You should know about Myelin and Oligodendrocytes!

Sounds like some alien words but their role is super important for your growth.

We know that our brain have billions of neurons. Think about these neurons like a huge bunch of tiny conductors which carry electrical signals when we think and act on something. By default these neurons or conductors doesn’t organized to do some specific tasks. Every activity you perform in a day has a specific neural circuit. We can perform some tasks flawlessly but always got stuck on performing a hard task or learning something new. These are all because of the neural circuits. The tasks that we can do flawlessly has some specifically assigned neural circuits and for the hard tasks, we are not able to develop those specific circuits. That’s why we got stuck and then our learning happens.

Now here comes the role of Myelin.

Myelin is a layer of fatty tissue that grows around neurons, acting like an insulator that allows the cells to fire faster and cleaner. According to this neuroscience, you get better at a skill as you develop more myelin around the relevant neurons, allowing the corresponding circuit to fire more effortlessly and effectively. To be great at something is to be well myelinated.

This understanding is important because it provides a neurological foundation for why deliberate practice works. By focusing intensely on a specific skill, you’re forcing the specific relevant circuit to fire, again and again, in isolation. This repetitive use of a specific circuit triggers cells called oligodendrocytes to begin wrapping layers of myelin around the neurons in the circuits—effectively cementing the skill. The reason, therefore, why it’s important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding distraction is because this is the only way to isolate the relevant neural circuit enough to trigger useful myelination.