, very, very easy for you, then yes, you could do three, four hours a day, five hours a day with no breaks, if it's very easy. Because your brain doesn't, you don't need much energy, because you already understand everything.

But if you're trying something that's a little difficult, that's new, you're working on something that maybe is a little difficult for you, maybe you're trying to improve your pronunciation, for example, then you need breaks. And you need lots of breaks. Lots and lots of breaks.

At least 10 minutes long each time. Now, I do this with jiu-jitsu all the time. And even... I'm not talking about difficult training. I'm talking about just watching videos.

So I watch a lot of jiu-jitsu videos, right? for techniques, new techniques. But the problem is that there's, again, it's a lot of information. So maybe I'm trying to do a new jiu-jitsu technique.

I'm trying to learn it. And it's actually quite difficult learning new techniques in jiu-jitsu. For me, at least, it's difficult. Because, you know, first I have to remember the whole thing.

Sometimes it's complicated. There are lots of little details. Then I need to be able to actually remember it when I'm actually fighting. And I need to be able to remember it very fast when I'm fighting.

It's very similar to English speaking, right? You... have to learn a new word but you have to remember that word very fast in a conversation right maybe you can in your house alone you can remember the new word oh I remember it you can think about it oh yeah I remember that word I know what it means in English

But then when you're talking to someone, it's all happening very fast. You hear it. The person keeps talking. So it has to be instant. It has to be so fast that you hear the word and understand it or where you remember the word and use it in the middle of a conversation.

That's much more difficult, right? So it's quite similar to jiu-jitsu where I'm fighting. And I'm trying to remember a new technique and use it. And the other person is trying to stop me from doing it.

So it's hard to do. And I need lots and lots of repetition. But if I find, if I just watch videos, like I could watch three hours of jujitsu videos. I mean, and sometimes I do at night.

But three hours with no break... It's just all this information, new techniques, new techniques, new techniques, and I find the next day I can't remember any of it. It's too much. So what do I do?

What I do is I watch... I'll focus on one position, maybe one technique, and I'll watch a video. Maybe I'll watch it two times, three times. That's maybe 20 minutes, right?

And then I will, I force myself, I take a break, so then I go watch a video about something totally different. Right? Just, you know, maybe I'll listen to a music video or I, you know, I'll watch a little bit of a movie or something like that, right? Something that's not jujitsu at all.

It's nothing about jujitsu. Or I read an article. I'll go read a blog or read a website. Or I just get up and I go into the other room and do something.

And then I come back and then I'll watch the jujitsu video again. And then I'll take another break and do something totally different that's not Jiu-Jitsu at all. Don't think about Jiu-Jitsu. And I'll just keep alternating.

And when I do that, I find that I actually will remember more of the technique and possibly even remember it the next day when I'm fighting and can at least try to do it. I don't usually do it perfectly. But I might at least remember the basic idea and enough to try it the next day.

So those breaks help a lot. They really help a lot. If you don't take breaks, there's too much coming in and your brain doesn't really remember much of it or use much of it. So the idea is you're kind of alternating.

I did this even as a runner when I was, this is one technique that you can use to increase your long distance running, like marathon, or especially ultra marathon if you're trying to go very long distances.

If you're trying to go very long distances running, just to run and run and run for three, four, five hours or more with no break, it's very, very tough on your body. It's too tough.

You know, you can do it during a race one time, but to do it in training... Every week, it will destroy your body. It will destroy your knees. It will destroy your body.

So what do you do? This is what runners do when you do long runs. Typically, I don't know about professionals, but normal people like us, you take breaks. So you jog, you run for, let's say, five minutes.

And then you do this on your watch. I used to do this. So I would do different times. But... I found for me five minutes worked well. So I would jog or run five minutes.

And then my watch would go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And then I would stop and walk for one minute. And then I would jog for five minutes, walk for one minute. And I did that.

I alternated. So jog or run five minutes, walk one minute. Five minutes running, one minute walking. And I would do that for hours. I think the longest I did was...

I think I did a five-hour run or six-hour run in San Francisco one time. But it was that system, right? Just running six hours without any walking break, that's really, really, really, really, really rough. Again, possibly elite, top, top guys maybe can do that, but most normal people.

you need to take those breaks. And it will help you then increase your overall distance and running a lot. It really will help your fitness and your endurance. So this works in sports and it works in just normal things like just mental activities like studying English or learning anything else.

