If you have memory problems, you might not be using your brain in the right way. The solution? Learn the trick that memory performers use.

These performers amaze us with all sorts of memory feats, such as magically remembering the exact order of the 52 cards in a deck (or even several decks!). You might assume these people have photographic memories, but you would be wrong. Most of them only have average memories.

Instead, memory performers use a technique that I will call “Visualization and Association” (V&A). This is a fun memory trick that anyone who wants to have a great memory can learn. If you have trouble remembering your school work, or facts related to your job, or current events, or people’s names, or any other type of information, the solution is to learn V&A and make it a personal habit you use every day.

Even if you only have an average memory – or even a bad memory – you can still use V&A to memorize things easily and well. Small children have been taught this technique, so anyone can learn it.

Why This Technique Works

Most people remember images better than verbal or written information. For example... I may be able to easily imagine the different homes I have lived in during my life, even though I might have a hard time remembering all the addresses and phone numbers.

Images are concrete, while raw information is often abstract. With the V&A technique, you convert the abstract information into easy-to-remember mental pictures.

Before I explain how to do the V&A memory technique, let me explain why it works. I have already mentioned that images are easier to remember. But it goes beyond that. Other important aspects of memory that V&A takes advantage of are concentration and repetition.

If you can’t focus, you won’t remember what you are trying to learn. The V&A process forces you to focus. Why? Because you are actively using the material. To change facts into mental images, you must focus - you have no choice. Creating mental images is a powerful way to focus the mind.

In addition, exposing yourself to the material over and over while creating images is repetition. If someone you meet tells you their name one time, you might or might not remember their name. But if they remind you during the conversation what their name is, you will remember their name more easily because you heard it more than once. (Most people we meet don’t help us out like that, though!) When creating your mental images, you naturally “repeat” the details until you get each image clear in your mind.

So the V&A technique boosts your memory for three reasons:

- Images are easier to remember than facts

- Creating images forces you to focus

- Reviewing your images is repetition that helps memory

By the way, V&A is not time consuming – it saves time. Creating mental images does take a few moments. But if you practice a little each day, you will get very fast. Think about this: how much time have you wasted repeating something over and over in the hope of remembering it, and then you forget it anyway? Use the V&A memory trick, and you will remember the information very well the first time. And it will stick.

How to Do It

So, how do you use the V&A memory technique? Let me explain using an example. This example is from science, but V&A is so basic it can be used to remember just about anything.

Let’s suppose your biochemistry teacher asks you to memorize the most common “nucleotides”, chemicals that are part of everyone’s DNA.

The teacher tells you there are five types of nucleotides: adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine.

Now, how can you remember this information for the exam? If you simply repeat the names of the nucleotides over and over, you might forget one or more of them in a short time.

The V&A trick is to create mental images and associate the images together in your head. Here are the steps for using the V&A technique:

1. Think of easy words or phrases that sound like the hard words.

   Examples:

   nucleotide = “nuclear tide”
   
   adenine = “add a knee”
   
   guanine = “gong knee”
   
   cytosine = “sight a stream”
   
   uracil = “you’re a sill”
   
   thymine = “thigh meat”
   

   The easy words don’t have to sound exactly like the hard words. The easy words act as a reminder. You will automatically remember the hard words if you recall the easy ones. Trust me on this.

2. Now, think of a simple mental image for each easy word. Silly images are fine. Actually they are better, because silly things are easier to remember.

   Try to see each image vividly in your mind.

