LIMITLESS BRAIN TRAINING

The Ultimate Brain's Guide to Upgrade and Declutter your Mind, Remember Anything, Think Faster and Learn Better with Memory Improvement Techniques, Accelerate Learning, Mind Hacking and Mindfulness.

By

ROBERT REED

Table Of Contents

Limitless Memory

Introduction

Chapter 1: How Our Brain Works and (sometimes) Fails

Chapter 2: Why and How our Brain is Limitless

Chapter 3: Young Brain vs. Old Brain

Chapter 4: Limitless Learning for Kids and Adults

Chapter 5: Limitless Memory: The method & lifestyle

Chapter 6: Limitless Memory and Technology: enemies or friends?

Chapter 7: Before and After Smartphones: our Complementary Brain

Conclusion

Resources

Super Learning

Introduction

Chapter One: Dispelling The Main Myths

Chapter Two: Read Faster And Never Forget It

Chapter Three: Let’s Talk About Your Lifestyle

Chapter Four: Discovering the Secrets About Fast Reading

Chapter Five: 7+ Incredible Techniques To Level Up in Reading Faster

Chapter Six: How the Brain Learns and How To Do It Effectively

Chapter Seven: 7+ Miracle Techniques to Speed Up Your Learning Process

Chapter Eight: Unbeatable Exercises To Quickly Improve Your Memory

Conclusion

Resources:

LIMITLESS MEMORY

Life-Changing Techniques for unlimited memory improvement through Brain training, Mind Hacking, Accelerate learning, and Mindfulness - Declutter your mind to remember anything and think faster.

By

ROBERT REED

I dedicate this book to all my students, including you, who want to improve themselves day after day, to make their dreams come true.

Thank you for the trust you give me so that I can guide you.

This book is for you.

Copyright © 2020   by Robert Reed – All rights reserved.

The content contained within this book may not be reproduced, duplicated, or transmitted without direct written permission from the author or the publisher.

Under no circumstances will any blame or legal responsibility be held against the publisher, or author, for any damages, reparation, or monetary loss due to the information contained within this book. Either directly or indirectly.

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This book is copyright protected. This book is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote, or paraphrase any part, or the content within this book, without the consent of the author or publisher.

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Please note that the information contained in this book within this document is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All effort has been executed to present accurate, up to date, and reliable, complete information. No warranties of any kind are   declared or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical, or professional advice. The content within this book has been derived from various resources. Please consult a licensed professional before attempting any techniques outlined in this book.

By reading this document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances is the author responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of the use of the information contained within this document, including, but not limited to, - errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.

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Introduction

What an incredible organ the brain is, and like any muscle in the body, it has to be used to work efficiently. The act of learning something and storing it in the memory is quite an achievement for the brain, and vitally important for a healthy and successful life. If you don’t lose the brain, it won’t work well, and you will find it very hard to remember anything.

In association with our other book, “Limitless Learning”, this one is a fantastic resource for improving your memory. It contains information on how memories are formed and what can interfere with the storage of memories and issues with recall. It looks at the medical causes behind the loss of memory as well as some of the modern-day impacts of digital technology and smartphones. In one of the chapters, we take a look at life before and after the invention of smartphones. Are they really as helpful as we think? Or are our memories failing because we rely so much on technology to give us the answers instead of exercising our brains?

We delve into the pros and cons of digital technology for those who suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and the different ways technology may help with learning and focusing as well as creating memories. There are numerous studies discussed in the book on the various facets of memories, their importance, and what happens if you start to develop cognitive impairment.

Many people today struggle to learn because they don’t know how to study appropriately, and so cannot store the information they are trying to learn. We also take a look at the cliché surrounding whether or not children can learn a foreign language easier than an adult. Is it really just a myth, or is there some truth to it?

If you want to improve your memory, you must understand how it works.

This book includes all the information you need to learn all about the different types of memory. Best of all, the exercises are included, which can help you boost the health of your brain, thereby improving your memory significantly.

Read on to find out how memories work, and what you can do to make your learning and memorization far better than you ever imagined, and help to protect yourself from age-related memory problems.

CHAPTER 1

How Our Brain Works and (sometimes) Fails

Often we think that once we have seen or heard something, it will stay in our memory, but this is entirely false. It takes a bit more work than that to secure something safely in our long term memory. But once you understand how it works, and what to do to enhance it, you will be astounded by the achievements you can attain in learning and memory.

What is Memory?

Memory not only involves learning information but also storing it and the ability to retrieve it when needed. How memory works and how it is used has been studied for thousands of years, and though scientists now have a good understanding of the processes involved in creating and using memories, there are still times when memory fails. This is due to a problem with learning, storing, or recalling the memory.

Issues with memory can be minor and straightforward, such as forgetting where you put your wallet or forgetting somebody’s name. But it can also be severe, as in people with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, which can not only impede the quality of the person’s life but also put them at high risk.

Memory is a fascinating subject, and it can be quite easy to improve your memory with the exercises in this book, but first, you have to understand what the processes of memory are and how they work.

Dual-Process Theory

The dual-process theory pertains to the idea that some cognitive processes and behaviors, such as making decisions, are the products of two processes called System 1 and System 2. System 1 is related to automatic or unconscious thought, and system 2 is related to the analytical, intentional, and thought, which takes effort.

So how does this apply to learn and memory? Well, System 1 is related to the memorization of information and the recall, and System 2 is more related to the critical thinking or analytical side of thought.

For System 2 to be efficient, System 1 thinking needs to take place. For there to be critical or analytical thinking, there has to be memorized information and knowledge. A good example is learning to drive. At first, it takes a lot of conscious thought and effort to learn how to operate a vehicle safely and efficiently. Then, the more you practice the skill of driving, the better you become at it. After a while, you no longer have to put so much thought into the actions of driving a car. Of course, you need to pay attention at all times, but you don’t have to think consciously of turning the key or changing gear; these actions become more intuitive. This is because both System 1 and System 2 are working together efficiently.

How Do We Form Memories?

The first step of creating a memory is how the information or skill is learned, and this part of the process is called encoding. This process involves four methods:

- Visual encoding - how the information looks.

- Acoustic encoding - how something sounds.

- Semantic encoding - the meaning of the information.

- Tactile encoding - how it feels.

Information is typically entered into the memory system via one of these four methods, and in some cases, the info stored may be different from how it was initially learned. For example, hearing something may invoke a picture or image, which is how it is stored.

The next step in the process of creating memories is storage. Once the information has been encoded, it must be determined how much of it needs to be stored, where it should be stored, and how long it should remain in storage. The information is typically stored in the short-term memory first and then shifts into long-term memory if needed to be retained for a more extended period.

Retrieval is the final step of memory and is the process in which you can access the information stored in your brain. Short term memories are retrieved in the same order that it is stored in. Long term memory is retrieved through association. An excellent example of the association method is where you easily remember where your car is parked by following the same path you took into the store when you exit. You associated the memory by the door you used and the pathway you took, which led you back to your car.

Types of Memory

There are three main types of memory - short term, long term, and sensory. The first stage of memory is sensory, where the information from around you is stored for often less than a second for visual data, and up to four seconds for the information you hear. Sometimes this information will transfer to the short-term memory, but most often, it is only fleeting.

At every second and split second of your life, a massive amount of data is being taken in by your senses, through what you feel, see, taste, hear, and smell. It isn’t possible to remember every single detail from every single moment, so the sensory memory produces a ‘snapshot’ of what is around you, which enables you to focus on just the relevant details.

It is believed these sensory memories last for a duration that is shorter than three seconds. Though these memories are brief, they enable you to remember an impression of the stimulus in your environment following the ending or disappearance of it. If we attend to this data, the crucial details can then be transferred to the short-term memory.

The three main types of sensory memory are:

- Iconic - also called visual sensory memory. A brief image lasting less than half of a second.

- Echoic - also called auditory sensory memory. Brief sound memory similar to an echo and can last up to four seconds.

- Haptic - also called tactile memory. The short memory of a touch that lasts for around two seconds.

Short term memory is often referred to as active memory because it is the information we are aware of at that time or are thinking about. Think of it as your conscious mind, at the moment, lasting only about 30 seconds.

By paying attention to the information in the short-term memory, it can be transferred to long term memory if it is needed at a later time.

The majority of information kept in the short-term memory will remain there for just 20 to 30 seconds, though sometimes it is held for mere seconds if there is no rehearsal of the information. In some cases, the data will last for a minute, but generally, the info decays quickly and spontaneously.

Rehearsal of the Information, such as saying it aloud or repeating it in your mind, can lengthen the short-term memory. But, it can be interfered with easily. As new information moves into the short-term memory, older data is displaced.

There are varying theories regarding how much information the short-term memory can store. The standard idea is that the short-term memory can hold approximately seven items. Research conducted recently suggests that around four pieces of information can only be stored, however.

Short term memory and working memory are separate but are often utilized interchangeably. The working memory is the process of storing information temporarily, organizing the data, and the manipulation of the information. In contrast, the short-term memory is only the storage of information temporarily.

Because there is quite a limitation in both the duration and capacity of short-term memories, there is a need to move the information to the long-term memory. One of the common methods that will be talked about in the following chapters is chunking. This form of memorization enables the information to be transferred into long term memory.

Another way to shift memories into the long-term memory is through rehearsal. This is commonly used when studying for exams at school, where you go over your information multiple times until it is memorized.

The persistent storage memory is the long-term memory, sometimes referred to as the unconscious or preconscious memory. It is stored in the background to be recalled when necessary. These memories can be harder to retrieve at times for a variety of reasons.

If the info is stored in the long-term memory is more important than others, it is easier to recall; important dates, like the birth of a child, are the type of information that is usually stored in the long-term memory.

It is still possible, of course, to forget long term memories. The length of time information is stored in the long-term memory depends on several factors: how the memory was encoded can have a significant impact on how long it is stored. Accessing the memory multiple times can ensure a more extended storage period also.

There are two main types of long-term memory called the “explicit ” or declarative memory, and the implicit or non-declarative memory. Those that fall into the category of explicit memories are those that are present in consciousness. They are usually grouped into specific or episodic memories or semantic memory. Semantic memory encompasses the knowledge you have about the world.

Implicit memories, by contrast, are those that are predominantly unconscious memories. These include procedural memory, which is the memory of how to use things and the movement of the body, such as driving a vehicle.

Why Does Our Memory Fail?

Everyone is forgetful at some point, and there are several reasons why this happens. How many times have you said, “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” but you can’t recall it, only to remember it randomly later during the day? This is incredibly common, and minor forgetfulness is nothing to be concerned about. However, if forgetting is a significant issue, there could be a medical cause.

The leading causes of minor forgetfulness are retrieval failure, interference, storage failure, and motivated forgetting. Motivated forgetting is where the memory is deliberately forgotten due to it being unwanted, whether consciously or subconsciously. A good example is the memory of previous trauma or upsetting event that you don’t want to remember.

One of the most significant factors in memory loss is simply a period. If you are not retrieving the memory often, it can be lost.

A more debilitating form of memory loss is amnesia. This is when the information has been lost in the memories to a more considerable extent than simple forgetfulness. Amnesia can be caused by an injury or disease of the brain. It can also be the result of some drug use or mental disorder.

The two primary forms of amnesia are anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia. The most common way is anterograde amnesia. The ability to learn and memorize new information is either faulty or lost due to a failure of the data to transfer from the short term memory to the long term memory. With retrograde amnesia, the person loses the ability to recall pre-existing memories, but they can recall new memories after the amnesia began.

Amnesia is usually the result of a traumatic brain injury, and sometimes it has a psychogenic cause. When the hippocampus part of the brain is damaged, it affects the encoding, storage, and retrieval of memories. This results in the mind having difficulty creating new memories and recalling older ones.

Other factors can lead to amnesia, particularly the abuse of drugs and alcohol, severe stress, and anything that may obstruct blood or oxygen flow to the brain. For most, amnesia is a condition that lasts temporarily, generally from seconds up to hours, but this depends on brain injury or disease. For some, amnesia can last up to months.

There have been few cases of amnesia becoming a permanent condition, but this is rare. One well-known case is Clive Wearing, a British musician who developed amnesia after a viral brain infection in 1985. The part of his brain that was damaged was the area responsible for transferring memories from short term to long term memory, so he was left with the inability to form new long term memories. He is left with just a short term memory, lasting up to 30 seconds at most. Interestingly, Clive Wearing can still remember how to play instruments and conduct a choir, but cannot remember his education.

Perhaps the most commonly known medical cause for memory loss is Alzheimer’s disease, and many think that being forgetful is a sign that thy will develop the disease. But, it’s essential to know that just because you may forget things here and there, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have Alzheimer’s disease.

As we get older, it is reasonable to become more forgetful. Just as your body changes or wears as you age, so does your brain. It is common to forget where you left something or have difficulty learning something new. You may forget someone’s name or why you walked from one room to the next.

Normal aging forgetfulness includes:

- Occasionally making a poor decision.

- Forgetting to make a regular payment once in a while.

- Forgetting what day it is but remembering later.

- Occasionally forgetting a word in a conversation.

- Misplacing things occasionally.

Compared to Alzheimer’s disease symptoms:

- Poor decisions and judgments a lot.

- Difficulty managing monthly bills.

- Difficulty managing new tasks.

- Often forget names, appointments, events that occurred recently.

- Withdraw from their usual routine.

- Emotional changes.

- Irritability, frustration, anxiety.

- Losing track of date and year.

- Difficulty holding a conversation.

- Losing things regularly and not being able to locate them.

Alzheimer’s disease is now the most common type of dementia, with an estimated two-thirds of those with dementia also having Alzheimer’s. There generally is no one cause for developing Alzheimer’s; instead, there is usually a combination of factors. These include genetics, the environment, and age. Now that the population is living longer lives, the rate of Alzheimer’s disease is a lot more prevalent.

The symptoms of Alzheimer’s can develop at quite a slow pace, and they worsen as the person get older.  The symptoms are the result of changes in the physicality of the brain, including plaques and tangles, which are due to abnormal proteins building up. Tangles will lead to the brain cells dying, and there is an associated decrease in some of the most critical chemicals in the brain, those that are required to send messages around the brain.

The most significant risk factor for Alzheimer’s and dementia is age. It is commonly found in those over the age of 65, and even more common in 80 years old and over. Younger people can develop early-onset Alzheimer’s, and women typically develop the disease at a younger age than men.

For those with a parent or a sibling with Alzheimer’s, there is an increased risk of developing it. Scientists have identified some genes that could increase the risk of Alzheimer’s. For many of those with Alzheimer’s, there is no familial history of the disease, so that the inheritance factor may be small.

Some medical causes of memory issues:

- Tumors in the brain.

- Blood clots in the brain.

- Brain infections.

- Excessive alcohol use.

- Head injury.

- Side effects of medication.

- Poor diet.

Just because there can be medical reasons for memory loss, don’t convince yourself you have a terrible disease. Some of the causes can be minor and easily remedied by seeing your doctor or changing your lifestyle. It is not always easy for a medical professional to pinpoint what is causing memory loss, so the more information you can provide them, the better it will be to sort out what may be going on.