So take lots of breaks. Take breaks. Take breaks. And when you take a break, do something totally different. Don't think about the topic don't think about it during your break so if you're doing English learning during your break don't think about English do something totally different like I think if you're doing something mental like English learning then your break you could do something physical like jog or do some physical exercise

Or you can just do the opposite. You could just lie down and take a little small nap, or you could meditate or do some chanting or something. But the point is, during your 10-minute break or more, you can do longer breaks are fine, but during your break, no English, don't think about English, don't think about what you were doing. Try to totally give your mind, your brain, a break.

Alright, let's get into our questions and comments. So it's very simple. That's it today. Nothing too complicated. Nothing hard to do. It's a very simple technique.

It's very simple. But again, it works. A lot of times these simple things can be very helpful. Because I'll have people say, Hey Jay, I recommend one or two hours a day of English.

Usually two if you can do it. And people say, Well, how can I do it? Oh, it's hard to do. Well, it's hard to do all of it at one time. But if you take lots of breaks...

It's much easier to do. And you can do this. You can take a very long break. You could do 30 minutes in the morning and then go off to work or school or whatever and then do 30 minutes in the afternoon.

So you might take a several hours break and then do 30 minutes in the early evening and 30 minutes before bed. That would be two hours in one day and your breaks might be several hours in between. It's much easier to do that.

Much easier to do. And more effective. You'll actually remember more if you do it that way. All right, let's get into our questions and comments now. We're live on YouTube as usual.

Fernando Diaz, good to see you. He says, I just returned from a 10-day vacation. Welcome back, Fernando. And then Roberto Sotelo says, Thank you, teacher.

You help me a lot. I follow your advice every day. Thank you. And he's in California. Do breathing. Yes, someone says, a French perfume says do breathing.

You could do breathing, right? You could do just meditate during your 10 minutes, right? That would work because meditation, the idea is to calm your mind, clear your mind, focus on something very simple like just breathing or chanting something.

And that would work on it. That would be a great break. That would be a great thing to do during your break. So you listen to English, then you just meditate for 10 minutes.

Then you listen to English, then you meditate. Or you could do some yoga or something. Anything. Just not English. Anna Grigoreva says, Rest is an extremely important part of our life.

If we neglect it, it'll be terrible. Yeah, and it is. It's easy to, especially people who are very, very motivated, right? You're really excited. You're really focused to improve.

So we get an idea that, oh, we'll just do more, more, more, more, more, and it's easy to forget about rest. And this can be a problem because you can avoid rest for a while, and it seems like you're making progress. But eventually, if you don't rest enough, it will slow your progress. It will slow your improvement.

And, of course, in physical exercise... you will often get injured. This is where injuries can come from. A lot of injuries come from not enough rest.

You're doing too much physical exercise, and you're not resting enough, you're not resting enough, you're not recovering enough, and then eventually you'll start to have problems. I've had to do this just myself, in fact. I started a new exercise routine, some strength workouts, But I'm also doing jujitsu.

And I found the last couple of weeks it was a little too much. I'm starting to get tired. I could just start to tell that day by day I was getting more tired, more tired. I'm not recovering fast enough.

So I realize I'm not quitting the strength exercise, but I need to do less. Less often, more rest days. So now I'm cutting it back. I'm making it easier.

And I'm going to put in more rest days. And I'm taking actually one full week. I'm not going to do it at all. Just to let my body kind of try to recover and get back.

So you've got to feel. And this happens mentally also when you're doing too much mentally. you'll find that mentally you notice just you're mentally getting tired, your motivation is dropping, it's harder to concentrate, you're not enjoying it as much. That's a sign to rest more, take more rest breaks.

Elder Bozorov says, when I listen to something, I always show myself with action. This is great. Then I get it. If I do this way, I can focus on listening.

Then I don't feel sad. Good. Yes, exactly. So taking action right away is very important when you do something like this. Yeah, Anna follows up. She says, when we need to find some sources, we need to find some sources of energy or you will burn out completely.

She says, I'm taking care of my babies now. It's extremely important to find sources of energy. And you understand. I do understand. She says, like, sometimes I just open my window and take a deep breath.