   Examples:

   nuclear tide = nuclear bomb mushroom cloud exploding in ocean waves (not silly)
   
   add a knee = adding a knee to one of your legs, so that you have three knees (silly)
   
   gong knee = hit your knee, it sounds like a metal gong (musical instrument)
   
   sight a stream = a stream flowing in the distance
   
   you’re a sill = you are lying sideways under a big window – you are the window sill
   
   thigh meat = fried chicken, thigh piece

3. Now, associate the mental images to each other, in order.

   Again, make sure to imagine the mental pictures clearly. Imagine the colors, shapes, sounds, and movement in your images. This will help the pictures stick in your mind.

   nuclear tide -> add a knee: connect the “tide” in your nuclear tide image with the three knees image. Perhaps imagine yourself with three knees trying to wade through the tide at the beach.

   add a knee -> gong knee = the word “knee” already connects these two. So, the image of you wading three-kneed through the tide could make you think of hitting your knee making it sound like a gong.

   gong knee -> sight a stream = you’ve already used “knee” in two images. To prevent confusion, tie the “gong” to the sight a stream image. Your image of hitting your knee like a gong could make you think of you seeing a distant stream with hundreds of gongs floating down river.

   sight a stream -> you’re a sill = now, tie “stream” to your sill image. As a separate image, imagine yourself as a window sill, and a stream is flowing through the window getting you all wet.

   you're a sill -> thigh meat = now, create a separate image associating “sill” with a fried chicken thigh. Perhaps imagine someone closing a window onto a box of fried chicken. It makes a greasy mess, and one of the chicken thighs gets smushed on the sill.

4. That’s it. Now, review it. The teacher asks you to name the five nucleotides that make up DNA. See if you can do it by recalling the images in your mind. Start with your image of “nuclear tide”.

   Let’s walk through it. The teacher says “nucleotide” or you see the word written on the test, and immediately your image of a mushroom cloud in the ocean tide (nuclear tide) comes to mind. Next, “tide” should remind you of your three-kneed self wading through the tide. You have an extra knee (“add a knee”), so the first nucleotide is adenine.

   The three knees image makes you think of your “gong knee” image, so the second nucleotide is guanine. The gong knee reminds you of all the gongs floating down a distant stream in your sight (“sight a stream”), so the third nucleotide is cytosine.

   Next, the stream reminds you of the window that a stream is flowing through, with you as the window sill (“you’re a sill”), so the next nucleotide is uracil. Finally, the window sill reminds you of a window closing on a box of fried chicken, with the fried chicken thigh (“thigh meat”) getting smashed – thymine.

   It’s true, it took me a few moments to type this description of what you are seeing in your mind. But the mental process is actually very fast. The images literally flash one after the other in your mind’s eye, and you instantly know the answer.

Some scientists believe we never forget anything. Nine times out of ten, the reason we can’t remember is that we can’t find the information in our brains. It’s there, we just can’t get to it. We have not made it a habit to create the mental hooks – the images – that we need to grab and pull out the information.

That’s what I meant at the beginning about not using your brain in the right way. If you practice the V&A memory technique, you will get very good at creating the mental hooks for anything that you want to remember.

At first, it may seem like an artificial way to remember something. But remember, Visualization & Association is what the memory performers use – and it works. It’s actually a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it. It really taps into your creativity.

Article Written by: Jobes, Douglas

Labels: all, brain, learning, lifeline, memory, tips

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This time I thought I'd cut to the chase and forget the introduction. This entry is a sumerisation of [Mind Tool's] memorization article so the credit goes to them. And without delay, heres a few tips you can do to help aid your memory:

1) When you need to remember something important, find a way to create an image about it in your mind that is very funny or bizarre. Your brain easily remembers things that are unusual, or funny or scary, while it easily forgets things that don’t stand out in any way. (A Full Article [here] explains how.)

2) Make written lists of what you need to do or to remember. This will free up your brain to remember other things that are more important.

3) Be sure to get enough sleep. Your brain uses its sleeping hours to put new information into long term memory storage.

4) To remember a long string of letters or numbers such as a telephone number, break the information up into small chunks of two or three numbers or letters at a time, such as 555 – 216 - 9827. Most people will find it very hard to remember 9 or 10 numbers in a row, but they can easily remember two or three numbers in a row.

5) When you need to learn and remember something, give yourself time to review the same material the next day for a few minutes and then a week later for a few minutes. Repetition and review will help your brain remember the material better.

