Give it a rest

The bro science of deload weeks, and why we do them in my classes

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! When I first got started teaching I never thought about rest days. In fact, as a child I always thought that seasonal breaks were largely to ensure students remained engaged in school activities. I’m still not sure that the breaks are placed where they are for this purpose, but they are spaced out in a way that can be advantageous. Fortunately for you, reader, you are in control of your education now and you can set your rest periods when you need them.

Newbie gains

At the beginning of any new endeavor, everyone experiences what are often described as newbie gains. Rapid visible or otherwise measurable progress that beginners experience throughout the course of the first month or two working on a new skill. The gym is probably where this is most visible, but the same principles apply across domains.

Using this early momentum to progress beyond the beginner stages is crucial, but that can be difficult to do because of how exciting it all is. You are going to be understanding lots quickly, but this period does not persist indefinitely. For more on how to deal with that particular transition, check out this article:

During this period of rapid progression, it is crucial to stay focused. The worst possible thing you can do is jump from topic to topic too much. While it won’t kill your dream of bilingualism in the long run, it will drastically shorten the amount of time you get to revel in the early stages of rapid progression. Instead focus all of your energy on laying the best, most solid foundation you possibly can.

By focusing on setting your foundation you put the necessary neural scaffolding in place to accelerate the linguistic plateau that you will undoubtedly run into headfirst. After you feel yourself begin to slow down, it’s time to set yourself a routine. Motivation is sure to falter at this point and where motivation falters discipline is required. A solid routine will take the thought out of the equation requiring only action on your behalf.

Settling into a routine

The first 21 days of your language learning is the most important. It takes three weeks to build a habit. Here is where you are going to have to decide when you practice, where you practice, how you practice, and, if you haven’t already, why you practice. Then spend the next three weeks reinforcing them and adjusting them until they fit your lifestyle perfectly.

That is precisely what the first three weeks of my classes look like because I know full well that without dedicated practices it can and will be nearly impossible to keep going when conditions are less than ideal. If you have done it before you can and should use the same methods.

Are you a kinetic learner? Get your audio comprehension when doing cardio or while out on a walk. Do you learn by doing? Find an orator you like and mimic the things they say irrespective of whether or not you actually understand what they are saying. Prefer to be alone with your own thoughts? Write everything down and speak the words to life.

Try out everything if you haven’t already. Early progress will be there whether or not you have optimized your frameworks, this is your opportunity to experiment and lock down best practices that suit you and your life. Once things are locked down you can start to work on your progressive overload. This phase continues indefinitely, but it also necessitates preparation.

The plateau

Everyone has experienced a plateau of some sort. Whether it was in fitness, education, or skill building, plateaus are a natural part of mastery. In languages they operate differently, however. Before you acquire a new language your brain must physically rewire itself. Just like the body must remake itself in order to build muscle or lose fat.

When your brain is developing neural pathways, the first ones set are rarely, if ever, the most efficient. In fact, if they are that would be incredible since your brain does not have any context for things it does not know exist. That is to say, you cannot prepare for something that does not exist in your world. Every plateau in language learning can be attributed to this physical restructuring that takes place throughout the course of language acquisition.

These forces are so powerful that they can directly affect the ways in which you perceive and use your native language. Physical brain changes during language acquisition are measurable, so the greatest issue most people have is that they can not physically see the progress that is being made. Intentionally seeking out opportunities to prove to yourself that you are not stagnant is going to be crucial as you work to integrate new language into your identity.

In my admittedly intensive classes this change begins to hit it’s climax at around the 8 or 9 week mark. Interestingly, it takes just about 8 weeks for new muscle being built in the gym to become permanent. As permanent as muscle can be, anyway. This reinforces the physiological normality of the linguistic plateau. Fortunately, in both the gym and your studies there is an simple solution.

The deload week. For my classes this usually takes place week 8 or 9, right when the frustration is at its apex. Doing this has a few benefits, but the reason I chose the word “simple” above is because going from 100 back to 0 is by no means easy. I have had students report immense discomfort the first day or two because they have always been told that if they stop everything they worked for will disappear.

This could not be further from the truth. Think about it this way: have you ever had a problem that was seemingly impossible to solve? It could be anything from a problem at work to a math equation. Most of the time stepping away, going for a walk, making a cup of coffee, or focusing your attention elsewhere for even a brief half hour and coming back to the problem with fresh eyes can make all the difference.

Our deload weeks operate on the same principle; and while many are frustrated for the first two days, by the end of the week and coming back to classes everyone, universally, has reported a clearer understanding of principles and concepts with which they struggled before stepping away. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if you feel you do not need a deload week, you aren’t working hard enough.

Approaching your language acquisition with these expectations can help immensely in managing the rollercoaster of emotion that we all experience throughout. Of course, having an educator (or coach if you’re in the gym) can be priceless in these moments of extreme emotional volatility. At the end of the day, though, only you can control your outcomes.

Conclusion

For whatever reason the idea of taking a week off is intimidating. Whether that is because you are afraid to lose all of the progress you’ve made or because you are worried about falling out of your routine and never coming back to your language acquisition, managing your emotions is critical. This is why having a solid routine in place is so important.

When you don’t have to think and can focus entirely on acting, many of these fears will dissipate. I tell my students all the time to “trust the process” and that is because I have seen it work countless times. If you have never tried a deload week, I encourage you to plan one into your schedule and give it a shot. You might just find that many of the things holding you back are suddenly easy to understand, but you won’t know if you don’t try.

Requests

If you have anything you would like covered you can reach out to me on ​X​, ​Instagram​, or at odin@secondlanguagestrategies.com.

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