Right. So exactly right. So this is a good point, like parenting. She's got two small children. I have two small children as well. And that's exactly right.

I love my children. It's wonderful. But they take a lot of energy. So yes, we need these little breaks. Like for me, this is a good example, right? For me, jiu-jitsu is a break with my kids, right?

Because they're totally different activities, very different. So even though jiu-jitsu, I'm exercising hard and working hard, and it's very physical, but it gives me a mental break from being with my children all day, every day, which can take a lot of energy with two toddlers, twin toddlers.

And, of course, if I was just exercising, my kids also are a break from jiu-jitsu, right? So you switch the activity and do something very different, and it can help. And this is why combining things, too, helps. That's why when I tell people, like, when you're listening to English, go outside and go for a walk.

Do something physical. Because that physical movement will actually help your brain and your concentrations. They kind of balance each other, right? When you're doing something that's very mentally difficult, like learning a language, then...

Combine it with something physical, either at the same time or alternate, right? So you could do the same time, go out for a walk while you listen to English, or listen to English, then do some, you know, lift some weights. Then listen to English, then lift some weights. Then listen to English, then lift some weights.

So you could do like a whole, maybe you already go to the gym or you have some kind of strength workout or some kind of tough workout you do. Well, you could do, you could alternate them like that.

It'll take you longer to do your workout, but you probably have a better workout and you'll learn better English as well. So I find that combining physical activities with mental activities is very helpful.

donelson says yes should we take a deep we should take a deep breath deep breathing is all yeah great that's another thing you could do if you don't want to do like full meditation just during your breaks take those nice long deep breaths you could follow some sort of system like uh wim hof teaches wim hof teaches you know a

You know, like you count to four as you breathe in, and then you hold your breath for four, and then you breathe out for four. Right? You can do something like that.

Some people call that box breathing. It's a kind of meditation. It's also just a form of deep breathing. It will calm your mind and relax your body also.

Great. And French breathing. Perfume is the title. Profile has the same suggestion. Deep breathing. Yeah, Fernando Diaz says, I discovered that a 20-minute nap is very powerful when I want to energize my brain before trying something.

Talent is created by repetition, but also by some resting. Excellent, excellent point. And yes, this is very good. You know, sometimes when we're tired, could be mentally tired, physically tired, low motivation, low energy,

you know, we often, me too, we have this idea, oh, I got to energize myself, I'm going to jump around, I'm going to drink some coffee, I'm going to exercise, like I'm going to push myself, but sometimes just letting yourself completely collapse and lose all your energy, right, go the other way, and just go to sleep and take a nap, take a

True, deep rest. But just like 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, you can set a timer, right? So you're not sleeping all day. Sometimes that is actually what you need more than immediately trying to energize.

Instead of immediately trying to force yourself to be energetic, let yourself just pass out. You know, take a little nap. and then wake up, and then energize yourself, and you often find that that helps a lot, I didn't used to do that, when I was younger, I never did that, but I do that, especially now with kids, I do that, sometimes with the kids, I find my inner, I mean, I'm just so tired, and I think I should drink some coffee, I should jump around, and I'm like, oh, I just need, and I'll just,

I'll just fall asleep on the living room floor, on the floor. The kids are running around me. And then I'll just wake up like 20 minutes later. And sometimes it's not even fully asleep.

I'm kind of half asleep. But then I feel much better. And then I can get energized again and feel much better. It's really good advice. I was just saying, too, that...

A lot of high-level athletes do this also, like really top athletes. I remember reading about some of the very highest-level long-distance runners from, I can't remember if it was Kenya or Ethiopia, one of those two countries. A lot of great runners come from there. But this guy, this American guy, went and he trained with them.

So this is like Olympic-level marathon runners, the very highest-level guys. and he wanted to see, like, what do they do? Is it just genetics, or did they train differently? And he found that one of the things that surprised him, that they did very differently compared to most other countries, is, you know, they did that kind of normal running.

You know, they went out and they trained very hard. They did long runs and fast runs and all the normal stuff that all the long-distance runners do. But what he found was that was different is they rested more

that the African runners, the East African runners, spent a lot more time napping, that after their training, they would eat and they would just pass out and they would just lay around and be very, very, very relaxed for many hours every day.

where the Americans, the Europeans would be more busy. They wouldn't do that as much. They would try to be lifting some weights or maybe just going and doing their jobs or just walking around doing normal life. But the East Africans would spend a whole lot of time napping and just sitting around and being very, very, very relaxed.