6) When you are studying a lot of material, schedule a break every forty minutes to get up and walk and do something completely different. When you sit down to study again, your brain will be more refreshed and better able to pay attention.

7) When you are trying to study something, give yourself plenty of time to understand it and review it several times. Cramming at the last minute doesn’t work very well.

8) Give your brain a good workout by practicing memorization as a fun exercise. Every few days, pick a new poem or favorite passage to memorize, and then write it out or speak it out loud.

9) Get a basic children’s arithmetic book with simple number exercises such as 1 + 8 = ___ or 5 X 3 = ___ and commit to doing fifty such calculations every day as quickly as you can. Research has shown that quickly doing very simple arithmetic problems activates a lot of your brain.

10) Reduce the stress in your life by simplifying your schedule, delegating more tasks to others, getting regular physical exercise and practicing daily meditation. Long term stress can interfere with your ability to concentrate and to think clearly, and with your ability to form memories or to recall them later.

11) Get yourself a study buddy or a conversation partner, and try teach the other person what you are learning. This is a good way to signal your brain that what you are learning is important and you will remember more.

12) Learn how to create and use mind maps to organize your information. Many people can learn better by using mind maps than by writing out notes the traditional way.

13) Make up little rhymes and songs to help you remember important information. It's often a lot easier to remember facts that have been made into a song or a rhyme, such as "Thirty days hath September, April, June and November".

14) Your brain will remember things a lot better if you are breathing deeply in a relaxed way. Instead of just breathing shallowly from the upper part of your chest, learn to breathe smoothly from your belly, using your diaphragm muscle to move the air in and out.

15) Include a lot of berries in your diet that have dark red and blue colored skins. In an experiment where aging rats were fed a diet high in blueberries, their memory losses reversed and they grew new brain cells.

16) When you need to remember several unrelated items, use the first letter of each word and try to make a word out of it that will help you remember them. For example, if you need to buy bread, milk, apples, ink and bananas, you could use the first letter of each word to create the word "BAMBI" to jog your memory.

17) Focus on doing one task at a time and concentrating on one topic at a time. When you try to do too many things at once, your mind will be distracted and it will be difficult to perform every task as well as you need to, and difficult to remember what you need to remember.

18) Your brain is about 85 % water, so it is easily dehydrated. Try to avoid drinking too much coffee and too many pop drinks and instead, give your brain the hydration it craves by drinking half a fluid ounce of water for every pound of your body weight each day.

Can't get enough? Check out this list from a fellow blogger: JasPari: Simple Tricks for Memorizing easily !.:Quotes, Wallpapers, Recipes, Health and Beauty Tips:.

Labels: all, brain, featured, learning, memory, tips

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We've all been a student at one point in our lives, and we know how it can be sometimes difficult to retain something of value. But why is this, and why is it that our memory fails us when ever we need it most? Well, there are a couple reasons why our memory fails us and one of those reasons just happen to be due to the amount of general knowledge we have. So-- less you know, the less likely your are to remember. Of course that’s not the case with any gifted child but when it all comes down to the average person, its most likely the case.

"So how is it that my memory is effected by the amount of knowledge I have?" Well, it doesn't. The key is using general knowledge to help remember something new. According to Psychologists there are two ways of memorizing or retaining information, 1) by pegging, and 2) logical association.

Pegging involves the "repetition of information and usually requires long and laborious drill to acquire the information" (ie: remembering phone numbers, the alphabet, plate numbers etc..). Logical association however allows you to "link new facts with something already in the mind" (ie: learning meteorology by linking it with thermodynamics or vice versa).

Logical Association not only requires less time and effort but it's also the most effective and efficient way of retaining new information. But why only go as far as using general knowledge to optimize your memory retaining habits?

