Cognitive Health

How to Practice Metacognition for Knowledge Building

I introduce practical tips to improve metacognition for personal and professional use based on my research and experience in the field.

Introduction

I believe that without acquiring metacognition skills, being a polymath or a leader in our discipline might not be possible or too difficult to achieve. I articulate the reasons with examples and provide practical tips to leverage this crucial life skill.

As a life hack, I have researched and practiced metacognition for over four decades. Since the early 1990s, I have helped educators create learning frameworks and construct to teach literacy, writing, maths, science, and other skills using metacognitive theory.

After problem-solving, metacognition has been the most valuable and profitable skill for me and many people I observed in my leadership studies in the cognitive science discipline.

All exemplary and distinguished leaders possess this critical skill. They see metacognition as a game-changer in their personal and professional lives. Therefore, I pass along my tacit knowledge of this vital skill in my articles and blog posts.

This story reflects on my research and personal experiences. However, it does not provide professional or health advice. Instead, I wrote this piece for information, inspiration, and awareness.

What is Metacognition?

In the simplest terms, metacognition means thinking about our thinking consciously. The prefix meta from the Greek language means beyond or on top of something. However, metacognition is beyond thinking and covers other human capabilities, as I explain below.

As I mentioned in my previous articles, cognition refers to obtaining knowledge and understanding by using our thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

Even though cognition is considered the primary activity of the neocortex, it also involves the limbic system and even the reptilian brain covering our overall human experiences.

Therefore, in addition to thinking, cognition includes perception, sensation, and intuition, which is a whole-brain activity.

Besides, metacognition is a behavioral approach to thinking and knowledge. Therefore, it relates to planning, monitoring, assessing, and making required changes to enhance learning.

Furthermore, metacognition can involve self-awareness, self-discipline, and self-esteem through critical thinking abilities.

When we unfold metacognition, we understand that it refers to monitoring and controlling our thoughts and emotions to acquire knowledge. Therefore, two critical concepts of metacognition are cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation, as I documented in previous articles.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust our thinking when facing multiple variables in an event or situation. It is to observe, understand, and assess our thoughts before they turn into emotions.

Emotional regulation refers to consciously observing, understanding, assessing, and managing our emotions timely. To understand emotional regulation, we can look at its opposite emotional dysregulation refers to a condition in which people cannot describe, understand, or manage emotions effectively.

When we use our metacognition skills, we become observers and observant simultaneously. Humans have used this unique approach since they developed the neocortex distinguishing us from other living beings.

Ancient philosophers used this approach. For example, epistemologists who strive to find and validate the distinction between opinion and justified belief use metacognition to create knowledge constructs.

Benefits and Practical Use of Metacognition

Metacognition is commonly used in primary to tertiary-level education. The critical goal of the education system is to provide metacognition skills to students so that they can survive and thrive in real life after their schooling period.

One of the key benefits of metacognition is to provide enhanced capability to learn independently by monitoring and controlling one’s learning behavior.

I observed this benefit in my learning and among participants in my research settings, particularly technology executives who make commercial decisions for the profit of large business organizations.

Metacognition allows the learner to create tacit knowledge and transfer them to others. Therefore, it enables a collaborative spirit in research institutes and commercial organizations.

In my observations, those who used metacognition skills consciously at home, school, and the workplace depicted improved mental, emotional, and social growth.

Among all participants, I noticed that those with polymathy showed increased metacognition use. Polymath entrepreneurs made a special effort to include metacognition in their learning schedules.

Metacognition is not just a theoretical framework. It has real-life use by researchers, educators, students, and business professionals. Therefore, metacognition skills contribute not only to the personal achievements of individuals but also to the global economy.

My Personal Experience with Metacognition

In this section, I briefly introduce my use of metacognition to give an idea of how it can be customized for individual use by others.

Even though I gained fundamental metacognition skills in formal learning through schooling, I enhanced my capability in informal settings after completing my formal education.