Emotional Issues and Memory Loss

Forgetfulness can be caused by several emotional issues, including depression, stress, and anxiety. A major emotional trauma, such as the death of a loved one, can also affect your ability to make and recall memories. Generally, this forgetfulness is temporary issues, and as your emotional state improves, you will restore your memory.

In some cases, the memory is too much to bear, so it’s pushed far back into the brain and forgotten until it’s triggered. This is a way of choosing to forget something traumatic or unpleasant. There is more on this in the following chapters.

CHAPTER 2

Why and How our Brain is Limitless

There have been numerous scientific studies undertaken on memory, mainly how it works and what can affect it. Some of the more widely accepted and publicized studies are featured in this chapter.

Historically, it was assumed that there were only two forms of memory - the natural memory that is inborn and is used every day, and the artificial memory, which occurs through learning. Cicero and Quintillian, Roman rhetoricians, expanded this theory further, and their ideas were passed down to the likes of Matteo Ricci and Giordano Bruno, Renaissance scholars.

In the 18th century, David Hartley, an English philosopher, was the first to suggest that memories were encoded through motions hidden within the nervous system. In the 1870s and 1880s, Wilhelm Wundt of Germany and William James in America, who were later considered to be some of the founding fathers of modern psychology, carried out research separately into how memory functions.

Ribot’s Law, proposed by Theoule-Armand Ribot in 1881, stated that amnesia is time-related, and recent memories were more likely to be forgotten than those that were more remote. But, it was later determined that this wasn’t always true.

German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus developed the first known scientific approach to the study of memory in the mid-1880s. Using lists of nonsense syllables, he then associated with meaningful words, he conducted experiments on human memory. From his experiments, the concept of the learning curve and the forgetting curve was created. He also determined three types of memory: the sensory, the short term, and the long term, which is still relevant.

In 1904,  Richard Semon, a German evolutionary biologist, proposed that from experience, there is left a physical trace on specific areas of the brain. Then in the 1930s, Sir Frederick Bartlett of Britain, a psychologist, found that recall of stories later influenced theories on how memories were stored in the brain.

As technology was becoming more advanced in the 1940s, the neuropsychology field was developed. Along with this came biological theories for encoding and how it occurs. For 25 years, Karl Lashley researched rats, studying how they negotiated mazes to figure out where the memory traces are formed. In 1950 he concluded that memories were not stored in just one part of the brain but relatively widespread throughout the cortex. He also suggested that if one part of the brain was damaged, another part could take on that role.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Wilder Penfield, a Canadian neurosurgeon, was using electrical probes to stimulate the brain in an effort to understand what the cause of epilepsy was. As part of his research, he created maps of the motor and sensory cortices of the brain. He also found that by using the probes in the temporal lobe, he could bring up memories that the patient had no conscious recall of.

Then in 1949, Donald Hebb of Canada suggested that neurons in the brain fired and were wired together, which led him to believe that the encoding of memory occurred through connections between the neurons. Hebb’s Rule is a theoretical idea that the memories were created through repetitive use. Eric Kandel later applied this theory to the brains of sea slugs, which demonstrated the reality of the rule and how molecular changes could be identified during learning.

The Multi-Store Model Study

In 1968, the Multi-Store Model was proposed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. The theory suggested that information was kept in three states of memory, the sensory, short term, and long term memory stores. They proposed that the more we recalled information in mind, called rehearsing, the better the data moved from one part of the memory to the next. They also proposed that if the person didn’t pay regular attention to the info, the memory would be lost.

The study showed that information is gained from the senses, such as the eyes, the ears, and the nose - sight, sound, and smell. This information was held in the sensory memory store. However, it consists of a large amount of information related to the surroundings, and only a small amount needed to be remembered. Therefore, most of this information ‘decays’ and, after a short period, is forgotten.

Something we see or hear might be exciting, and it is stored in the short term memory for hours or days if it needs to be accessed. Then by rehearsing the information, it can enable us to remember it for an extended period. Rehearsing could be just thinking about the data or writing it down repetitively. This helps shift the information into the long term memory, and Atkinson and Shiffrin believed it could be stored there for any period from years to a lifetime.

Study on the Levels of Processing Memories

This study was published in 1972 by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart, who developed another level of processing compared to the multi-model study. This study suggested that instead of memories being held in three stores, the strength of the memory depending on the quality of the processing. In short, the more someone thought about a memory, the longer it would last.

The study identified two forms of processing that occur when something is observed, called shallow processing and deep processing. The shallow processing type relates to an overall sound or appearance and is generally forgotten. For example, you could sit on a train full of people and not recall any faces you saw within a few hours.

Deep processing involves rehearsing more elaborately, for example, thinking about the consequences of something that happened, or the meaning of words. So, if you read an article in the newspaper, it involves shallow processing, but if you think more about the story and how it can affect people or things, it requires deep processing. This results in more details being stored in the memory.

Craik and psychologist Endel Tulving published the results of an experiment conducted in 1975 regarding the processing levels. The participants of the experiment were given a list of 60 words and had to answer questions about each word. After the list was listed among a longer list of words, those who had used deep processing could pick out the original words much more straightforward than those who had shallow processed the information by how they sounded or looked.

The Working Memory Model

The working memory model was proposed by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch in 1974, which they believed replaced the short-term memory as being too simplistic. Their model suggested two components, visuospatial sketchpad and an articulatory-phonological loop, which each focused on different forms of sensory data. These components were regulated by central control but worked independently from each other.

The visuospatial sketchpad also called the “inner eye ,” managed the visual information, including the size and location of an object in the surroundings concerning the person. This component of the model is what enables people to pick up items or avoid obstacles. The visuospatial sketchpad recalls visual information in the long-term memory. A good example is when you are trying to remember a person’s face, and their appearance is visualized through the visuospatial sketchpad.

The articulatory-phonological loop handles the voices and sounds that are heard according to the model. By rehearsing the voices and sounds in our inner voice, the memory of them can be strengthened.

Miller’s Magic Number

Before the working memory model was created, George A. Miller, a cognitive psychologist, questioned the capacity limits of the short-term memory. A paper was written and published by Miller in the Psychological Review journal in 1956. Several memory experiments concluded that people could only store seven ‘chunks’ of information on average in the short-term memory. He found that although most people could recall a phone number of seven digits, they would struggle to remember a series of ten numbers. Therefore, he concluded that the number 1 +/- 2 was a magic number when understanding how the memory worked.

The question arose as to how someone could remember a long sentence when it was spoken despite it holding multiple chunks in the letters the sentence was composed of. Miller explained that the brain could group items of information in pieces, and these counted towards the limit of 7 chunks in the short term memory. Miller further explained that a word of seven letters was recorded by the brain, which chunked the letters together.

Memory Decay Study

After Miller’s paper was published, Peterson and Peterson decided to measure the longevity of memories, looking into how long it would take for a memory to be forgotten if it wasn’t rehearsed. The undertook an experiment where participants were given a list of words containing three meaningless letters. For example, the terms may be RBZ or GRT. The participants were then given a number and asked to count down, recalling the three-letter words at various times.

These three-letter words, called trigrams, make it difficult for the brain to encode them because they don’t contain any meaning. By counting down, the ability to rehearse the memories was interfered with, so the length of time short term memories lasted could be accurately measured.

The experiment showed that while the participants could recall the words initially, the accuracy diminished after just 18 seconds, at a rate of 10%.

Flashbulb Memories

Roger Brown and James Kulik, psychologists, did a study in 1977 looking at how particular events in current history could be remembered and recalled vividly. People will often recall where they were or what they were doing when an event of magnitude occurred, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.

These kinds of memories were referred to as flashbulb memories by Brown and Kulik. These snapshot memories were formed at times of trauma or shock, and although the person doesn’t have to be directly connected to the event, the flashbulb memory can still be developed.

Study of the Link Between Smell and Memory

Humans, along with multiple species of animals, can link a smell with memory.  In 1989, an experiment conducted at the University of North Carolina was aimed at studying the effects of smell or olfactory senses has on the encoding of memory and the ability to retrieve the information. The male participants of the study were shown slides of females and were asked to rate how attractive they were using a scale. During the viewing of the pictures, the males were exposed to either a nasty smell or a pleasant aftershave scent. They were later asked to recall the females’ faces while exposed to the same perfume or another different odor.

The results of the study indicated the male participants were able to recall the memories better when the smell they were exposed to while memorizing the information was the same when they were asked to recall the information. This led to the belief that there was a definite link between the sense of smell and memories.

The Interference Theory

As the name suggests, the interference theory suggests that humans forget a memory when other memories interfere with the recollection of memory. Older memories could be hindered by newer memories (also called retroactive interference) or further information, and our ability to memorize it could be interfered with by information we already have.

In 1960 an experiment was conducted where two groups of people were given a list of paired words to remember. The idea that when they were given the first of the paired words as a stimulus, it would prompt the recall of the second word. The second of the two groups were also asked to memorize the second list of paired words. The results of the study were that those who had only learned the first list could recall more of the terms than the group who had to memorize the two lists. Therefore, the conclusion was made that the second list had affected the memories of the first list.

False Memories

Perhaps the most dangerous of memories is the false version, where we can be manipulated into thinking false events were real, which makes us believe these memories are indeed ours. Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist, has been studying the reliability of memories for most of her career. She has primarily examined the consequences of false memories, particularly as they pertain to eyewitness testimony in criminal cases.

During one of her experiments, a group was shown a car crash on video, where the car had been traveling at different speeds. The group was then asked what the speed of the car was by using a sentence that was worded to describe the crash as either mild or severe. When the suggestion was that the collision had been brutal, the participants ignored what they had seen and claimed that the car had been traveling faster than if it had been a minor accident. By using ‘framed’ questions, the existing memory of an event can be interfered with retroactively.

In 1997, James Coan showed that people could create false memories of an entire event. Coan made booklets with various childhood events depicted in them and gave them to members of his family to read. His brother was given a pamphlet that said he had been lost in a mall and was found by an older man before his family was found. This was a false story, but when his brother was asked about the event, he believed the event was real.

The Weapon Effect on Eyewitness Testimonies

This study, conducted by Johnson and Scott in 1976, looked into a person’s ability to memorize and recall an event when called to provide eyewitness testimony. An experiment was undertaken where participants were placed in a waiting room and watched a man carrying a pen in his hand leave the room. The second group of participants was exposed to hearing an argument that sounded aggressive and watched a man quit while carrying a knife stained with blood.

When both groups of participants were asked to identify the man they had seen in a line-up, those who had seen the man with a knife were less able to identify him. Their attention and focus had been distracted by the sight of the blood-stained knife, and this prevented them from remembering the rest of the details.

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CHAPTER 3

Young Brain vs. Old Brain

Can you really teach an old dog new tricks? Or can you only learn new things while you are young? There has been a lot of discussion over the years about the differences between learning in a younger person versus an older person and whether or not they can both learn the same way. You probably would find the younger ones saying they learned better, and the older ones saying, the younger ones don’t know anything!

But what is the real truth, you may wonder. If you are older, is it worth trying to learn a new skill, or is it too late?

The Younger Brain

During the younger elementary school years, children develop visual-motor coordination, language, reasoning, motor skills, memory, and social understanding. Concepts begin to merge into meaningful groups that can be available to use later. From now until adulthood, the child develops the ability to generalize information and abstract it.

From later elementary school through to the early years of middle school, the brain of the child is more active in the posterior areas where an intersection occurs between tactile, visual, and auditory functioning. This is where information that has been learned is stored and is the knowledge generally measured through verbal testing and achievement tests.

As the child progresses through middle school years, the frontal lobes of the brain start to mature. This area of the brain allows us to evaluate how we are behaving and adapt that behavior based on what has been experienced in the past.

From around the age of twelve until the twenties, the frontal lobe becomes more refined, and higher cognitive functioning is present and social behavior becomes more appropriate.

How a younger brain learns is affected by the environment they are in, any learning or social disabilities they may have, and their experiences with education. For some, the opportunity to continue schooling at a tertiary level may not be there. Like any brain, if it isn’t used regularly or adequately, learning can be affected negatively.

When we are young, we want to learn about anything and everything, from why the sky is blue, through to the theories of gravity. Up until early adulthood, the accumulation of knowledge increases continually, and reasoning capacity grows. But, after we have reached early adulthood, the ability to reason starts to decline, and the efficacy of learning or retaining information starts to decrease as well.

The Older Brain

It was once believed that our brain connections developed rapidly up until the early twenties, and at middle age, the cognitive abilities would level off then begin to decline. Now, scientists know that this isn’t the case. The brain changes and develops continuously throughout the whole life span of a human, and there is no point in time where the brain remains in a steady state. Although some cognitive functioning can weaken as we get older, other functions in mind can get better.

Some factors that may affect cognitive functioning in older brains include the shrinking of the hippocampus of the brain, the wearing down of the myelin sheath that covers and protects nerve fibers, and the receptors on neuron surfaces that enable them to ‘talk’ to each other may not work as well as they once did. New information may not be encoded as efficiently in the brain, and the ability to retrieve information from the storage in mind may be decreased.

The positive changes included an increase in the branching out of the dendrites and the strengthening of the connections between areas of the brain that are distant. These particular changes help the older brain improve at understanding the global effect of issues, detect the relationships between sources of data, and the ability to see the ‘big picture.’ A good example is that the brain becomes worse at seeing leaves on trees but better at visualizing the whole forest.

Of course, with age comes the risk of developing a disease of the brain, especially those that target the function and structure of the brain. Dementia and Alzheimer’s damage the tissue of the brain, and other disorders and diseases such as heart disease and diabetes also have an impact on the brain.

It can be normal to start to forget minor things from middle age onwards, and for some people, even younger. Those simple things, like leaving your keys in the car, or forgetting your neighbor’s name, are common problems as we age. It doesn’t mean there is a severe problem, but if the forgetfulness becomes severe, it needs to be checked out.

Key Points on the Differences Between the Young and Old Brains

The key points between the young brain and the old brain and how they learn are as follows:

- As the working memory declines, specific learning processes such as problem-solving can become more difficult.

- Effective memory encoding strategies are affected by age.

- The encoding of information may be less meaningful, which makes it harder to retrieve the data.

- A decline of source memory and some information may not be encoded.

- The use of emotional relevance when encoding information can lower forgetfulness.

- It can take longer to process new information.

- Retrieval of Information can be improved with cues.

- Practicing can help with memory processes.

- As we get older, the gist of the information or experience may be remembered, but we recall less detail.

CHAPTER 4

Limitless Learning for Kids and Adults

Many people believe children can learn foreign languages a lot easier than older people, and there are good reasons why they would think this is true. But, as you will see below, it’s not what they learn but how they learn which separates the young from the old.

Not Easier, But in a Different Way

If you’ve ever had the idea that children can learn a foreign language more manageable than an adult, you may have thought it made sense, since children seem to learn new things easier. But it’s not exactly right. Children don’t learn languages easier; they instead learn them differently.

Children are often more capable of speaking a foreign language without an accent than adults. Still, when you think about how long it takes a child to learn to express their own language, it makes more sense that they wouldn’t learn a different language that much faster. Most children don’t become fluent in their native language until they are five or six. Some studies have shown that it may be easier for adults to learn a different language than children.