Memory optimization isn't the only reason why you should continuously learn something new. Learning across a wide range of subjects gives you a broad knowledge of unfamiliar situations that feeds innovation by inspiring us to think creatively and providing examples to follow. It can help us more easily and readily adapt to new situations, and make us more confident. Learning how to play the guitar or how to draw and paint artistically will help you gain confidence in your creative thinking, above all--- it will inspire you to think outside the box. Its been proven that the majority of artistically creative individuals are more likely to survive primitively than those who only invest in increasing their intellect academically. After all, "creativity is more important than knowledge" -- says Einstein.

I’m providing some links below to help aid with your learning. Sometimes I have difficulty finding something new to learn so I would usually go to these sources.

1. Wikipedia's “Featured Article”
Once a day Wikipedia will email you a featured article which to me is way better than thinking of something you wanna know in Wikipedia. Not a fan of Wikipedia, not to worry... answers.com has something similar.

2. Read something interesting: "Did you Know that?"
This is a quick way of learning facts our of the blue. Its interesting and mildly entertaining. If you’re like the rest of us "Get things done" type of person and always on-the-go, then you can subscribe to Brain Food Podcast. Its a similar form of entertainment but in an audio form not ever a lazy bastard can resist.

3. Learn a new Language
Being bi-lingual I know for a fact that there some words in Arabic, Tagalog, and Spanish that you just won't be able to translate into English. Learning a new language is tough but it will defiantly expand your horizons. If your not into text based learning and you have an iPod, then try these out.

4. Learn a new word
Its no brainer, learning new words not only help you find a better vocabulary to express yourself, it also helps you think in other ways you haven’t done before.

5. Expand your Abstract thinking
Phrazes.org put together a phrase of the week subscription that simply highlights the days most favored phrases.

6. Learn & TRY to survive primitively
I say 'TRY' because there’s a difference between learning something, and taking part n actually trying it out.

7. Hack your brain
Its like defragging your computer, optimizing it to work more effectively and efficiently.

8. Understanding the Brain
You can’t optimize something when you don’t know how it works.

Tip: When learning something new, take a 5-15 min break in between hours. Its important you give your self a break in order for your brain to retain everything its just learned. Continuing to learn more information without a break will require your brain to forget something you just learned earlier.

Labels: all, learning, lifeline, memory, tips

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Trial and error are usually the prime means of solving life’s problems. Yet many people are afraid to undertake the trial because they’re too afraid of experiencing the error. They make the mistake of believing that all error is wrong and harmful, when most of it is both helpful and necessary. Error provides the feedback that points the way to success. Only error pushes people to put together a new and better trial, leading through yet more errors and trials until they can ultimately find a viable and creative solution. To meet with an error is not to fail, but to take one more step on the path to final success. No errors means no successes either.

In fact, one of the greatest misfortunes you can meet early in a project is premature—yet inevitably still partial—success. When that happens, the temptation is to fix on what seemed to work so quickly and easily and look no further. Later, maybe, a competitor will come along and continue the exploration process that you aborted, pushing on to find a much better solution that will quickly push your partial one aside.


Cultures of perfection
Too many organizations today have cultures of perfection: a set of organizational beliefs that any failure is unacceptable. Only pure, untainted success will do. To retain your reputation as an achiever, you must reach every goal and never, ever make a mistake that you can’t hide or blame on someone else.

Imagine the stress and terror in an organization like that. The constant covering up of the smallest blemishes. The wild finger-pointing as everyone tries to shift the blame for the inevitable cock-ups and messes onto someone else. The rapid turnover as people rise high, then fall abruptly from grace. The lying, cheating, falsification of data, and hiding of problems—until they become crises that defy being hidden any longer.

Clinging to the past
If some people fail to reach a complete answer because of the lure of some early success, many more fail because of their ego-driven commitment to what worked in the past. You often see this with senior people, especially those who made their names by introducing some critical change years ago. They shy away from further innovation, afraid that this time they might fail, diminishing the luster they try to keep around their names from past triumph. Besides, they reason, the success of something new might even prove that those achievements they made in the past weren’t so great after all. Why take the risk when you can hang on to your reputation by doing nothing?