So in other words, they got a lot more rest time. compared to the Americans and the Europeans. Interesting. Oh, and then the other example, which I just heard, was that Gordon Ryan, who's the top jiu-jitsu guy right now in the world, that Gordon Ryan said that after every training session, he takes a nap.

So he goes to the gym, he practices, he trains hard, and practices his, you know, fighting. And then what does he do? You know, maybe he drinks a protein shake or something, but then he takes a nap. Immediately after, he takes a nap.

And a lot of us don't do this enough, right? That we work hard, and we kind of rest. We kind of take a break, but we don't just lie down and fall asleep for a while. And that can be very helpful for your brain and your body.

You know, it's... We're constantly, you know, focused on the work hard, do more, work hard, do more. And we probably don't pay enough attention to, we don't respect rest enough.

But it's also important. You got to do both. Of course, you don't want to be lazy. Just resting, nothing happens. I've been trying to reduce my accent.

For years, but there are some words that are just too difficult to pronounce. How do I study these difficult words? You can get my pronunciation course. Amadeus is the name of the profile.

You can certainly get my pronunciation course at effortlessenglishclub.com. That will be my quick, short answer. But the other thing is you have to practice these words individually that are hard to say, these sounds.

But then you also have to practice them in sentences, in phrases, because many times you can learn to say a word correctly by itself very slowly, right? But then when you're speaking quickly in a normal conversation, in a sentence, then you go back to your old habits. So that's one thing my pronunciation course does. It focuses on phrases and sentences, not just individual sounds.

Okay, a couple more and time to go. Anna says, before going to bed, I always turn on your podcast and listen to them until I fall asleep. I sleep while listening and relaxing. God, that's great.

Yeah, now this is a very good point from Fernando Diaz as well. And I have the same experience. He says, I also discovered if I sleep more than 35 minutes, I wake up and feel groggy. Groggy means I'm still kind of sleepy, tired.

Naps help, but we have to be aware of the sleeping cycles. Yes, and I'm sure there's something about the sleep cycle and why this happens, but that's exactly right. If your nap is too long, you will wake up and you'll feel more tired. You'll feel sleepy.

So, finding that The right amount of time is important. And exactly, you know, that's what I think too. 20 to 30 minutes usually is the amount of time that will energize you.

More than 30, 35 minutes, something more than that for most people. Everyone's different, so you have to figure out for yourself, right? But... So going too long will make you feel sleepy, and too short, then you'll get enough rest.

So it's somewhere in that 20 to 30 minutes, I find, usually is about the right amount of time for a nap to make you wake up and then you feel better. Oh, Ilana Khan, good to see you. It's good to catch you live. As for me, this technique is working good for making decisions or finding a solution.

I need to shift my focus or sleep, and then, yes, yes, and then I come up with my best ideas. This is also true, and this is kind of a very well-known thing that happens, is that you have a problem. When you're trying to do creative work, you're trying to solve a problem, or you're trying to, let's say you're trying to get a new skill, and you keep practicing it, practicing it, and you can't seem to do it. And you're practicing and you're putting so many hours, so much time trying to learn it, trying to improve or trying to solve some problem.

And then finally you just say, ah, enough. Like your brain is exhausted by this problem or by this skill. And then you just say, ah. And you sleep or you just take a break.

Maybe sometimes you take a break for a while. Like you take one week off. You take a couple weeks off and do something totally different. Don't focus on that problem at all.

Don't focus on that skill at all. And then you come back and suddenly, boom, it's like you make this huge sudden jump, this sudden improvement. Or other famous examples. You'll be in the shower and boom, this great idea pops into your head.

The solution pops into your head suddenly. But it happens when you're doing something else. And this is something with your unconscious, right? Your unconscious mind that we focus, focus, focus, focus and try and practice, practice, practice, practice, practice and think, think, think, think, think.

And then we just go away and our unconscious mind will start working on the problem while we do something else. So this can be also a very good way to do things is that you can...

You can come in and really focus a lot on something and then take a break. And then just take a break. Paolo Domi says, Hug from Brazil. I always listen to your audio podcast.