A study done at UCLA by Dr. Paul Thompson showed that children use the ‘deep motor area’ of their brain when learning languages. This particular area of the brain is also the part that controls what is called unconscious actions; those tasks we do without overthinking about it, such as signing our name.

Although this study seemed to imply children could learn languages easier than adults, there was one factor that was overlooked, and that is that adults are far better at conscious learning. As the brain ages, it becomes more adept at complex thought, and the capacity is increased for intellectual education. Unlike children, adults may have to put more thought into grammar rules and points in a direct manner to learn them effectively, but in many cases, this helps with learning a foreign language.

Because adults have a higher level of language through studying and past experiences, their aptitude in their native language can assist with learning another. In comparison, children are still trying to conquer their first native language, particularly with spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure than an adult who has already learned it.  These skills enable an adult to apply the necessary language rules, helping them learn a language easier.

Children vs. Adults When Dealing with Errors

However, a big difference between the adult and child when learning a language is how they manage mistakes. Although an adult has a high ability to learn new complex ideas, their attitude towards an error is more adverse. Even minor errors can feel embarrassing to an adult, whereas children move on from the mistake a lot easier. This negativity towards mistakes it what often causes defeat or difficulty in learning another language.

It is often said that we learn from our mistakes, but for many adults they avoid the possibility of making a mistake to prevent those feelings of embarrassment or failure. In a sense, an adult can self-sabotage their ability to learn. While it seems perfectly normal to correct a child when they make a language error, adults are less likely to be comfortable correcting another adult. When the mistakes aren’t made apparent to the adult, the error stays in the memory, and fixing it later can be difficult. A child, on the other hand, when the error is pointed out, will remember the correction and not the error.

Expectations of Learning

Often small errors in a child’s language abilities are ignored, emphasizing the overall ability to communicate. The expectation is that the child only needs to communicate with another child of the same age, which lowers the standard of language fluency. Probably a young child who is considered fluent in their native language has a much lower ability in a second language than an adult with necessary language skills.

The vocabulary and syntax used by children are generally smaller and more straightforward than an adult. Teenagers and adults are expected to converse at a much higher level about a broader selection of topics than children. Another component of language that is different from children is the capability to adjust how they speak and communicate depending on the setting or environment they are in. The language they may use in the workshop may be modified when out to dinner or at a formal event.

Therefore it is essential to remember that while a child may be considered fluent in a language, it differs from the fluency of an adult’s comprehension and speech.

Anyone Can Learn a New Language

So, is it possible for anyone to learn a new language easier? The answer is simple - anyone can learn a foreign language; they may discover it differently. The process of learning a language and the expectations are different between adults and children, but both are capable of taking on a second language.

Adults may find it easier to learn a foreign language because of the skills they already have in understanding how language works. There have even been studies showing it might be easier for an adult to learn the elements of a new language than a child. For more information on how to learn easier and better, check out our other book, “Limitless Learning’.

CHAPTER 5

Limitless Memory: The method & lifestyle

Memory is as good as you make it, and doing regular brain exercises can enhance your ability to use your memory spectacularly. We have all heard of those with photographic memories, or traveling showmen who seem to remember the incredible amount of information. But they aren’t born that way; it does take some work. An inactive brain is an unhappy brain, and the more you challenge it, the better it will feel and work.

Tips and Tricks for Exercising Your Memory

The healthier your brain is, the better your memory will be. It’s like your body; if you take care of it and keep it healthy, it will last you much longer, and your brain is the same. It doesn’t matter if you are a student or a working person, or simply want to keep your mind sharp. Anyone can exercise their brain, and there are plenty of ways to do it.

The old saying, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ has been proven entirely wrong, and it is totally possible to continue to learn new things regardless of your age. Science has shown that as the brain ages, new neural pathways can be formed, and existing connections can be altered. In short, your brain adapts and changes as you age and if you keep using it well.

This ability to change and adapt in the brain is called neuroplasticity. This natural form of brainpower can increase your cognition and improve your memory regardless of how old you are. The following are some great tips to keep your brain in shipshape condition.

Improving your memory is definitely important for any career you plan to pursue. Another key skill is fast learning. In the book "Limitless Learning " I address this increasingly important practice in our marketplace.

It is a practical guide with excellent exercises (and I'm not saying this because I created them, more or less) to learn and read up to 10 times faster, being able to read up to 1 book a day! Take a look at it, you would regret not doing it.

Tip: Giving the Brain a Workout

Once we have become adults, our brain has created millions of neural pathways. These are what helps us both process information rapidly and recall it and carry out regular tasks and solve some problems with a minor degree of effort. However, when we only stick to these same pathways, the brain hasn’t been stimulated, requiring further development.

Just like exercising muscles, the memory needs to be used, or we face the risk of losing it. So, the more your brain receives a workout, the better it will function. Some exercises are better than others, and the best ones break you from routine and challenge your cerebrum to use new brain paths.

There are four elements of brain exercises that are important:

- They need to teach you something new - if you are already good at something, it doesn’t challenge your brain. Something you are not familiar with or is new is much better for exercising the mind.

- It needs to be challenging - something that requires your full attention is best, and not something that only challenges you a little bit, but needs constant mental effort.

- An exercise you can increase - a good practice for the brain is one you can start on a more accessible level then build up. If the level becomes comfortable or feels easy, you need to move forward to a more challenging level.

- The exercises need to be rewarding - rewards support the learning process of the brain. The more you are interested in the activity or exercise, the more likely you will continue doing it. Ensure that while the exercises are challenging, they are still satisfying, and you find them enjoyable.

A great way to boost your brain is to take up a skill you have always wanted to try. It could be a form of art, a language, or even a musical instrument. Learning is exercising the brain, so whatever you choose, if there is a challenging component, it will help you improve your brain health.

Beware of brain training online programs and apps that make claims of improving your memory, learning skills, attention, and intelligence. They may help in the short term, but the research has shown that the long term effect is nowhere near as useful as they say.

Tip: Keep Moving

You’re probably tired of hearing how important exercise is for your body and your internal organs, but don’t forget that vitally important organ inside your brain. Yes, physical activity also helps keep your mind healthy. But, you don’t have to spend hours in the gym or go for a 20-mile jog. You don’t even have to get to a sweaty stage. Just regular exercise can improve the oxygen levels going to the brain and can help prevent memory loss.

Exercising improves the effects of many useful chemicals in the brain and can also reduce stress hormones. It also boosts new neural pathway connections and growth factors. Good exercises to help your mind include:

- Aerobic exercise - that exercises that make your blood pump are great for the brain. If it’s good for your heart, it will also be great for the brain.

- Morning exercise - for many people, exercising in the morning is far better than any other time. It helps to get your brain up and active and ready for whatever is thrown at you during the day. Your learning abilities will be enhanced.

- Hand-eye coordination - These activities are perfect for the brain as they use different motor skills.

- Brief exercises - if you are getting tired during the day or have some level of mental fatigue, short exercise breaks can be hugely beneficial. Take a short walk or do a few jumping exercises to get your brain clear and functioning.

If you have the type of work situation where you must sit for long periods, the best thing you can do for your body and brain is to stand up periodically and stretch. You don’t even have to leave your desk. The simple motion of standing and stretching can be hugely beneficial to you and is especially useful if you are stuck on something and struggling to solve a problem.

More and more of us are working in sedentary jobs where the main objective is to sit in one place for eight hours a day. As the day progresses, the ability to concentrate wanes significantly, but moving around will clear your mind and get you thinking again. This is important if you are studying or trying to recall facts and information from your long term memory.

Tip: Socialize

You may think this is a strange sort of exercise for your brain, but interestingly, socializing can significantly improve your brain function. Hanging out with friends can stimulate the brain, so joining a club, volunteering, or making sure you keep regular contact with friends can be beneficial. If you prefer the furry kind of friend, spending time with your pets can boost the brain’s health.

Any type of conversation can be hugely beneficial, both from a mental health perspective and a memory perspective. Talking with others prompts you to recall information, and each time you do so, you are increasing the storage duration of the specific memory.  Remembering who you are talking to, what the topic of conversation is, and what you can add to it from your memory is a fantastic way to exercise your brain.

Have you ever come across someone you haven’t seen for years, and after a conversation with them, gone home and felt good? That’s because you have benefited from the stimulation of the conversation, the happiness of seeing the person, and the memories the encounter has jogged.

Tip: Laugh Out Loud

Laughter is indeed the best medicine, and this isn’t only for the heart but also for the brain and memory. When we laugh, multiple areas of the brain are engaged, resulting in a great exercise. Also, if you are listening to someone tell a joke and trying to figure out what the punchline is going to be, the learning and creativity areas of the brain are stimulated. Here are some laughing tips:

- Laughing at yourself - by sharing embarrassing moments about yourself, it is not only helping you but them as well. By taking yourself less seriously and having a good laugh, your brain will be boosted.

- If you hear it, go towards it - if you hear someone else laughing, go and find out what they are laughing about, and join in.

- Fun people - some people laugh easier than others, and these are great people to hang out with. Laughter is contagious, so being around fun people will ensure you get your daily doses of laughter.

Be prepared to get some unique looks from other people if you burst into laughter at random times and odd places. If you are riding the train and suddenly start laughing, you can pretty much guarantee people will move away from you, thinking you are a bit strange. What should you do in this situation? Carry on laughing! What is the worst that can happen? You don’t know these people, so don’t let the potential embarrassment stop you.

You could also go and see a comedian or watch a hilarious movie or video clip. Anything that is going to cause you to burst into laughter is great.

Tip: Support Memory and Learning

If you haven’t learned something, you can’t expect to remember it. By paying attention to something, you can transfer that information into your memory. If you are distracted too easily, head to a place where you know you won’t be interrupted or distracted, and this will help you learn and memorize.

It’s also good to relate new information with old information. By associating something new with information that is already stored, you are building on it, and it will be easier to recall. If the information is involved, shift your focus to understanding the basic idea of the data rather than trying to memorize the separate details. A handy hint is to practice explaining the information to someone else using your language skills.

When you learn something, make sure you review it later that same day, and then at regular intervals after that. By following this method of rehearsal, you will retain more information than if you crammed it in with one study period.

Mnemonic devices are often used to help people learn and memorize information more easily. These are clues that you can use to help with remembering something and can be an image, a word, or a sentence. Examples of mnemonic devices are:

- Sentence or Acrostic - use the first letter from each word to make a sentence. A good example is a treatment for a sprained joint, RICE:

- R - rest

- I - ice

- C - compress

- E - elevate

- Visual imagery - associate a name or word with a graphic image to aid your memory. If the image is positive or colorful, it will be easier to recall.

- Rhyming and alliteration - one of the most well-known examples of rhyming are the days and months - ‘thirty days hath September, April June and November’, which helps remember which months only have thirty days.

- Acronym - similar to the acrostic or sentence mnemonic, the acronym uses the first letters of the keywords to make a new word.

- Method of loci - in your mind, choose a path you take that you know well, and imaging putting all the things you need to remember along that route.

- Chunking - this involved breaking information, particularly numerical lists, into groups of information that is easier to store and recall. You probably do this already, especially with phone numbers, where you break the number into groups, e.g., 5557132759 could be split into 555 - 713 - 2759.

Health, Sleep, and Diet

A healthy mind can be achieved by adjusting your lifestyle, especially when it comes to sleep, stress, and diet. Many of us work out the minimum amount of sleep we need to get us through the day instead of focusing on how much sleep we should be getting. Adults should be getting a minimum of 7.5 hours per night, and up to 9 hours is even better.

When we don’t get enough sleep, our ability to function successfully is significantly reduced, and there is no such thing as catching up on sleep later. The ability to solve problems, make decisions, and of course, good memory depends on how much sleep you are getting. It also needs to be good quality sleep - it’s not just about the number of hours.

Studies have shown that for efficient memory consolidation, adequate sleep is vital. The main activity that enhances the function of the memory happens at night while we are in the deep stage of sleep, so if you’re not reaching that point, those enhancing activities won’t occur.

As much as possible, try to regulate your sleeping schedule. Get up at the same time in the mornings and go to bed at the same time at night. This routine should continue to be followed while you are on vacation or even on the weekends. An excellent regular sleep schedule helps to create better quality sleep.

If you are having trouble sleeping, there are numerous things you can do to try and rectify the situation. In this day and age, one of the most significant impacts on our ability to sleep comes from the electronic devices we rely on far too much. By turning off all your devices such as computers, phones, and televisions, you will be better able to fall asleep.

Your diet can also play a big part in the health of your brain, just like it does with your body. Some dietary changes can improve your memory, and some of the best foods to include are:

- Whole grains

- Vegetables and berries

- Nuts

- Legumes

- Turkey and chicken

- Herbs and spices

- Olive oil

- Coconut oil

- Red wine (moderate intake)

- Fatty fish - sardines and salmon

Fish like sardines and salmon have a high component of omega-3 fatty acids, which are important for creating neve and brain cells. These acids are considered essential for effective learning and improved memory. Some studies have shown that those who don’t include these in their diet are at a higher risk of developing a decline in their cognitive function.

Foods that should be avoided, or at least heavily reduced, are:

- Processed foods

- Sugar

- Red meat

- Butter

- Salt

- Cheese

- Fried foods

A link has been made between fat and sugar and poor memory. The Western diet is typically high in both fats and sugars and has been shown to impair memory.

If you’re not keen on eating sardines or salmon, or other fatty fish, other foods contain good sources of omega-3s, including walnuts, winter squash, broccoli, seaweed, flaxseed oil and ground flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, pinto and kidney beans, and soybeans.

To keep your brain healthy and prevent cell damage, fill your diet with plenty of vegetables and fruit, mostly green leafy vegetables. The more color in the fruit or vegetable, the better it is for you.

Drinking plenty of water is excellent for the brain and the spinal cord. It not only acts as a shock absorber for these organs, but it also is known that dehydration can damage the brain and impair memory. You may be surprised to learn that coffee is also suitable for memory, provided you don’t drink too much of it!

Certain medications can also affect your memory, but the most important thing is to continue taking them as instructed by your general practitioner. Suddenly stopping some medicines without medical advice can be dangerous. If you are prescribed the medicines listed below, discuss with your doctor if there is another way to manage your health.

- Medicines for anxiety

- Antidepressants

- Sleeping tablets

- Hypertension medications

- Metformin

Some medical conditions can affect your cognitive function and memory. These include heart disease, which often goes hand in hand with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These conditions have been linked to mild impairment in cognitive function. Diabetes is another disease that is believed to increase the risk of developing cognitive impairment.

Certain hormone deficiencies can cause issues with memory, thinking, and confusion, including estrogen, testosterone, and thyroid.

Stress is becoming the number one killer in many societies, not only because people seem to be suffering from it more, but because many don’t know how to relieve it. Stress causes the body to release cortisol, a stress hormone, which is known to impair the memory processes, especially the efficiency of the long term memory.

It can be challenging to get on top of stress but needs to be taken care of for brain and body health.  Some tips for helping combat stress are:

- Ensure you have regular breaks during the day.

- Make expectations realistic.

- Be prepared to say no.

- Talk about your emotions and worries.

- Create the right balance between work and leisure.

- Forget multitasking, take on one item at a time.