Such people are so deeply invested in their egos and the glories of their past that they prefer to set aside opportunities for future glory rather than risk even the possibility of failure.

Why high achievers fail
Every strength can become a weakness. Every talent contains an opposite that sometimes makes it into a handicap. Successful people like to win and achieve high standards. This can make them so terrified of failure it ruins their lives. When a positive trait, like achievement, becomes too strong in someone’s life, it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap.

Achievement is a powerful value for many successful people. They’ve built their lives on it. They achieve at everything they do: school, college, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of the value in their lives.

Gradually, failure becomes unthinkable. Maybe they’ve never failed yet in anything that they’ve done, so have no experience of rising above it. Failure becomes the supreme nightmare: a frightful horror they must avoid at any cost. The simplest way to do this is never to take a risk. Stick rigidly to what you know you can do. Protect your butt. Work the longest hours. Double and triple check everything. Be the most conscientious and conservative person in the universe.

And if constant hard work, diligence, brutal working schedules, and harrying subordinates won’t ward off the possibility of failing, use every other possible means to to keep it away. Falsify numbers, hide anything negative, conceal errors, avoid customer feedback, constantly shift the blame for errors onto anyone too weak to fight back. The problems with ethical standards in major US corporations has, I believe, more to do with fear of failure among long-term high achievers than any criminal intent. Many of those guys at Enron and Arthur Andersen were supreme high-fliers, basking in the flattery of the media. Failure was an impossible prospect, worth doing just about anything to avoid.

Why balance is essential
Beware of unbalanced values in your life. Beware when any one value—however benign in itself—becomes too powerful. Over-achievers destroy their own peace of mind and the lives of those who work for them. People too attached to “goodness” and morality become self-righteous bigots. Those whose values for building close relationships become unbalanced slide into smothering their friends and family with constant expressions of affection and demands for love in return.

Everyone likes to succeed. The problem comes when fear of failure is dominant. When you can no longer accept the inevitability of making mistakes, nor recognize the importance of trial and error in finding the best and most creative solution. The more creative you are, the more errors you are going to make. Get used to it. Deciding to avoid the errors will destroy your creativity too.

Balance counts more than you think. Some tartness must season the sweetest dish. A little selfishness is valuable even in the most caring person. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success.

We hear a lot about being positive. Maybe we also need to recognize that the negative parts of our lives and experience have just as important a role to play in finding success, in work and in life.

Labels: all, failure, learning, lifeline, success, tips

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The brain is more complicated than any computer we can imagine. Though it may not be as accurate and punctual as a supercomputer, you have to know that in biology natural selction is dipendent uppon adaptability, which goes to say that our brain cannot be hardwired to do the same repeted task and maintain the same results. That is to say, you or I cannot be expected to throw a ball repeatedly, and have it land in the same spot every time. The best part about having a biological brain rather than an artificial inteligence is that the biological brain has the ability to learn. Where as you, your self have to tell how a computer should think, and how it should solve a problem. The human brain can retrospect what it has learned and utilise the knowledge to create a potential physical agorythm to solve or find a soloution for any given problem. To say it simply, 1) the human observes, 2) the human learns, and 3) the human puts knowledge to use-- or if it cannot be used at the current time then the brain shal do its job and store the observation for future reasoning.

So with that said, here are a few simple tips for effectivly overclocking your noggin:

Learn Something New
This one might seem obvious. Yes, we capitalize on our brain’s great potential when we put it to work learning new things. You may have a specific topic for work or leisure that you want to learn more about. That’s great.

Go learn it. If you don’t have a subject in mind right now, try learning a new word each day. There is a strong correlation between working vocabulary and intelligence. When we have new words in our vocabulary, our minds can think in new ways with greater nuances between ideas. Put your mind to work learning. It is one of the best ways to re-energize your brain.