I passed the Cambridge B2 exam because of you. Awesome, Paolo. Nice speech. Amina asks, should we eat vitamins for learning English? For example, omega-3s.

Oh, well, that's a good point. Yes, omega-3s, definitely fish oil, in other words. Definitely, I think there's a lot of... Research and just examples of people who have found that it helps your brain, right?

And with babies, that's true, too. With babies and kids growing, they need omegas, omega-3s, DHA. You can research this stuff if you want to, but it certainly won't hurt. I do it.

I take it. What's the next book club? I don't know yet. I'll choose something very soon. Dovran asks, can you tell us how to be energetic always for everything?

I can't, because I'm not energetic always for everything. So I don't know. I think that's very difficult. That's a question for Tony Robbins, who seems to constantly be energetic all the time.

But who knows, because I don't know what he's like in his personal life. I think you have to choose your moments. You can't be energetic. Again, like training.

I'll just say physical training. I'll just say jujitsu because I know it. There are guys who train two times a day every day. So they're training seven days a week, two times a day.

Now, number one, a lot of these guys at the high level, the professional level, they're using steroids and other drugs to do this. So kind of cheating in a way and possibly hurting their bodies long term.

and causing health problems for when they're older. So, normal people cannot do that. Cannot train hard every single day like that. So what do they do?

Can they train every day? Yes, but they have easy days and hard days. Runners do this too. A lot of runners run every single day, but they don't run They're fastest every single day.

Okay? They have... They have all these sometimes very complicated schedules where, all right, on this day, this is an easy day. I'm going to run very slowly and walk and take lots of breaks.

This is a very light, easy day. And then the next day, I'm going to focus on speed. I'm going to run fast, but not a long distance. And that's called speed work and running.

And then another day, usually like once a week, they'll have a long run. So, okay, this day, I'm going to run for a long run. a long amount of time, a long distance, but not fast.

You know, not fast. Not their fastest. More slow for them, right? And then, of course, a lot of people just will have full rest days where they're not training every day.

They're not running every day. They'll have, you know, okay, on Mondays, I'm going to... to have a complete rest day and not do anything, not do any training at all.

And weightlifters do this as well. All athletes do this because their bodies must have rest. They can't be at top level of maximum energy all the time. You can't sustain that, right?

And I think it's true mentally too. So you need to actually, and this is also true, by the way, not just day to day, not just each week, but this is also true even for like a full year, right? Because a lot, a lot, a lot of athletes, for example, they have a season, right? Where, let's say soccer, okay?

There's a soccer season. I don't know what it is. Is it winter, I guess? Fall and winter. So they're going to, They plan their training so they have their maximum energy, right?

Their maximum ability during that season, right? When they're playing games. And then they have what's called the off season, right? That means the season's over.

And they have the off-season. And generally, they're going to train less hard. Or maybe they train hard during the off-season and they kind of build up, right? So they start off, maybe the season's over, and then they have a few weeks of very relaxed rest.

And then they start training again. They start their training, all their normal stuff. And they kind of build it up, build it up, build it up, build it up so that they

In running, this is called peaking, I think, in a lot of sports. It's the same in running. If you have a race in December, then you are generally going to start, depending on what kind of race and the distance and all that, but let's say you might start in June with your training. And you're not going to start in June with your maximum energy and your maximum speed.

You're going to start... more slowly, more relaxed, and you're going to build up in July, a little more, August, September, October, November, and you're building, building up your distance, your speed, your energy, so that December, when the race comes, and maybe even before the race, you take one week of complete resting before the race, so that when you hit that race, your body is at maximum energy, maximum speed, everything, maximum endurance.

And then what happens? After the race, you're going to be very tired. So they don't go run a race the next week, usually. After the race, they're going to drop down.

The energy is going to drop. And they're going to have, okay, maybe I've got a month now where I've got to rest a lot or a week or whatever. And, of course, all athletes do this. It's not just runners.

They all do this. And you can do this with your English, too, instead of just trying to maximum all the time. You could maybe choose, like, you know, this is why these challenges are nice sometimes. We do a challenge and you're like, okay, for three months, my goal is, you could say maybe your goal is in, you know, January to improve your English, to make a jump, to go from, you know, jump up one level, you know, B2, B1, that kind of thing.