- Learn how to meditate.

Meditation is useful for managing many medical and mental health conditions and improving concentration, focus, learning, and memory. Studies have shown that the thickness of the cerebral cortex is increased during meditation, and this enhances the brain cell connections, increasing the memory and mental acuity. One of the most accessible and most beneficial forms of meditation that helps your body and mind is mindfulness meditation.

By practicing mindfulness meditation regularly, it can assist with managing anxiety, sleep issue, stress, depression, and general mental and physical health, thereby ridding you of all those factors that can affect your memory.

Mindfulness is defined as being present in the moment and focussing on ‘now’ rather than thinking about the future. This enables you to accept how you are thinking, feeling, and sensations you experience without any judgmental thoughts.

There is a variety of mindfulness meditation techniques, but they are all essentially a practice of breathing along with awareness of your mind and body. Sounds complicated? It’s not, and once you get the hang of it, you will wonder why you have never tried it before.

You don’t need any equipment or props, and you don’t have to go to a special place to practice mindfulness meditation. All you need is somewhere to sit that is comfortable, a mind free of judgment, and a few minutes of your time. That’s it!

First, choose a time of day when you are less likely to be distracted by anyone or anything. It doesn’t matter if you can’t do this every day, because life sometimes gets in the way, but try and do it the next day if possible. Next, find somewhere at home that is comfortable. Whether on a chair or the floor, sit with your back straight but don’t sit in a stiff position.

The next step is to start thinking about your breathing, the air going in and out as you inhale and exhale. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. You will have thoughts come into your mind, but don’t just ignore them. Make a mental note of them and continue to focus on your breathing.

It is this process of noting thoughts and feelings and returning to the practice of focusing on your breathing that is the mindfulness aspect of this type of meditation.

There are other ways of practicing mindfulness throughout your day without finding that space on your own. While you brush your teeth, feel how your feet feel on the floor, and think about the toothbrush you are holding and how your arm moves up and down as you brush your teeth. While you are washing the dishes, take note of how the water feels on your hands, what the bubbles look like, and what sounds the dishes make as they touch each other in the sink.

There are many other ways of introducing mindfulness meditation into your life, and you would be surprised by how much it will improve your mental wellbeing. We have barely touched on the subject here, but it is easy to find more information and techniques out there.

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping has become increasingly popular for those who wish to improve their memory. You may remember the charts drawn at school by teachers, with a central bubble and ideas branching off it, and this is an excellent example of a mind map. But how does this mind mapping help? By drawing the mind map, it takes the strain off your brain as you write the ideas down, and the processing speed of the brain is increased.

Here is how to draw a mind map:

- Use a large piece of paper.

- Draw a central image in a color relevant to the topic you are mapping, or you can write words in a circle instead as long as the picture or words are related to the topic.

- Using various colors, draw a minimum of four branches radiating out from the center of the circle or image.

- Write headings made of key words along the branches that relate to the topic.

- Draw more branches from the four main branches, and these are sub-topics.

- Continue to add more branches with sub-topics and keywords as needed.

It’s important to note that some rules around mind mapping can help you do the exercise more efficiently. These are:

- Different ideas and thoughts can have different symbols.

- Short phrases can be used instead of keywords.

- Using colored arrows in different styles, colors, and sizes can be useful.

- Separate the topics and ideas with suitable spaces between.

- Use lots of colors and stimulating pictures.

- Images to represent the words can be directly related, metaphorical, or sound similar.

- Borders and boundaries should be created so the attention can be drawn to specific branches.

- The use of upper and lower case letters to show importance is useful.

- Use different sizes of words depending on their importance.

- Different shapes can be used to show other ideas and areas of the mind map.

- Font styles can be variable to separate topics and ideas.

- Different colors can indicate various topics.

Overall, use lots of color and plenty of imagination to create your mind map. The more interesting it is to look at, the more likely you are to remember the information contained within the map. Think of it as a more creative form of listing information.

Neurobic Exercises

Like aerobic exercises are great for your heart and lungs, neurobic exercises have a fantastic effect on improving your brain function and memory. These exercises strengthen the neurons and neuronal networks in the brain, making it work more efficiently. Neurobic activities typically involve components that are auditory, physical, or environmental. There are three main categories, as follows:

Category 1 - Physical Neurobics

- Using your non-dominant hand:

We do so many things automatically with our dominant hand that our brains barely need to think about. By changing some activities to your non-dominant hand, you will pause and think about the task more, thereby stimulating the brain. An easy one to start with is using your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth. This will feel rather weird, to begin with but persevere with it. This simple switch can be an excellent exercise for your brain.

If you want to try something a little harder, practice writing with your non-dominant hand; most people find this a difficult task, unless they are ambidextrous. It can even be quite amusing to see how your writing skills are affected by the opposite hand. Eventually, you might find you are capable of writing with both hands.

- Music with your non-dominant hand:

This one can be quite tricky, depending on the instrument you play. You could switch hands around, or even change how you hold the instrument, for example, turning your guitar upside down.

- Oral neurobic exercises:

While eating, use your tongue and lips more to experience the taste, texture, and sensations of the food. We tend to put food into our mouths, quickly chew and swallow, without stopping to think about what it feels like in the mouth or the taste of individual foods. Believe it or not, the tongue and the lips are perhaps the most sensitive of all body parts.

- Squats with ear pinching:

Instead of doing a regular squat exercise, first, cross your arms, and then pinch your ears before doing the squat. It’s all about changing things slightly to stimulate other parts of the brain instead of doing things by rote.

Category 2 - Environmental Neurobics

- Navigating with closed eyes:

Ensure you’re not doing this alone, or you are in an area where you are completely safe! Use a path or route that you are familiar with, even just walking through one area of your home to another, and try to navigate your way without using your eyes. If you have a friend with you, try moving up to stepping out of an elevator and walking down a hallway with your eyes closed.

- Essential exercise with closed eyes:

Once you have some experience with navigating with your eyes closed, you can increase the challenge by trying to get into the house with your keys while keeping them closed. The other senses will be stimulated and heightened to replace the lack of vision, and by using these senses, the brain will have to work a little more challenging than if you just walked up to your door and put your key in the lock with your eyes open.

- Showering with closed eyes:

Have you ever tried showering with your eyes closed? Well, it can be hugely beneficial for your brain function and can help stimulate new ideas and thoughts. With your eyes closed, your mind can wander more freely, leading you to all sorts of thoughts and ideas.

- Eating with closed eyes:

This exercise can be done several times a day, pretty much every time you feel like eating something. It’s a well-known fact that food tastes much better if you don’t look at it. This is because of the other senses and the concentration on the taste and texture of the food. When we look at the food, we automatically think we know what it will taste like. Eating becomes more of a chore rather than something to be genuinely enjoyed. And why not stimulate your brain in the process! You can actually increase this exercise by indulging in multi-sensory eating. While you dine, focus on the following:

- The physical feeling of the food in your mouth, including how your muscles of your tongue and lips work together, and the sensations and movement of your teeth as you chew.

- The sounds of yourself and people around you drinking and eating.

- What the food looks like.

- How your dining makes you feel.

- Origins of where the food came from or the cultural aspects of the food, or any ideas you may have about your diet.

- Think about the smells associated with the food. Even more fun is trying to think of the opposite food while you eat - for example, while eating something sweet, think about the smell of something sour.

- The density or thickness of the food.

- Take a different route:

Often we walk the same route to and from work, school, or other places we frequent, and it’s as if our feet are leading us because we do it so often. Instead, make a minor change to your route. If you always walk on a specific side of the road, try walking on the other. Or, when you see a street sign, circle it once clockwise then once counter-clockwise.

Category 3 - Auditory Neurobics

- Tracking an instrument:

Combine listening to your favorite piece of music by exercising your brain with this simple method. While listing to a song, try to focus on just one of the instruments and follow it throughout the piece of music. It could be the drums or the lead guitar, or maybe a piano, whichever one you choose is fine. Then the next time you listen to that same song, follow a different instrument.

- Reading:

Try to read fast or really slow out loud. By reading and speaking at the same time, you are stimulating your brain, mouth, tongue, and your hearing.

- Use a metronome:

A metronome is a device used to keep time by clicking to the beat or rhythm. Those who play the piano are most likely familiar with a metronome. If you have one, set it to several beats per minute and try to hide each click by clapping. You can alter the speed to increase as you become better and better at the exercise.

- Counting breaths:

You can do this exercise anywhere, anytime. All that’s involved is to count your breaths as you breathe. Another method is to breathe in and count to three, then breathe out and count to three, and continue this pattern. When you focus on your breaths, it can help to reduce pain and tension in your muscles, and ease anxiety, all the while exercising your brain.

Use Your Senses

We don’t mean common sense, but rather the senses of smell, taste, sound, touch, and sight. All of these senses have a vital part to play, and if one is faulty, the others will often become more heightened. As mentioned before, by covering our eyes, we have to rely on hearing and touch. Using our senses more can have a significant impact on our memory and make it easier to store and recall information when needed.

Olfactory Memory - Sense of Smell

This sense is quite possibly the strongest of the senses when it comes to memory. You may have noticed that a familiar perfume reminds you of your grandmother, or the smell of cookies baking reminds you of when you were a child. Some scents can instantly trigger memories, and this is referred to as the Proust Effect, named after French author Marcel Proust who wrote about the phenomenon.

According to scientists, the pathway a smell takes through the nose and brain travels through areas of the brain. Other senses don’t affect. The smell first enters the olfactory bulb, which is connected to the areas of the brain that are indicated in memory and emotion. These two areas are the hippocampus and the amygdala. A simple explanation is that smell goes through the emotional space of the brain while words go through the thinking area of the brain. Emotions trigger memories more than thinking.

It is believed that if you are trying to study for an exam, spraying a scent you are unfamiliar with when you start to study and then respraying it just before you go into your exam can trigger memories of the studied material.

Have a wander around your garden and smell the flowers and see what memories the scent invokes. You might be quite surprised at some of the things you have stored in your memory related to that sense of smell. Or perhaps you smell a cake baking, and suddenly you are reminded of your grandmother baking in her old farm kitchen.

A sense of smell is an essential way of developing memories and helping you to recall them at a later date. On the other end of the scale, smelling a bad smell may trigger not such pleasant memories! Perhaps a scent reminds you of an awful medicine you had to take as a child. Though unpleasant, the memory is still there.

Olfactory Memory - Sense of Taste

In 2014, a study was done by the University of Haifa and the Riken Institute studying the link between taste and memories. The study showed there was indeed a link between the insular cortex, or area of the brain that is responsible for taste memory, and the part of the brain that is responsible for memorizing the place and time we experienced that taste.

Taking a bite of food, the information about what you are eating is collected by your taste buds. A taste bud is comprised of between 50 and 100 cells that are called gustatory receptor cells, and when they are stimulated, signals are sent to the brain. The taste can conjure memories of previous times you had experienced that taste and the environment you were in when you tasted it.

Echoic Memory - Sense of Sound

Information is stored temporarily in the working memory, and these memories can be triggered by what we hear. Many studies have been done on echoic memory, and it is known that listening to music stimulates both sides of the brain simultaneously, which maximized our learning ability and improved memory.

Perhaps the link is somewhat due to how music can alter our mood due to the release of dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter that invokes feelings of relaxation, happiness, and excitement. In this sense, music can change how someone sees the world around them. And, as our mood gets better, so does our ability to learn and to solve problems more effectively.

Haptic Memory - Sense of Touch

Some people are more tactile than others, but touch can be directly linked to how we focus. By touching something or fidgeting, there can be an effect on the neurotransmitters in the brain, which increases attention and focus. This is why some people can work or study better if they have something in their hands while doing so. Stress balls are useful for this, as is doodling on paper.

All over the body are sensory receptors that feel sensations like pain, itching, and pressure. This information travels through the spinal cord neurons and into the parietal lobe of the brain. From there, the memory is created of what the sensation felt like, where it occurred and what may have caused the sensation.

Iconic Memory - Sight

We rely predominantly on our sight to learn and create memories. Still, now that people are using computer and phone screens more and more, the resultant eye strain can cause problems with our ability to retain and retrieve information. To prevent this, regular breaks need to be taken, even if just for a few minutes at a time. Staggeringly, up to 90% of all the information sent to the brain comes from the vision and creates visual memory.

There is a myth that the iconic memory is the same as a photographic memory, when, in fact, there is virtually no evidence that there is such a thing as a photographic memory. Some people may have better memories, but this is generally due to the work and exercise they put into their memory.

Iconic memories don’t last very long, and a good example exercise is to shut your eyes for a few seconds, then open them for just a couple of seconds and focus on an object. Then close your eyes again, and you will briefly see that object’s image in your mind. This is a prime example of how iconic memory works.

The occipital lobe is the central part of the brain involved in iconic memory. This lobe processes the information and regulates it before being transferred to the temporal lobe or discarded within milliseconds. If the data makes it into the temporal lobe, the hippocampus is responsible for moving the memory from the short term to the long term memory.

Exercises and Activities

Basic Tips and Activities

Before you can store information usefully to be recalled later, you need to understand the first instance. If it doesn’t make sense to you, it’s unlikely you will memorize it.

It’s helpful if you can link the new information with something that you know already. New information can be challenging to memorize if you can’t connect it to anything. It’s not always easy to link data, and sometime you may have to be creative when coming up with a way to connect it.

There have been scientific studies done that indicate the information is processed and stored while you are sleeping. So, try reviewing the information before you go to bed, and it may just help. You only need to review the data for a few minutes, so you don’t have to delve too deeply into your studies before you go to sleep.

Another good tip is to quiz yourself and your memory now and then. Try to recall the information you have been studying by asking yourself questions. Don’t read the answers or look at the study materials; try to remember the data instead of your memory. Make sure you don’t try and quiz yourself straight after attempting to memorize the information; wait for a few hours or even a couple of days, which will indicate if the data has been stored.

Repetition is an excellent way of learning and memorizing, and helps information move from your working memory to the long term memory. Some find flashcards are useful, and you can space out your repetition and studies over multiple days, which will help you be sure the information is well and indeed locked into your memory.

For some people, writing information down helps them learn and memorize. This is because there is a direct link between the brain and the hand. If you speak the information or try to visualize it, this can help boost your ability to store the information for later recall.

Another method is interleaving, which is the idea of alternating or mixing concepts and skills you are trying to memorize. Instead of studying one subject or topic for a lengthy time, do a few different subjects, jumping between them in short bursts. It seems more comfortable to remember information this way because you are not spending an extended time on just one topic or concept.

One popular technique is the memory palace, whereby you visualize a place you know well, such as your house, and in that space, you put the images of the information you want to memorize. It can take a bit of time to get used to this technique, but once you have mastered it, the more comfortable and more effective, the method will be. It’s a suitable method for memorizing lists, such as shopping lists, by imagining each object in areas of the house. If you can develop amusing ways to do this, such as mentally picturing a cartoon carrot watching television, the easier it will be.

Jingles and songs are also useful because they utilize the right hemisphere of the brain, which is used to work out math equations or lists. If you have a look online, you might someone has already created a jingle for a specific formula or complicated math problem, but if you can’t find a suitable one, make it up yourself.