Run Up Your Brain Cells
Research suggests that people who get plenty of physical exercise can wind up with better brains. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., found that adult mice who ran on an exercise wheel whenever they felt like it gained twice as many new cells in the hippocampus, an area of the brain involved in learning and memory, than mice who sat around all day discussing Lord of the Rings in Internet chat rooms. The researchers weren’t sure why the more active rodents’ brains reacted the way they did, but it’s possible that the voluntary nature of the exercise made it less stressful and therefore more beneficial. Which could mean that finding ways to enjoy exercise, rather than just forcing yourself to do it, may make you smarter - and happier, too.

So, play a sport, train for an event such as a marathon, triathlon or “fun run,” or work out with a buddy to help keep things interesting.

Exercise Your Mind
It isn’t just physical exercise that gets those brain cells jumping. Just like those head-pumped cabbies and piano jockeys, you can build up various areas of your brain by putting them to work. Duke University neurobiology professor Lawrence C. Katz, Ph.D., co-author of Keep Your Brain Alive, says that finding simple ways to use aspects of your brain that may be lagging could help maintain both nerve cells and dendrites, branches on the cells that receive and process information. Just as a new weightlifting exercise builds up underused muscles, Katz says that novel ways of thinking and viewing the world can improve the functioning of inactive sections of the brain.

Experience new tastes and smells; try to do things with your nondominant hand; find new ways to drive to work; travel to new places; create art; read that Dostoyevsky novel; write a buddy comedy for Ted Kennedy and Rush Limbaugh - basically, do anything you can to force yourself out of your mental ruts.

Ask Questions
Our brains are wired to be curious. As we grow up and “mature” many of us stifle or deny our natural curiosity. Let yourself be curious! Wonder to yourself about why things are happening. Ask someone in the know. The best way to exercise our curiosity is by asking “Why?” Make it a new habit to ask “why?” at least 10 times a day. Your brain will be happier and you will be amazed at how many opportunities and solutions will show up in your life and work.

Laugh
Scientists tell us that laughter is good for our health; that it releases endorphins and other positively powerful chemicals into our system. We don’t really need scientists to tell us that it feels good to laugh. Laughing helps us reduce stress and break old patterns too. So laughter can be like a “quick-charge” for our brain’s batteries. Laugh more, and laugh harder.

Be A Fish Head
Omega-3 oils, found in walnuts, flaxseed and especially fish, have long been touted as being healthy for the heart. But recent research suggests they’re a brain booster as well, and not just because they help the circulation system that pumps oxygen to your head. They also seem to improve the function of the membranes that surround brain cells, which may be why people who consume a lot of fish are less likely to suffer depression, dementia, even attention-deficit disorder. Scientists have noted that essential fatty acids are necessary for proper brain development in children, and they’re now being added to baby formulas. It’s possible that your own mental state, and even your intelligence, can be enhanced by consuming enough of these oils.

Eating at least three servings a week of fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel and tuna is a good start.

Remember
Get out an old photo album or high school yearbook. Your brain is a memory machine, so give it a chance to work! Spend time with your memories. Let your mind reflect on them and your mind will repay you in positive emotions and new connections from the memories to help you with your current tasks and challenges.

Do A Puzzle
Some of us like sudoku puzzles, some jigsaw puzzles, some crossword puzzles, some logic puzzles - it really doesn’t matter kind you choose to do. Doing puzzles in your free time is a great way to activate your brain and keep it in good working condition. Do the puzzle for fun, but do it knowing you are exercising your brain.

The Mozart Effect
A decade ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people’s mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signalling in the brain.

This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What’s more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.

Improve Your Skill At Things You Already Do
Some repetitive mental stimulation is ok as long as you look to expand your skills and knowledge base. Common activities such as gardening, sewing, playing bridge, reading, painting, and doing crossword puzzles have value, but push yourself to do different gardening techniques, more complex sewing patterns, play bridge against more talented players to increase your skill, read new authors on varied subjects, learn a new painting technique, and work harder crossword puzzles. Pushing your brain to new heights help to keep it healthy.