Or you could, you know, have some other measurement for your English ability. But, Then you focus. So you start now and you're listening. Okay, I'm going to listen an hour a day.

And then next month, I'm going to increase. I'm going to do two hours a day. And then the next month, I'm going to do three hours a day. And maybe you build it up three to six months.

Maybe you decide spring is your target. Maybe April or May. But you start now. And then you build up, build up, build up. And then when you hit April or May, you're at your maximum improvement, your maximum energy, and you're doing really great.

You're doing three, four more hours a day. And then what? Then maybe take a little break. Then in June, maybe in the summer, you relax and you drop back to just one hour a day and very relaxed again.

So you can have these cycles up and down of energy. All right, one more and then I'm going to go because I'm taking my kids out today. Oh, good. Siracha, good to see you.

Says, hello. How's it going? Good morning from Thailand. Glad to attend your show again. Thank you. Siracha, good to see you, as always. Okay. Kusey Abumar says, I was struggling when I was speaking English with people, but when I started watching your videos, I improved a lot.

Great. All right, well, I think that's it for questions. I'm not seeing any other ones. Okay, I'll answer this last one. Norbert says, I understand everything you say, but I don't understand black people's accents.

So I'm guessing you mean like black Americans. Yeah, because they have... I don't know the details, right? There may be more than one. I'm sure there are.

But it's different accents and lots of different slang and really different cultures. So it's not surprising that you would have trouble understanding. You probably will have...

You probably also would have trouble understanding strong New York accents. So any strong accent different from the standard accent can be difficult. So for example, a Scottish accent. You might know if you're used to listening to American English, kind of normal standard American English like mine, then listening to someone with a strong Scottish accent, you might not understand anything.

It might be very difficult. Or a strong Irish accent. Or... It doesn't matter. It can be any regional accent. Right? Because they're the standard accents, which are the most common, the ones you hear all the time in movies, TV, podcasts, and regular people.

They're the most common. That's why they're standard. And then there are regional or special... Sometimes it's certain groups... in this case like black americans or a certain region certain areas certain countries can have very very strong accents and uh the pronunciation can be very different there can be a lot of different vocabulary they use and this can be tough but even for me so it's not just you even for as a native speaker if i listen to again like strong scottish accents which i've seen on youtube occasionally um

it can be hard for me to understand. Like, what are they saying? Especially if they use a lot of Scottish slang that I don't know. Right? So, don't worry about that unless you really need to learn those special accents.

And if you need to learn those accents for some reason, like you're going to go live in Scotland, then I guess you need to find a lot of Scottish videos and start practicing with and listening to a lot of Scottish accents.

And then you'll get used to it. You will get used to it eventually and figure it out. And you'll learn that slang. But if you don't need it, then what's the point?

Don't worry about it. Just the standard accents are the most useful. And the good thing is the standard accents now, because of Internet, because of international television, they're very close. So, for example, the standard British accent, which I'll just call that BBC accent, what you're going to hear

In most BBC newscasts or something like that or regular British TV shows, it's not very different than the standard American accent or the standard Canadian accent or the standard Australian accents. Yes, there's little, there are little small differences of pronunciation, and there's certainly some vocab differences, but overall not so different. Like for me, a British accent is very, very easy to understand, as long as it's the standard one, the most popular or common one in the media.

Now, I know there are other regional accents in England or the UK that can be very tough. So just learn one of the standard accents. If you learn the standard American accent, you should have no problem talking to people in England.

You should have no problem talking to people in Australia. All right, guys, I think that's all for now. Rodrigo, give me a thumbs up. All right, I got to take my kids out.

So that's it for today. So again, the point of today's show is rest, rest, rest. Take those rest breaks. And again, according to what we read today, from this specific coach, this specific researcher, that you want to take frequent 10-minute breaks throughout the day, at least 10 minutes.

So you, for English, you listen to English maybe 20, 30 minutes, then take a 10-minute break. then another 20, 30 minutes, then 10-minute break. Constantly take those 10-minute breaks.

Make yourself do it, and you will see that it will help your learning actually a lot. It will help your energy, help your concentration, and you'll improve faster by taking these little breaks.

Join my VIP program, EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That's where you can sign up. You sign up for my VIP program, you get those lessons, and you will improve.

EffortlessEnglishClub.com. See you next time. Thank you.