When learning science and math, using analogies and visual metaphors can be useful. Metaphors, in particular, can stick in your memory for years because they create connections to pre-existing neural structures in the brain.

Creating a Story Game

This exercise is excellent for training your brain to recall information or items, and all it involves is a tray and twenty random objects that have been selected by someone else, such as a friend or roommate. Once the tray is in front of you, study the items, and create a story in your head that utilizes them. The story doesn’t have to be serious or make sense, so there are no hard and fast rules there. Next, place a cover over the tray and write down your story.

After you have written your story, read through it, and check to see how many of the items or objects from the tray you recalled. You can continue to create stories using the same objects until you remember them all, or you can switch the objects for new ones each time. This type of exercise can be done as often as you choose.

The Location Game

Go for a wander around your home and locate ten areas where you can place things, such as shelves, cupboards, in the refrigerator, under the bed, etc. Then walk around again in the same order and ensure you can remember all of the chosen locations. Next, sit in a chair and visualize the walk around your home and consider each of the locations in your mind. Now put the things you want to remember in those locations in the house.

You may find it helpful to physically walk around and say the information out loud as you get to each location. Then sit down again and visualize walking around and putting the items in the ten locations. Take a piece of paper and write down the things, pulling them out of your memory as you mentally walk around the places.

Short Term Memory Exercises

Number Activity

Start by reading out loud these numbers: 1729, then use a piece of paper to cover them up and test yourself that you can recall them in the same order. Then add more numbers, and do the same, cover them up once you have read them out loud, and then try to remember them. Keep adding numbers and going through the process. For example:

- 18546

- 489135

- 7890142

- 91248375

- 813642509

- 3126457809

This type of activity is called a digit span, and most people can recall, on average, seven numbers in the same order. This shows that the short term memory can hold around seven items, and these only stay in mind for a few seconds before disappearing. By repeating the information over again, it may shift from the short term memory to the long term memory.

Free Recall Activity

This activity involves repeating a long list of words several times. Write lists of words in four columns and read them consecutively. Then cover the terms with some paper and see if you can remember them. It’s unnecessary to remember them in the exact order they are listed, though this is a bonus.

Write the words you remember down on a piece of paper, and then repeat the exercise four additional times. Now see how many of the words you can recall.  Often people will remember the words that appear first and last in the list. When the first words are remembered, it is referred to as the primacy effect. Remembering the last words is referred to as the recency effect. The words at the end of the list are more likely to be remembered than those in the middle section of the columns because they are the most recent words you read.

However, if you take a break between reading the list and trying to remember the words, you would forget what the last words were because they were stored in the short term memory. Those that fall into the category of primacy effect are more likely to be remembered because they are stored in long term memory.

Four Details Exercise

This exercise involves observing four details of people you come across in public and memorizing those details. It could be the color of their hair, a hat they are wearing, the type of coat, and perhaps something they are carrying. People, in general, aren’t good at practicing observation, which makes it even harder to visualize information mentally. You may want to start by only observing the four details of one person, then seeing how you recall the data, and then gradually increase the number of people.

Numeracy Exercises

An excellent exercise to practice is the ‘Add 3 Minus 7’ exercise that you can do at any time. Simply choose a three-digit number, and then add three to that digit three times. Next, minus seven from the new number seven times. Repeat this exercise a minimum of five times, then the next time, choose a different three-digit number.

This exercise can be adjusted to suit, and no rule says it has to be a three-digit number. You could do a four-digit number, for example. So, if the number was 1254, add twelve, do this twelve times, then minus eleven, eleven times. This particular exercise challenges your brain and improves your working memory due to the level of detail you need to hold on to in your mind to finish the activity.

Repeat and Recall Activity

Listening is a skill that is not strong in a lot of us, but there is an activity that can help train your brain to focus more on what people have to say, and enable you to recall it. All you need to do is when someone is speaking to you, repeat the words in your mind as they are told. This will enhance your cognitive function and enable you to remember a lot more of what was being said to you.

Beginner exercises

Exercise for the Right Brain:  Square Counting

Count up the squares in the image below. Make sure you count those squares that are inside other squares.

Exercise for the Left Brain: Changing Words

Starting with the word WALL, change one letter at a time to create new words until you get to the word FIRM.

WALL

_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _

_ _ _ _

FIRM

Exercise for the Right Brain: Toothpick Rearranging

Rearrange three toothpicks into the number nine. You can’t bend them or break them. If it’s challenging to do with your imagination, get yourself some toothpicks and have a go.

Exercise for the Left Brain: Letter Jumble

Using the letters below, create as many words as you possibly can. You can only use each letter once per term.

IRNAB

Exercise for the Right Brain: Jigsaw Challenge

Work out which of the pieces would fit into the gap.

Intermediate Level

Exercise for the Right Brain: Create a Line

In the picture below, draw a line that is continuous connecting number 1 to the letter A, then A to 2, then 2 to B, then B to 3, and continue until there are no further options.

Exercise for the Left Brain: Color Jumble

Rearrange the letters in the words below to find four colors.

RAIGET =

ENOLYL =

OVGOEN =

LEWRE =

Exercise for the Left Brain: Missing Vowels

In the proverb below, all of the vowels have been removed. Add the vowels back into the words to reveal the proverb.

TWH =

DSRB =

TTRT =

HNN =

Advanced Level

These exercises use both sides of your brain.

Letter Jumble #2

Use the group of letters below to come up with as many real words as you can. As a bonus, can you find the seven-letter word?

OGEUNRY =

Gary’s Favorites

Gary has a variety of favorites. He likes football but hates rugby; likes beer but hates ale; has a Ferrari but wouldn’t drive a Lamborghini. Based on Gary’s favorites, would he prefer skiing or cycling?

Answers

1. 21 squares.

2. WALL, WILL, FILL, FILM, FIRM.

3. IX (Roman numeral).

4. I, In, Ran, Rib, Rain, Nab, A, An, Air, Ban, Bar, Bin, Barn, Bran, Brain.

5. B.

6. Star shape.

7. Green, Orange, Violet, Yellow.

8. Two heads are better than one.

9. On, Or, One, Ore, Oner; Go, Gun, Guy, Gone, Gore, Grey, Goner; Rue, Run, Rug, Rung, Rouge; You, Young, Younger. The seven-letter word is Younger.

10. Skiing, because Gary likes words that have double letters.

The Category Game

This memory game is suitable for people of all ages, including children, as it is not that difficult but still challenging for the brain. For the game, you are required to list words that fit into a specific category first for one minute, then for two minutes. Suggestions are:

- List all the colors that you know of.

- List all the words you can think of, that means small.

- List all the breeds of dogs you know or any other animal.

- List all the words you can think of that mean red.

You can use any category you want, and this game can be a lot of fun, all while exercising your brain. The game can be played with one or multiple people, and you can turn it into a competition to see who comes up with the most answers. This is an enjoyable game, and you can come up with all sorts of categories to keep the game interesting.

The Concentration Game

Another name for this game is Memory as well as Match, or Pairs. Lay playing cards face down on a tray or table and flip over two cards per turn, so they are face up. The object of the game is to find pairs of cards that match. If a player locates a matching pair, they have another turn and continue until they don’t find a match. The ‘winner’ is the player who has found the most matches.

This game can be played as a solitaire or with two or more people. It’s an excellent game for young children to play, and adults can play along with the children. Adults find it just as challenging and enjoyable as well as children do.

Variations of the Concentration Game include:

Colors

A version where pairs are matched that when they are the same color, and the rank of the card isn’t important. This is a good version for young children.

One Flip

Instead of having another turn after finding a matching pair, the turn moves on to the next players.

Zebra

Pairs can only be formed if the cards hold the same rank, but they must be of the opposite color. For example, the five of diamonds would be a match to the five of clubs or spades but is not a match to the five of hearts because they are the same color.

Two Decks

For this game, you need two decks of cards, with 52 cards in a deck. This is a longer game. First, shuffle the decks of cards tighter, and then lay them out in eight rows of 13 cards (9 rows of 12 cards if you choose to use the jokers). For a pair to match, they must be identical, meaning the same suit and rank.

Two Deck Duel

This game requires two players. Each player shuffles a full 52-card deck and lays it out in front of them in four rows of 13 cards. Players cannot touch or access the cards of the other player. Player one flips one card face-up, then player two selects one card from their side. If the pair is a match, the cards are removed. If they don’t match, they are flipped back over. Pairs must be identical to form a match, so of the same suit and rank. After each turn, roles are exchanged, with player two flipping a card, and then player one has a turn.

Double Decker Checkerboard

This is a little bit easier than the other two-pack game, and it uses decks that have different patterns on their backs. Shuffle the cards separately. Deal the cards out in a checkerboard pattern, alternating cards from the two decks. The different card backs make the possibility of finding a match a lot more complicated and makes this game challenging.

Spaghetti

This has the same rules as standard concentration, but the cards are not laid out neatly in rows but strewn randomly about on the floor.

Concentration is not limited to playing cards. Many versions of the game are designed and sold for children with different themes. There are even computer versions where the cards may randomly move to increase the difficulty.

Creating a Memory Palace in Further Detail

As mentioned previously, the memory palace is a great technique to employ when you need to remember certain types of information, such as lists. Here are the details on how to create your very own memory palace.

Choosing Your Palace

This technique will only work if you choose a place that is very familiar to you because you need to be able to walk around the place in your mind quickly. The most commonly used location is your own house because this is where you spend the most time. But instead of just mentally picturing your house, imagine walking through it in a specific way. As well as your home, you can try these other places that may be useful:

- Streets or roads you travel on regularly and are familiar to you.

- Your old school, or your current place of study.

- Your workplace.

- A scenic place.

Distinctive Features of Your Palace

Next, focus on specific features in the location you have chosen. If you chose your home, the first feature you notice would most likely be the front door. Then look at the next room you enter once through the door. Look around and note what catches your attention next. As you wander mentally through the location, keep making notes in your mind of the features you encounter.

Imprinting Your Palace

Your palace needs to be wholly imprinted in your brain for the technique to be successful. For those who visualize easily, this shouldn’t be too difficult. But for those who struggle, here are some ideas that may be helpful:

- Walkthrough the location or along the route physically and say the features out loud as you come across them.

- Write the features down and read them out loud as you walk mentally through the location.

- Look at each feature from the same point of view every time.

Once you have your memory palace firmly imprinted, it is there for you to use over and over anytime you need it.

Using the Palace

Now you need to learn how to use memory pegging. This may sound strange, but it is a way of combining an image you know with the element or item you are trying to memorize. An excellent exercise to get you used to the idea of memory pegging is to imagine a grocery list. In your mind, go to the first feature of your memory palace, most likely the front door. Take the first item on your list, and visually add it to the front door. Say that the first item is apples; visualize a comical image of an apple dancing at the front door.

Next, go through the door, and with the next feature you have previously identified, associate it with the next item on your grocery list. Whatever the feature is, visualize that grocery item interacting with it. For example, if the feature is a large vase, and the grocery item is bacon, picture the strips of crispy bacon arranged in the vase like a floral arrangement.

Continue to follow the process with all of the items on your grocery list. Before long, you will have associated each item with a corresponding feature as you mentally wander through your memory palace.

Always start at the same position when mentally walking through your palace and follow the same path as when you first set up your memory palace. This will help you immensely when it comes to recalling the information. It’s a good idea to practice wandering through your memory palace, so you are sure you are always following the same route.

Learning a Foreign Language

As mentioned in a previous chapter, anyone can learn a new language at any age, and it is a fantastic brain exercise for improving your memory. Having regular conversations is known to stimulate those chemicals in the brain that will enhance mental health, and singing also increases chemicals, including cortisol, which are beneficial to healing.

Therefore, if you can sing in a foreign language, it can increase the effectiveness of this brain exercise. Not only are you able to improve your mental health and your memory, but also boost your overall health at the same time.

Anytime we learn something new, it is exercising the brain. Studies have shown that by learning another language, the onset of cognitive impairment can be delayed by up to four years. When learning to speak a foreign language, your brain is continuously being used to recall the information, especially if you can converse with someone else that speaks the same language.

Summary of Tips and Exercises

Here is a list of all the things you can do to boost your memory:

Learning Something New

As mentioned, the more you use your brain, the stronger it gets, and learning a new skill or hobby can be both challenging and rewarding. It doesn’t matter what you are learning, as long as you choose something that interests you and isn’t too simple.

Repeat and Retrieve

When you are learning something, if you practice repetition, your memory is more likely to store the information in the long term memory so it can be more readily recalled. By repeating a word, the connections created between the neurons are reinforced. You can even repeat out loud what you hear, or write it down then read it out loud. Testing yourself later is essential for ensuring you can recall the information.

Acronyms, Abbreviations, Mnemonics

Mentioned previously, mnemonics are handy, especially for students who have to learn and memorize vast amounts of information. A good example is a mnemonic for remembering the colors of the spectrum, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violent - ROY G. BIV - which uses the first letter of each color. You can find many useful ones that already exist or create your own.

Chunking or Grouping

Chunking or grouping involves dividing information that has just been learned into chunks so that you can create a smaller amount of large pieces of the word. The example provided previously is where a phone number of ten digits are more comfortable to recall if the digits are grouped into three chunks.

The Memory Palace

Remember to create your memory palace to help you store information and recall it at a later time.

Senses

Don’t just rely on what you see, hear, or use your other senses to invoke memories. Taste, touch, and smell are all useful for creating and storing memories.

Don’t Rely on Technology

It is too easy to use your computer, phone, or tablet to look up information, but before you reach for the technology, try instead to retrieve the data stored in your brain. Even the act of looking at information up in a book is more beneficial to your memory than looking it up online.

Brain Before GPS

Another form of technology that has taken over our ability to use our brains is GPS. Using these types of technology shrinks the hippocampus, the part of the brain essential for shifting information from our short term to our long term memory. So, provided you aren’t entirely lost, try to use your brain to sort out where you are going. Alternatively, use the GPS to get you to a new destination then rely on your mind to get you home again.

Keep Busy

When we are just sitting around doing nothing, our brain is not being challenged or exercised. It is much better to keep yourself busy, but remember not to overdo it, or it will have the opposite effect. Try using a diary or planner to plan out your days, so there is plenty to do without taking on too much.

Organization

Those who keep checklists or write down what they need to get done find it easier to remember information. This is due to the thought involved in creating the list, then the exercise the brain gets when reading the list. Using lists is an ideal way of keeping your memory working at it’s best, and to help prevent forgetfulness as well as the exercise it gives your brain.

Sleep Well

Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to our overall health, and especially the brain. Create a routine to help you sleep better by having the same bedtime each night and get up at the same time each morning. Try to continue this on the weekends if you can, although it is tempting to sleep in.

If you have trouble sleeping, try to limit the amount of stimulation you have before bed. Keep televisions and computers out of the bedroom, install great curtains and drapes to keep out excess light, and try some meditation before you get into bed.

Blue Lights

When we look at screens at night, the blue light emitted by them all can slow down the production of the hormone melatonin. This hormone is responsible for the control of the sleep-wake cycle, also called the circadian rhythm. If the melatonin is low, the result will be poor sleep quality. If we don’t get the right amount of sleep, the brain’s neurons become too overworked, making it much harder to recall memories. So, turn everything off about an hour before you go to bed and give your brain a rest.