Be A Thinker, Not A Drinker
The idea that alcohol kills brain cells is an old one, but the reality is a bit more complicated. In fact, a study of 3,500 Japanese men found that those who drank moderately (in this case, about one drink per day) had better cognitive functioning when they got older than those who didn’t drink at all. Unfortunately, as soon as you get beyond that “moderate” amount, your memory, reaction time is all likely to decline. In the same study, men who had four or more drinks a day fared worst of all.

Just as bad is the now common practice of “binge drinking,” otherwise known as getting hammered on the weekend. Research on rats found that those who consumed large amounts of alcohol had fewer new cells in their brains’ hippocampus region immediately after the binge, and virtually none a month later. This suggests that the alcohol not only damaged the rats’ brains, but kept them from repairing themselves later on - in human terms, that means you shouldn’t expect to pass the Mensa entrance exam any time soon.

Play
Take time to play. Make time to play. Play cards. Play video games. Play board games. Play Ring Around the Rosie. Play tug of war. It doesn’t matter what you play. Just play! It is good for your spirit and good for your brain. It gives your brain a chance to think strategically, and keeps it working. Hell, some games (FPS specifficly) even improve your periphrial vission.

Sleep On It
Previewing key information and then sleeping on it increases retention 20 to 30 percent. You can leave that information next to the bed for easy access, if it is something that won’t keep you awake. If you are kept awake by your thoughts, writing everything down sometimes gets it “out of your mind,” allowing you to sleep (so keep a pen and paper nearby).

Concentration
Concentration can increase brainpower. Obvious, perhaps, but the thieves of concentration are not always so obvious. Learn to notice when you are distracted. Often the cause is just below consciousness. If there is a phone call you need to make, for example, it might bother you all morning, sapping your ability to think clearly, even while you are unaware of what is bothering you.

Get in the habit of stopping to ask “What is on my mind right now”. Identify it and deal with it. In the example given, you could make the phone call, or put it on tomorrow’s list, so your mind is comfortable letting it go for now. This leaves you in a more relaxed state where you can think more clearly. Use this technique to increase your brainpower now.

Make Love For Your Brain
In a series of studies by Winnifred B. Cutler, PhD and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and later at Stanford University it was found that regular sexual contact had an important impact on physical and emotional well being of women. Sexual contact with a partner at least once a week led to more fertile, regular menstrual cycles, shorter menses, delayed menopause, increased estrogen levels, and delayed aging. Brain imaging studies at UCLA have shown that decreased estrogen levels are associated with overall decreased brain activity and poor memory. Enhancing estrogen levels for women through regular sexual activity enhances overall brain activity and improves memory.

Cycles Of Consciousness
Your consciousness waxes and wanes throughout the day . For most it seems to go through 90 minute cycles, with 30 minutes of lower consciousness. Watch yourself to recognize this cycle. If you learn to recognize and track your mental state, you can concentrate on important mental tasks when your mind is most “awake”. For creative insight into a problem, do the opposite. Work on it when you are in a drowsy state, when your conscious mind has slowed down.

Write To Be Read
Start a blog, a personal journal or even write on your facebook note once in a while. The greatest benefit of writing is what it does to expand your brain’s capacity. Find ways to write to be read – by writing things for your friends to read, by capturing the stories of your childhood, starting your own blog or whatever – just write to be read.


Drugs To Increase Brainpower
Coffee and other drinks containing caffeine help students consistently score higher on tests. Since caffeine restricts blood vessels in the brain, it isn’t clear what the longer-term effects may be when it comes to your brainpower. So instead of coffee breaks try gingko biloba and gotu kola herbal teas. Ginkgo biloba has been shown to increase blood flow to the brain, and improve concentration.

Labels: all, brain, learning, lifeline, tips

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