From my experience and research, although formal education can contribute to gaining metacognitive skills and be supplementary, it is not essential. However, informal learning through experimentation with adult learning theories is necessary to achieve and practice this vital skill.

Therefore, we observed that many high achievers who demonstrated this skill in business have no tertiary education. Three famous examples are Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jack Ma, who changed the technology landscape globally.

The most important contributor to my metacognition has been mindfulness practices. Among these practices, the outstanding one is daily meditation, allowing me to observe my thoughts and choose the critical ones for my personal and professional growth.

Since regular meditation practice improved my metacognition skills and provided me with many more health and well-being benefits, I made it a lifestyle habit. Therefore, I meditate three times a day to reap the benefits.

Another personal skill that contributed to my metacognition skills has been self-conversations. I documented my perspectives in an article titled Here’s Why Talking to Myself Is Not Crazy But Clever.

Based on feedback and request from my subscribers, I also provided examples of self-conversations in a story titled Here’s How I Talk to Myself for Self-Therapy. So in this particular story, I shared a personal self-conversation as a sample for challenging negative thoughts as a use case.

Metacognition is usually used for thinking skills to acquire knowledge. However, it can be used for therapeutic purposes to improve physical and mental health, from my experience.

For example, by leveraging metacognition, I lowered my stress and inflammation. The key points were working in a flow state, regulating my emotions, meditating regularly, having self conversations, creating emotional self-defense, setting emotional boundaries, increasing my cognitive flexibility, and improving my relationships.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Metacognition is a whole brain activity. This meta-skill helps us obtain knowledge and understanding by using our thoughts, emotions, and experiences.

Practicing metacognition can initiate neurogenesis and neuroplasticity for better neurological and mental health. I provide a few takeaway points with links to relevant articles below.

Think vertically and horizontally for creativity and innovation. This approach will allow us to generate unpredictable ideas by breaking out rigid thought patterns. Inventors utilize this approach.

Some commonly used horizontal or lateral thinking techniques are randomization, reversals, exaggerations, metaphors, analogies, daydreaming, lucid dreaming, visualizations, theme mining, distortions, questioning the norms, and safely producing contradictions.

Entrepreneurs can use these out-of-the-box thinking techniques effectively and collaboratively to produce new opportunities for creativity and productivity, leading to innovative designs and profitable solutions.

The logical perspective model that I introduced and explained in an article titled A Simple Yet Powerful Perspective on Life can guide in using this technique to improve metacognition.

This concept, coined by Robert Dilts is based on six hierarchical notions covering the significant aspects of our being and existence in this world. They are “Environment, Behaviour, Capabilities, Belief & Values, Identity, and Beyond Identity.”

This model covers our mental, emotional, social, and spiritual capabilities. In this hierarchical model, we start with our behavior at the lowest level, and at the highest level, we focus on going beyond our identity to connect meaningfully with others.

Metacognition is an excellent skill to improve our cognitive reserves to address the issues of mental disorders, which is critical as we age when we experience cognitive decline.

I explained the importance of cognitive reserves for our health and well-being in an article titled How to Create Cognitive Reserves to Lower Risks and Effects of Neurodegenerative Disorders.

Thanks to the power of metacognition, these five tips in the mentioned article might help us improve our working memory and enhance our cognitive reserves at any age to live a mentally active and joyful life as we get older.

Furthermore, with the power of our Reticular Activating System (RAS), we can further improve our metacognition and achieve more with less effort to become healthier and happier people.

I explained RAS in a story titled Here’s Why I See RAS as the Secret to Accomplish Dreams with Less Effort.

In addition to these benefits, effective use of metacognition made me a prolific writer and a proficient communicator. Therefore, I pass along this tacit knowledge to my readers, who can customize and leverage this vital life skill for personal and professional development.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

If you are a new reader and find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.

Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers

I write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.

One of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.

Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, Thyroid Disorder, and Major Diseases.

I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:

Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Phosphatidylserine, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, Cod Liver Oil, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.

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