Diet Tips

A healthy diet means a healthy mind and body. Some foods are brain boosters, and others are more detrimental to the health of the brain. It’s a good idea to include fatty fish like tuna, salmon, and sardines into your diet as they contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for creating cells in the nerves and brain. It’s believed these omega-3’s could slow down cognitive decline.

Stay away from all the naughty foods such as sugar, butter, fried foods, salt, cheese, and processed foods, despite how tasty they may be. Impaired memory has been linked to a diet high in fat and sugar.

Check Your Medications

Seek medical advice regarding the usage of some medications that can affect memory. See if they are necessary medications or if there are alternatives that don’t impair your memory so much.

Sometimes there is no alternative for specific medications, and you will need to keep taking them, even if they are having an impact on your memory. But, it is worth checking with your doctor that these are a contributing factor and what you can do to counteract the side effects.

Exercising and Activity

Getting physical can have a significant impact on cognitive ability through the way nutrients and oxygen are delivered to the body and brain during exercise. Cells in the brain are created through training, and this increase is vital for memory storage.

Get up and go for a walk, even if it’s just for five minutes at a time. Moving is great for your bones, joints, and organs, including the brain, because of the increase in oxygen that occurs through exercise. Plus, it helps the production of the chemicals that boost your mood, and if you are feeling calmer or happier, your memory will work even better.

Keep on Top of Stress

For your overall health, and that of your brain, it is essential to manage your stress levels. When we are stressed, cortisol is released, impeding the ability to recall information from the long term memory.

Find ways to manage or eliminate your stress. There are many ideas and suggestions out there, and as mentioned previously, mindfulness meditation is an excellent way of gaining some control over stress. When you are stressed, you don’t sleep well, and if you don’t sleep well, your brain doesn’t function to its full potential. And of course, if the mind isn’t working, neither is your memory.

Get Out and Socialize

The more we interact with others, the healthier it is for the brain. Conversations and contact can significantly boost our state of mind and improve our memory, both in the way memories are stored and how they are recalled. If you are a bit short of company, join a group or a class. By joining a class, you can help yourself two-fold through learning the new skill and socializing all at the same time.

Keep Hydrated

We need to keep hydrated with water to keep our brain healthy. The main component of the brain is water, and it is a shock absorber and assists with the use of nutrients by the cells in the brain. Even just a slight amount of dehydration can affect our memory. The daily recommended amount of water we should drink is between five and eight glasses.

Alcohol Use

It may be healthy to have an alcoholic drink a day, but more than one a day for women and two for men can harm your sleep and your ability to retain memories and information. This is why those who consume a lot of alcohol often can’t remember what they did the night before.

Enjoying Nature

Walking around a park can improve your attention and memory, more so than if you were wandering busy city streets. Exploring nature can have a meditative effect, inducing a sense of relaxation, making it easier to store memories and recall them later.

Yoga Practice

A study conducted back in 2012 showed that those who completed 20 minutes of yoga had better results on memory tests. Any form of exercise also improves your oxygen intake, which is fantastic for cognitive function.

Tai Chi

Like yoga, tai chi has many benefits for your health, by helping to reduce stress and improve your quality of sleep, which helps to improve your memory. A study conducted in 2013 found that practicing tai chi over a long time can promote structural changes in our brains, which results in a volume increase in the mind. One of the great things about tai chi is that once you have learned the movements, you can practice at any time and anywhere.

Travel a Different Path

Instead of always going the same route when traveling to work or school, find a different way to get where you need to be. Alternating the streets can stimulate the brain, so it’s not doing the same thing, in the same way, each day. You can also change up your modes of transport instead of driving every day or taking the bus. One day drive, the next, take the bus, and maybe the third day, ride a bicycle. Just these easy changes can have a positive impact on your brain and your memory.

Teaching Someone

A great way to broaden your learning is to teach someone else a new skill. By teaching it to someone else, you are practicing it, and you will be able to pick up any mistakes you may have made and correct them.

Drinking Coffee

This will come as a surprise to many, but drinking coffee does improve your memory. Studies have shown it can also reduce the risks of developing Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. But, remember not to drink too much of it, or your health will suffer. Also, don’t drink coffee later in the day if you want a good night’s sleep!

CHAPTER 6

Limitless Memory and Technology: enemies or friends?

Internet is everywhere now, with WiFi hotspots popping up all over the place and the ability of people to carry their devices wherever they go. But is using the internet and social media a positive thing for our memory? Sure we can access information at the touch of a button or two, but is this detrimental to our learning and memorizing capabilities?

Does the Internet Help with Memory or Hinder It?

How fantastic is it nowadays to use the internet to find the answers or information you need in a matter of minutes? But does this actually help our memory, or does it harm how our brains work? According to recent research, it’s not such a good idea to rely on the internet, and instead, it’s better to rely on your brain to learn and recall information. It is believed that if you don’t experience something personally, you won’t recall it as well. Looking info up uses less brainpower than if you were to experience something or use your brain to find the solutions or answers.

In 2013, a study was conducted where students were sent to a museum. They were split into groups, with one group provided with cameras and instructed to take photographs of the art. The other group was asked to just look at the same art. The study found that those who had taken the pictures remembered a lot less about the art and where they had found it in the museum than the other group.

But, when those with the cameras zoomed in on the piece of art, showing more detail, they remember more about the paint. This is believed to be because it took more attention to zoom in on the photographs, and therefore their ability to memorize was increased. It was determined that using a camera takes your attention away from your surroundings or environment. The photographer is trained not to remember things because they rely on the photographs to memorize it for you.

A further study in 2018 delved into this idea even more in-depth. The researchers queried whether it made a difference to the memories of the participants if they were unable to save the photographs. Surprisingly, the study found that it didn’t matter whether the participants would be able to look at save photographs or not. Their ability to remember what they had taken the pictures of was impaired. It was the actual act of taking the picture that prevented them from paying attention.

According to psychological scientist Linda Henkel, memories can be shaped by looking at photographs. Memory researcher Daniel Schacter experimented with Alan Alda to Involving a picnic and what he could remember. They watched two people have a picnic, then two days later, Alda was shown a group of photographs from that picnic. Schacter asked him about specific items and their presence at the picnic, including things Alda hadn’t seen himself. The experiment showed that Alda misremembered some of the stuff from the picnic, thinking that what he saw in the photographs were memories he had witnessed when, in reality, he hadn’t seen them at all.

There are many people out there who love to post photographs on their Instagram from their vacations, events, or evenings out. But their memories can be significantly affected by the pictures. For instance, if you had been traveling with a group and decided to stay in the hotel room while they went to an important landmark when you look at the group photograph later, you may misremember that you were there when in fact, you weren’t. You were in the hotel room. Likewise, a group photograph from a dinner taken while one of the guests was in the restroom might make you think later that the guest who isn’t in the picture hadn’t been there at all.

A research paper was published in 2018 in the Journal of Consumer Research, stating that when someone takes a photograph to post it online, their enjoyment of whatever they are experiencing is lessened because they are more focused on the reaction the picture will receive.

When we focus on digital media such as photographs, we lose the other sensory clues that help to invoke memories. With a picture, there is no smell, no sound, and no tactile experience that would typically help memories move into the long term memory. These sensory cues are essential for assisting with recalling a memory.

The Age of Social Media

The vast majority of the population now use some form of social media. Older adults have learned to adapt to using computers and smartphones. In contrast, the current generation has been brought up around the technology, and it has had a massive impact on society and on the way people’s brains work.

Social platforms hold a popular place in today’s society, and through these, people are keeping in contact with a lot more of their friends and family members than they used to. Where once you had to make a phone call or write a letter to contact someone, you can now message them instantly.

While there is nothing wrong with the increased communication social media affords people, it has led to other issues with relationships in general. Now everyone can see what you are up to unless you have the right privacy settings. But anyone who is in your contacts or friends list can see what you post, including photographs and videos.

Several studies were undertaken through Princeton University, led by Diana Tamir, exploring how videos and photographs were taken for social media affected the memory of those experiences and the level of enjoyment surrounding the experience. In one study, participants were instructed to watch TED talks, or others were to take a self-guided tour of a church on the campus of Stanford University.

The participants were asked to record their experiences in a variety of ways. They were instructed to take notes or photographs, record but not save it, and share the experience on social media, or alternatively, to reflect on the experience internally. Afterward, they were asked about their enjoyment of the experience if they had trouble with attention and focus, and they were then given a test regarding their memory.

The study indicated that by sharing the experience on social media, it didn’t seem to have an impact on how the participants felt about their enjoyment of the experience. But, those who shared their experience online and those who recorded it performed worse on the memory tests by up to 10%.

As a result, the conclusion was that social media wasn’t entirely responsible for impaired memories. Having an interruption during the experience didn’t seem to impact either. Instead, it was the act of reproducing the experience in any way that caused a loss of part of the authentic experience they had.

These results are similar to research that has been done on the transactive memory, how we divide information up between the internal storage, which is the information we want to remember, and the external storage. Until the internet came along, any information was shared between the mind and external storage.

It used to take some effort to retrieve information from external storage, but now that we can search the internet, we can find out anything we want or need to know with the click of a few buttons. Researchers refer to this as the ‘Google Effect,’ where it isn’t so important to store information internally when you can access it easily through the internet. So instead of needing to remember information, we simply need to recall where to find it. A good example was a study where the participants played a trivia game; they believed that each of the trivia questions was being stored in a computer. They didn’t form any memories of the information, only how to get the data back from the computer.

Assistant Professor of psychology at Columbia, Betsy Sparrow, conducted four memory experiments in association with Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard. One of these experiments involved the participants typing 40 items of trivia into a computer. Half of the participants believed what they had typed would be saved in the computer, whereas the other half thought the typed information would be erased.

The experiment showed that the participants were more likely to remember the information when they believed it couldn’t be found later. Those who had thought the information would be saved in the computer didn’t make any effort to memorize the information because they felt they could just look it up later.

Another experiment was conducted to analyze whether the accessibility of the computer affected what was remembered. The researchers stated that if people were asked to list any countries whose flags only had one color, would they think about the flags, or would they look it up online to find the answer.

With this experiment, the participants were instructed to remember the trivia and also in which of five folders on the computer it was saved in. Surprisingly, the participants were better at remembering which folder it was in rather than the trivia.

Students and Technology

There has been much debate over the issue of technology and the effects it has on students, particularly concerning their learning abilities and memory. Almost every classroom in any school now uses technology to some degree, and students are encouraged to use computers and tablets as tools in their education. But how much are they learning and memorizing?

Many students will think they are working through their studies well until their technology is taken away, then things may not be as clear as they thought. Like anything, there are positives and negatives, and here we’ll take a look at the benefits and downsides to students using technology.

Positives of Technology

Learning

The student can get instant information and answers through the internet, accessible by computer, tablet, and smartphones. Data can be easily shared between students and, in many cases, their teachers, so there can be quicker answers to questions or feedback. Many believe that the use of technology can reduce the stress students experience during their education.

When a student needs help with their homework, they can simply type their question into a search engine and get the answer. They can even converse through online forums to find answers to study questions, and many schools now include these online forums for their students to communicate with each other.

All of the student’s work can be stored on a computer or tablet, and they can simply bring up any previous work they have done to refer back to if it’s needed. They don’t have to worry about losing pieces of paper or running out of ink in their pen. They can type everything up and save it to a file to access when and where they want.

Teachers

A lot of schools use ‘smart boards’ which uses software such as PowerPoint, enabling teachers to impart a lot of information to their students in a more accessible manner. With apps available on phones that offer quizzes for students, they can carry on learning even when they are not in the classroom.

Technology also enables teachers to save student’s work to files on their computer or tablet for easy access. Programs can be developed to check and mark exam papers online instead of teachers carrying vast amounts of paperwork around with them. The same technology can help teachers identify areas that their students perhaps lack knowledge in.

Teachers are better able to communicate with parents and guardians of their students through email, messaging, and texting. It can be difficult to arrange times for teachers to meet with parents, so communicating with them with the push of a button is far more accessible and efficient.

Mind Development

With the massive amount of information available on the internet, students can learn about a limitless array of topics quickly and easily. This broadens their minds to things that they possibly would not have known about if it wasn’t for the internet. After all, schools can only provide information on select subjects, not necessarily what they want to learn about.

The more interested in a topic the student is, the better they will learn it, and having that access encourages the student to want to know more. With easy clicks, they can be exposed to something that piques their interest from simple exposure to a webpage, a video, or something that has been posted on social media.

Negatives of Technology

Creativity is Killed

There may be a staggering amount of information available through the internet, but it can kill students' creativity. It’s far easier just to copy and paste information than it is to create something new. It has been discovered that many students nowadays can achieve great results without even knowing too much about their chosen field of study. This is mostly because they aren’t retaining the information the same way they would if they had to be creative about finding information and displaying it.

Gone are the days where students had to create charts and posters by hand; instead, they use PowerPoint or Publisher to do the same job. There are also websites where you can download posters and alter them to suit your needs. This all takes away from the creative side of learning, and it’s far too easy to copy something someone else has created.

Too Distracting

Students spend a lot more time on social media these days and watching television or live streaming programs. Studying gets pushed aside because the interaction online is so much more exciting and rapid. Because of the technology devices, they are encouraged to use at school; many students waste classroom time online instead of listening and learning what is being instructed.

Even when looking something up for their studies online, pop-up advertisements and suggestions can lead the student astray. It is easy to spend hours wasting time online instead of doing what they are meant to be doing.

Poor Information

While there is undoubtedly an abundance of information online, it is not guaranteed that what the student is reading or looking at is accurate or correct. Because anybody can post what they like online, there are many ‘armchair’ experts out there that share their thoughts and opinions through the internet. It is difficult for people to work out what is accurate information or not. This is incredibly difficult for students who lack the knowledge and maturity to determine that what they are reading is correct.

Increased Cheating and Plagiarism

It is far too easy for students to cheat when there are multiple ways to get hold of someone else’s work. The same goes for plagiarism because of the habit of cutting and pasting without reading the information clearly and understanding it. The ability to think for themselves is reduced, as is their critical thinking skills.

So, now that the positives and negatives have been laid out, do you still think technology is an excellent tool for students? There are certainly some merits for the student to share their work or find answers and information quickly. But there are important negatives too. The secret is balance.

Students should be encouraged to spend restricted periods on the internet and be shown how to learn and find information in other ways. They need to spend more time finding information in their memories and less time using a search engine. With the right balance between the two, students will end up not just educated but knowledgeable as well.

Communication

While technology enables quick communication, the quality of that information is often low. Particularly with texting, where abbreviations are commonly used instead of the actual words. This creates problems when it comes to writing proper documents or emails, as they are so used to communicating in an abbreviated manner.

Many young people also struggle with handwriting nowadays, primarily because they spend so much time typing and texting. When it comes to having to write something down physically, they struggle with it, and it’s also difficult for others to read. Where once handwriting was a must, it has almost become an art form that is slowly disappearing.

Reducing the Negatives

As tempting as it may be for parents to confiscate all methods of technology from their child, this is not feasible in the education world today. Instead, try to encourage children to read actual books to learn and reduce their screen time. Teach them about the downsides to cheating and plagiarism, and quiz them about their learning material after the devices have been turned off or put away.

Smartphones and Teenagers

You would be hard-pushed to find a teenager today that doesn’t have a smartphone! You see them wandering around aimlessly all the time, glued to the tiny little screens they hold in their hands. They have grown up around technology, and it comes as second nature to most children and teens. It can be quite surprising what they can do with a smartphone, some of it is good, and some are not so good.

The Good Points

Some scientists have found that teenagers are more capable of adapting to the environment that they are in and can do so much quicker than older adults. It is believed that their regular use of technology has increased their neurological agility.

From a parental point of view, it is much easier to be in contact with their child, especially with so many households having fulltime working parents. If their child is late home from school, they can make contact and find out what the situation is, unlike a generation ago, when the parent would be stressed and panicking over where in the world their child was.

Smartphones are also suitable for communicating with others, especially for those who live in remote areas. They don’t have to feel isolated if they can pick up their phone and call, text, or video call a friend.

On the same lines, smartphones enable teens to contact their teachers to get the answers they need when completing homework, or if they need help with some of their studies. They can do group calls with multiple students and discuss issues they may have with their work.

Not So Good Points

Teenagers who use their smartphones excessively, especially at night, are more likely to develop issues with their sleeping. As mentioned in a previous chapter, the blue light emitted from the screens hurts the brain’s ability to slow down and relax, preventing sleep from occurring. Also, teenagers find it hard to put their phones down, and with poor sleep habits, they are likely to be texting or messaging late into the night.

The Bad Points

Using smartphones all the time creates a sort of dependency on them, especially for teens. This can make them lazier and less likely to interact with the outside world to the same level as if they didn’t have technology at their fingertips. Young people are also not clued up on what the privacy laws do and don’t protect them from. Even worse, there are many evil people out there who will take advantage of kids while hiding behind their computers or phones.

A research study was done to look at children and teens and their smartphones, and some of the critical points were quite surprising. The highlights of this study are listed below.

A teenager will spend, on average, just under three hours per day watching videos on their smartphones. For tweens, the figure is around two and a half hours per day. The number of times videos are watched online has doubled in recent years, and most children stated it was their favorite thing to do online. As a result, there has been a decrease in the hours spent watching television.

Statistics in America showed that by the time they are eight years old, one in five children has a smartphone. This may seem a little frightening, but in reality, if the parents monitor the phone use and have strict rules around their child using the phone, the safer the child will be. It’s essential to make sure the child develops healthy smartphone habits, and restricting the amount of time they can access the phone can be a huge benefit.

Those who come from families in the lower wage bracket spend a lot more time using the smartphone media than those from families in the higher wage bracket. It is considered to be because those in higher-income families have more opportunities for after school programs or sports and hobbies. Those in the lower-income families find screen entertainment and easier and somewhat cheaper alternative. Hence the ‘digital babysitter’ era.

With games that can be played on the smartphone, the research showed that more boys played them than the girls. These video games are closely associated with the development of online gaming addiction or at least overuse. Girls reportedly enjoy social media more than boys, and their favorite type of media is music.

One of the most significant issues with the constant use of smartphones in teenagers is cyberbullying, which has led to numerous news headlines over the last ten years. It is much easier for kids to bully other kids through a phone, and unless they turn the phone off, there is no way of getting away from it. It’s not like a nasty thing that has been said, that can be removed from the memory easier. Instead, it is there in print or rather a text so that it can be looked at over and over again, a constant reminder of the bullying.

In some tragic cases, cyberbullying has led to several suicides. Young people find it far too easy to say terrible things by text or message than to say it aloud. And, instead of taking time to think about what they are going to say, they respond by the almost instant reaction. Once it’s out there in cyberspace, you can’t take it back no matter how hard you try. Children and teens, in particular, are over-exposed to this kind of bullying purely due to the availability of technology.

The majority of teens now do their homework through a computer or even their smartphone. This leads to multitasking, which is detrimental to learning and memorizing. When they are looking at multiple things at once or doing many tasks at one time, they are not paying enough attention to what they are meant to be learning.

Only a tiny number of teenagers, according to the study, use their smartphone to do anything creative, such as art, music, or writing. But, with Snapchat and TikTok, or even Instagram, they are posting content that could be creative, it just wasn’t taken into consideration during this study.

So, are smartphones a good idea for teenagers? Absolutely, provided some strict guidelines and rules are monitored by the parent or guardian, or even the teacher. Provided they are taught the right way, time, and manner to use their smartphone; they can be a valuable tool. It’s important to note that for more effective memorization and learning, it is essential that teen is encouraged to learn in more traditional ways rather than relying on a search engine.

You can add apps to the smartphone to help protect your teen from dangerous sites. Talk to your teen about what they are looking at online or who they are talking to. There is a lot of information out there for parents about how to best manage a teenager or child with a smartphone.

How to Beat Digital Amnesia

Although it has been known for years that stress can harm the memory, it is now known that excessive use of technology, in particular smartphones that can also cause problems with memory. A survey was carried out by Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity company, of 6,000 people who use cell phones, and astonishingly, 71% of those surveyed couldn’t recall their children’s phone numbers. Many reported that if they lost their phone, they wouldn’t remember what they had been doing.

This loss of memory is referred to as ‘digital amnesia.’ As we become more and more dependent on technology to hold information, our brain is losing the ability to retain information and recall it.

One of the biggest causes of this amnesia is distraction. While people are multitasking with their smartphones, they are looking at the information rapidly, instead of paying attention to one thing at a time. When glancing at information so quickly, we fail to learn what it is we are reading.  It all happens so fast that our brains don’t store the information in our long term memory.

We talked about how sleep can be bad for your brain and your memory, but the type of sleep is equally, if not more so important. During the deep sleep phase, the brain takes away old information to make room for new information. If we don’t reach the deep sleep phase, this ‘pruning’ can’t occur, and so we are restricted in taking in further information and creating new memories.

A study by Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute researchers showed that teenagers are experiencing a negative effect on their figural memory due to the increased use of smartphones. The figural memory resides in the right hemisphere of the brain and enables us to make sense of shapes, images, and patterns. The most affected by this are the teens who hold their phone to their right ear, the ear closest to the right hemisphere.

So, how is digital amnesia fixed? There are several things you can do to overcome the effects of technology on your brain and memory as follows:

- Don’t take your cell phone to bed with you. Turn all devices off an hour before you are going to bed.

- Notifications can be turned off.

- Remove or uninstall any apps that are not essential.

- Stop relying on your GPS and print maps out instead to help you get to where you need to go.

- One day a week has a ‘screen-free day.’ Only use your phone to make or receive phone calls to stay away from social media and messaging.

- Use your landline instead of using your cellphone all the time.

- Use headphones or hands-free apps when on phone calls to minimize exposure to potential health risks.

Technology Effects on Health

While technology plays an essential part in our daily lives these days, there are some downsides mentally and physically that may occur if we are relying on or using technology too much. Some of these include:

- Isolation - interestingly, a study in 2017 found that young adults who used social media on a higher level reported feeling more socially isolated by up to three times as much as those who spent less time on social media.

- Depression and anxiety - Links have been made between social media and mental health problems. However, some who were interacting positively and had high social support online were okay; many experienced negative social communication and were more prone to develop depression and anxiety. It all depends on the type of interactions the person is engaging in and whether or not their mental health is affected.

- Eyestrain - Because screens hold our attention for extended periods, eyestrain can be a common problem. The brightness and glare of the screens can irritate eyes, leading to dry eyes and blurred vision, as well as pain in the shoulders, neck, and head.

Technology can have an impact on many other areas of our health and wellness, including relationships and work. Signs that you may be using or relying on technology too much are:

- Friends and family complain about how much time you spend on technology.

- Your relationships suffer.

- Your work is being interfered with.

- Your sleep is poor.

- You are not getting any physical exercise.

- You suffer from anxiety or stress, headaches, muscle pain, or overuse injuries to your hands and thumbs.

- You can’t keep away from using technology.

Here are some suggestions for cutting back how much time you spend on your screens:

- Remove all unnecessary apps from the phone.

- Remove update notifications from the apps.

- Set a specific time when you can access your device.

- Organize some physical activity to take you away from technology.

- Leave all devices out of the bedroom.

- No phones or tablets are allowed during meals.

- Get your priorities in order, allow for more time on relationships, and less time on devices.

Technology and ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, more commonly referred to as ADHD, has become more prevalent in recent years. This brain disorder is typically characterized by a pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity and impulsiveness that interferes with the daily functioning of the individual. ADHD is often diagnosed in childhood and is more easily diagnosable nowadays, but many adults who previously slipped through the cracks are now identified as having the disorder. There are various symptoms in each category, and below is a summary of what ADHD can entail.

Inattention Symptoms May Include :

- Inability to pay attention to details, with careless mistakes being made.

- Difficulty maintaining attention in tasks or during playtime and conversations.

- Appear not to be listening when directly spoken to.

- Inability to complete assignments and tasks.

- Trouble organizing assignments and tasks.

- Avoiding tasks like schoolwork and homework that require a sustained mental effort.

- Tend to lose things that are necessary for doing tasks.

- Distracted easily by erroneous stimuli.

- More forgetful with daily activities.

Hyperactivity and Impulsivity Symptoms May Include:

- Fidgeting and squirming when sitting.

- Get up and move about when they are supposed to remain seated.

- Running or climbing when inappropriate (restlessness in adults and teenagers).

- Inability to engage quietly in leisure activities.

- Can’t sit still for long, always on the move.

- Talking excessively.

- Can blurt answers out before the question has been asked completely.

- Difficulty waiting in lines or taking turns.

- Intrusive and will often interrupt others.

How Technology Can Help

For children and adults alike with ADHD, technology can be beneficial. Especially in the areas of the organization, time management, and the completion of tasks. Technology can help them focus on details more. Specific computer programs and apps can encourage those with ADHD to stay focused and ignore distraction, at least to some degree, that is helpful.

Students with ADHD can find it easier to stay on the task at hand by using electronic timers to keep them on pace. One study showed that children with ADHD who received math instruction through computer assistance had an improvement in their academic performance and their ability to complete tasks.

For adults, notifications and alerts on cell phones and computers can also help them be more organized and get to where they need to be on time. Using an alert to tell them when to check their email and for how long can also help adults from becoming hyper-focused on just one task.  Generally speaking, digital technology can help improve productivity and focus and help people with ADHD manage their time more efficiently.

The Problems with Technology and ADHD

For anything with a positive effect, there is usually a negative, and the same applies to technology for those with ADHD. A study of children with ADHD and a control group of children without ADHD showed that children with ADHD had more issues playing video games. This indicated they could develop a video game dependence more than their peers.

Another study of elementary school children showed a high level of association between internet addiction and ADHD symptoms. The results indicated that those with ADHD had a much higher risk of becoming addicted to video games and the internet.

New Studies and Information

Recent studies suggested that with the increased and more frequent use of digital media by teenagers, the risk of developing ADHD symptoms seems to be higher. Part of the reason the research is still ongoing is because of the rapid development of new technologies and devices, which is occurring faster than the study can keep up.

For the study, 2,587 teenagers were followed over two years. At the start of the study, none of the teens had symptoms of ADHD. By the end of the study, those who used digital media more frequently had a higher probability of having ADHD symptoms.

The teenagers were given a standard ADHD symptoms questionnaire, which included nine symptoms for the categories of hyperactivity and inattention. Those who had a positive answer to six symptoms or more in one or both of the categories were considered to have symptoms of ADHD.

Researchers questioned teenagers every six months about how often they participated in fourteen kinds of online activities. These included social media, video streaming, music, and texting. Each teen was asked to report how many of these activities they indulged in and how often. Half of those in the study indicated that they checked their social media sites and sent and received text messages multiple times each day.

Those who had used at least six of the activities regularly were found to have a higher chance of developing the symptoms of ADHD. Fifty-one participants who engaged in all online activities frequently, and 10.5% of these showed signs of ADHD over the two-year study. In the study, 114 teenagers did seven of the activities often, and 9.5% exhibited ADHD symptoms. Of the 495 teenagers who didn’t engage with any of the fourteen activities frequently, only 4.6% displayed ADHD symptoms throughout the study.

Therefore, those children who used multiple online activities on a higher frequency were twice as likely to show symptoms of ADHD.

It’s important to note that this wasn’t to say that the children who later showed symptoms had ADHD. The role of the study was to show there was an association between digital technology usage and the symptoms of ADHD.

In Summary

Although it is unclear at this stage just how much of an impact technology has on developing ADHD or worsening an already existing diagnosis, what is clear is that there needs to be more research conducted. If excessive use of technology can impact a ‘normal’ teenager, it most certainly will have the same if not a more severe effect on a teen with ADHD.

There is a place for technology in helping children with ADHD, particularly in a school setting, but this needs to be heavily monitored by the teacher or the parent. Screen time should be the minimum required, and excess usage should not be encouraged. Children with ADHD need to learn how to quiet their minds, and this isn’t possible with the constant barrage of information provided by technology.

Use the technology that will help, but keep it at a reduced level. If you overstimulate a child or teenager with ADHD, their symptoms will certainly worsen, and that is not going to be beneficial to the child, their peers, or their guardians. ADHD is difficult to manage at the best of times, but don’t be drawn into using technology as a ‘babysitter.’

CHAPTER 7

Before and After Smartphones: our Complementary Brain

Young people today often ask the older generation how we survived before technology was invented. They are generally surprised to find that the older people survived very well because they didn’t know any better. People are often talking about this current generation or smarty-pants kids, or teens with low social skills, thinking that previous generations had it much harder. But with every difference in the way of life, there are always going to be positives and negatives, and much of it comes down to opinion. One thing is right - the older generation has learned to adapt to digital technology, but it is unlikely the younger generation could adapt to living without it!

Freedom from Distraction

One of the most noticeable effects smartphones have on us nowadays is the constant distraction that leads to a loss of our freedom. We are constantly checking our phones for messages, updates, notifications, or phone calls. How many times have you left the house and panicked because you have left your phone behind? It is an irrational reaction, considering we used to survive without them at all.

You could be lying in bed at night and hear the familiar ping of a new message coming through, or a notification on your social media. Do you ignore it? Or does the curiosity get too much, and you have to check it? Bet most of you check it because we have become used to constant incoming information. Most of us will be watching television and browsing the internet all at the same time. And while we are doing this, we are not focusing on anything, so any information that does come through is quickly forgotten.

Once upon a time, the only way to know a phone number was to memorize it. However, most people aren’t even sure what their phone number is, let alone someone else's. We have to keep referring back to the phone to check the numbers, instead of retrieving it from our long term memory. We have forgotten how to learn, memorize, and recall phone numbers.

Even driving a car is greatly affected by smartphones. Not just because there is GPS to tell you where to go now, but because we are distracted by texts, messaging, and phone calls. Before developing cell phones, we could travel from point A to point B, with the only distraction being the radio. There were fewer accidents caused by distraction, and people were generally better drivers before the invention of the mobile phone.

You can be in the middle of a conversation and get interrupted by the beeping of the phone. Almost always, we will look at the phone, then try and return to the conversation but find that we have forgotten what we were talking about in the first place. You could be cooking dinner, eating dinner, or doing the dishes, and be distracted throughout by the phone. Either way, you look at it, smartphones and cell phones create massive interference in your day to day life.

Socializing in Person

Socializing on a personal or a professional level is nothing like it used to be. From a work perspective, instead of talking to your superior or work colleague face to face, now contact is made through email and messaging. No longer do we get off our chair, walk across the room, and speak. There are a lot of people nowadays that don’t even know how to communicate in person, having done the majority of their interactions online or over the phone.

Where once groups of friends used to gather at the local eatery or bar for a night out, they now video call each other so they can see what everyone is doing. Sure, people do still go out occasionally, but it’s not the same. Look at the tables around you in the bar or restaurant and take note of how many people are on their phones. Social etiquette barely exists now, as it has become almost acceptable to ignore the other people you are out with and instead browse your phone or text back and forth with someone else.

Social media has some advantages, especially when it comes to keeping in touch with friends and family that live far away. But it has gone a bit too far. There are people in the same house texting or messaging each other! Why? How have we become so lazy? Get off the couch and leave the room for goodness sake!

Of course, there are the downsides to online interaction, some of which are downright dangerous. Some people can have over 1,000 friends on Facebook and only know 50 of them in person. Do we ever think about how that is possible? Teenagers and young adults are the worst culprits because they will add anyone from anywhere to get their numbers up. It’s like there’s some competition among them to see who has the most friends.

Before technology, the average person probably only had a handful of friends, and maybe only two or three close friends. That’s all you needed. You would call each other on the landline telephone, or wait until you got to school to catch up. There wasn’t this need for instant interaction or gratification. There were no cases of misinterpretation or misunderstanding on the levels there are today.

Without cell phones, you had to have and hold a proper conversation using real language. Your parents knew where you were without the ability to call or text you. They just seemed to know. Many a person has talked about how their parents used to say that if the streetlights went out, you had to be home. It was a much simpler way of life.

Love in the Technology Age

With the difference in socialization today and the lack of social skills for many, even finding love has moved on with technology. If you like someone, you can find them on social media and learn what you can about them, look at their photographs and check out who their friends are. Or, you can text them or call if you are feeling brave. Gone are the days of letting someone know you are keen on them by sending Valentine's card anonymously in the mail.

These days there are hundreds of online dating websites that you can join. All you have to do is fill in a bit about yourself and start searching for your soulmate. Then you message each other back and forth for a bit before moving on to texting. Then you may add each other to your social media accounts. Eventually, you meet, only to find that the tall, dark, and handsome professional man you have been interacting online with is a short, overweight, balding man unemployed. This is the danger of trusting that people are who they say they are or look like the photo they provided online. Sometimes it’s not even the opposite sex you are talking to, with catfishing becoming a common problem.

Back in time, once you have been on a date, there is an awkward period of waiting to see if he or she will call you on the landline. Of course, you couldn’t sit next to it all the time, so the anxiety of missing a call was relatively high. Now, of course, they can contact you before they’ve even left the parking lot of the restaurant. This is great for taking away that anxiety, but not so much if you didn’t enjoy their company. Now that they have your number, they can text or call you whenever they choose.

There is also the issue of mixed signals or crossed wires. What we write in a text can be conveyed in multiple ways, with the real thought and emotion behind it getting lost. Often something is sent, and the recipient may think you are unpleasant or nasty when it was a simple mistake involving grammar. This is because we don’t write proper letters anymore; we converse in text abbreviations that barely make sense to the average adult over 40.

Journalism

Journalism is not what it used to be, and some may see that as a positive, while others would interpret it as a negative. Journalists used to physically chase down a story, seeking out sources and witnesses and interviewing them. They would then go back to their office and type up their story, checking their grammar and spelling and fact-checking as best they could. The paper version of the story would then be delivered to the editor by hand to see if it was good enough to be printed.

Today’s journalists can effectively write a newsworthy story without having to leave their chairs. Sure, they may do some face to face interviews, but generally speaking, everything they need to do to put the story out can be done online or through their cell phone. If they miss something in an interview, they can text or call or even email their subject to ask questions without making an appointment.

Once they have compiled their information, they can type it up on their computer and push send, emailing it to the editor. Unfortunately, most don’t even check their grammar or spelling anymore, and articles are often printed with gross errors. But, the news is getting out there a whole lot quicker than it used to be, and that seems to be more important to many.

The sad thing is that by creating content in this manner, the journalist quickly forgets what they have been researching and writing about. The information isn’t given enough time to transfer from the short term memory to the long term memory and is lost. When journalists had to track down information and do more in-depth research without using the internet, they learned more about their topic and memorized the information.

If you asked a journalist now about an article they wrote five years ago, a lot of them wouldn’t be able to tell you a thing about the subject. They just didn’t need to retain the information because it was readily available to them in their computer files, which brings us back to why digital technology is not helpful when it comes to exercising the brain and strengthening the memory.

Working Before and After Smartphones

Think back to the first real job you ever had, be it an office job, warehouse, labor, or any other kind of employment, and consider how you used to carry out your tasks before there were smartphones.

An ‘old-fashioned’ alarm clock used to wake you up, and the first thing you did was either make coffee or take a shower. Sometimes you may have read the newspaper over breakfast, or maybe you just grabbed a snack and left the house. Once you got to work, you set about your tasks for the day.

If you needed to contact someone, you got up off your chair and walked to their office. Or, if you needed to call a client, you would do so with a landline, and if you were lucky, they had an answerphone. Your secretary might take messages and put them on post-it notes and leave them on your desk. Your schedule for the day may be written in a large book, or if computers were around, you could have an electronic diary.

Your lunch break would be spent talking to your colleagues or meeting up with friends face to face. You would stand in line for your lunch and hope you got served before your break was over. Sometimes you may wonder what other people are up to during the day, but you would have to wait until work was finished to find out. There were a small number of distractions throughout the day.

Then came along smartphones. Now you get woken by some tune you have chosen. Instead of getting up straight away for coffee or a shower, you check your messages and notifications on your phone. Sometimes you are so busy checking your phone that you don’t have time for breakfast and a shower, let alone coffee.

You race into work and recheck your notifications and messages. While you’re working, you receive texts and calls throughout the day, distracting you from what you are supposed to be doing. Your boss or manager communicates through texting and messaging, and there is little face time required. Messages come through the phone instead of on post-it notes.

Lunchtime comes, and you organize to meet up with someone by text to make sure you are both free at the same time. You phone or text your order through to your favorite lunch eatery to ensure your order is ready when you get there. While having lunch, instead of talking to each other, you are both looking at your phones. Occasionally you will share things you see on your phone.

By the time the end of the workday rolls around, you don’t need to wonder what everyone else has been up to because you have been notified throughout the day. Relentlessly. You are behind in your work because you have been so distracted by your phone and everybody else’s lives. Once you get home, you have nothing left to talk about, so you go back to looking at your phone.

Financial Transactions

Before smartphones came along, most people paid for their transactions with cash, cheques, or EFTPOS/credit cards. People always had a change in their purse or wallet, and a bank book told you what your bank balance was. Each week you could go and get your bank book updated and deposit any cash into your account simultaneously.

You had to keep the right track of where your money went, so you always knew what you had. Many of us have had that embarrassing experience of paying for something, and finding out the transaction was declined due to lack of funds. It is mortifying! But now, with smartphones, you can avoid all of that.

With a smartphone, you can quickly check your bank account, move money around, and even pay at EFTPOS terminals for your purchases. You can go into a store and tap your phone at the terminal, and your purchase is paid for. You don’t even need to carry a wallet or purse anymore! You can even touch phones with another smartphone owner and transfer money that way.

While this seems to be the way of the future, and it certainly has some benefits, there are some drawbacks to this new functionality. For starters, there is the security aspect. If you don’t have a lock on your phone, it’s remarkably easy for someone who steals or finds your phone to use your bank account. Even more worrying is that hackers are so good at what they do nowadays, they can get into your phone and find out your passwords and account information.

Also, people never seem to have cash anymore, and there are times when you need a bit of money in your pocket. Those small little purchases that are only a few coins are much easier to pay for with cash, and there are no transaction fees attached.

Another negative is the smartphone itself. If it goes flat, it is useless. If you rely solely on your smartphone to do all your financial transactions, you better hope nothing goes wrong with it. You need to keep it well charged and make sure you have some virus protection for starters. Smartphones, as good as they are, do have things go wrong with them, so you need a backup plan for if this situation arises.

Going to School

Going to school and getting an education was completely different before smartphones were invented. You used to have to carry around a bag full of books to each class and always had to make sure you had plenty of paper and pens or pencils. For math, you would have to ensure you had a calculator to do those equations that were just too complex to do in your head.

You didn’t know if your friend wasn’t coming to school that day; you had to wait and find out. Then you had to wait till you got home to call them on the landline and see what was going on. Your social circle was much smaller, with just a few friends, and not 1,000 on social media.

If you didn’t pay attention in the classroom, you were lost. You couldn’t record notes or the lesson, and you couldn’t take photographs of charts and displays. You had to rely on your memory of what took place during the class.

Other Things That Have Changed Since Smartphones

- If there was a major sporting event on television, you used to sit down and watch it. Now you follow the updates on social media.

- The television was the main piece of technology in the household.

- If you wanted to know what someone thought, you had to ask them in person.

- Debates were more common because it wasn’t so easy to find out the answer. Having a discussion was far more stimulating and could last for hours.

- People had hobbies before there were apps.

- Not only did you know other people’s phone numbers, but you also knew your number.

- You were less aware of what your ex was doing or who they were now dating unless someone told you to your face.

- If you wanted to know something about someone, you couldn’t just look it up. You were left wondering.

- Instead of relying on restaurant reviews, you went out and tried their food for yourself.

- If you were busy watching something on television, you would let the answerphone take a message and check it later.

- The phone book was an essential item in any household.

- Map books were a great source of information, and you had to learn how to use one.

- You purchased things because you liked them and not because a hundred strangers told you with their reviews.

- Photographs couldn’t be altered, so if they weren’t flattering, it was too bad.

- You would have to either call a theatre or check the newspaper for the movie schedule.

- Notes were written on just about anything, from paper through to napkins.

- You had to watch the news or listen to the radio to get the weather forecast.

- If you wanted to take a photograph, you had to carry a camera and make sure there was a film on it.

- An alarm clock was your best friend, provided there wasn’t a power outage.

- If you were out and had to make a phone call, you needed change to put in the payphone.

- Newspapers were the primary source of information. Actual journalism.

- If a date came to pick you up, they had to go to the door.

- Gossip was much less because the only way it spread was if you ran into someone in the street or at school. It wasn’t broadcast for all to see.

- Your personal life was a lot more private. If someone wanted to know something, they had to ask. If they made it up, it would only be shared with a few rather than hundreds.

- If you didn’t want to talk to someone, they couldn’t force you or harass you with texts and messages.

- You didn’t have to have chargers or phone cases.

- There were fewer injuries to thumbs.

Summary - Before and After Smartphones

Life was more accessible in some ways before the smartphone was invented. We weren’t tied to a device every day, wondering what everyone else was up to, or waiting for a message or text. The landline didn’t ring all day, because most people didn’t have access to a phone while they were at work or school, or even while out doing leisure activities. Most of your phone calls were in the evening, and in many households, it was an unbreakable rule not to have phone calls during dinner or late at night.

We didn’t need to know where everyone was at any given time, and we just assumed that they were safe and well until told otherwise. The only nosey people were the little old ladies at the hair salon, who gossiped because they had nothing else to do. But if you did commit a social faux pas, it didn’t become common knowledge, and you could live with the idea that nobody had any proof.

Children spent a lot more time outside before smartphones, and they learned to amuse themselves in unusual and creative ways. If you caught up with a friend, it was because you crossed paths; it wasn’t a preorganized meeting. If you were going to be late home, you hoped you wouldn’t get in too much trouble because you had no way of letting your parents know.

Even young adults and teens had better lifestyles with plenty of outside time and sports. Now it’s hard to fill a sports team most of the time because they are too busy engaging in digital technology. Thirty or forty years ago, just about everyone was a member of a group or a club of some sort. Hobbies were a big thing, and if you wanted to learn about something, you had to open a book and read it. Taking notes further imbedded the knowledge into your memory, and it was much easier to recall it when you needed it.

Today life is entirely different from how it used to be. It’s nearly impossible to leave the house without your cell phone, and if you do, you immediately try to figure out how to get back home to get it. You wonder how many calls or texts you have missed because you left it behind. Then you worry that you haven't charged it enough, and it’s going to go flat before you can plug it back in.

Smartphones are a constant source of distraction, leaving us with the inability to focus our attention on what is essential. We ignore other people so we can stare at the phone, lowering our ability to interact socially. We forget how to hold a conversation. And it has become a generation of ‘know it all’s who know a little about a lot of things but often nothing of real depth.

Now parents don’t have to wonder where their kids are. They can just ring or text them. Or call all their friends, because they probably have their numbers too. Just don’t ask them to tell you what the numbers are without looking at the phone, though - many of us have lost the ability to memorize a series of digits. Of course, there are those people who are great with numbers and recalling them, but how are they with other types of information?

Books are becoming a thing of the past, sadly. No more physically turning pages and using a pretty bookmark to mark the page you were last reading. Now you can download books, just like this one, and read them electronically. It does save space on your bookshelf, that’s for sure. But books were a fantastic resource, and you often had to read all of it to get the information you needed to learn. Now you can just enter keywords into a search function and skip the bits you don’t want to read.

Children, in particular, are spending more and more time inside and less time socializing with other children, preferring instead to spend their leisure time online, especially playing games. They can still interact with others online, but you never really know who they are talking too. And gossiping is no longer restricted to the ladies in the salon, as we have become a much nosier generation. We want to know anything and everything about everyone, right down to what they had for breakfast, and who they like or dislike at any given moment.

Some may argue it is a much better way of life now with all the digital technology. And in some respects, they may be right. But it hasn’t done us any favors when it comes to utilizing that magnificent organ, the brain. More people are suffering from memory loss or forgetfulness that interferes with their lives, and the main factor is digital technology. The secret is to use it as is necessary and put it away when it is not needed.

10 Interesting Facts about Smartphones

In 2017, the Pew Research Center conducted a series of surveys about smartphones, and the following information was surmised from those results.

1. Around 77% of adults in America said they owned a smartphone, compared to 35% in 2011. This showed that the smartphone was one of the fastest adopted technologies by consumers in recent history, and younger or wealthier people were more likely to own one. Up to 92% of young people aged between 18 and 29 owned smartphones, whereas the figure for those 65 and older was 42%.

2. Between 2013 and 2016, the rate of older persons over 65 owning smartphones had increased by up to 24%. More lower-income households owned smartphones as well. In a family with young adults, there were up to three smartphones in the home.

3. Smartphones are being used for much more than just texting and making phone calls. Most people used their smartphone for a wide variety of activities, including reading books, searching for information, looking to meet a romantic partner, or even looking for work. In the surveys, 28% of adults in America said they had searched for a job using their phone.

In the same surveys, 9% of adults in America stated they used dating apps on their smartphones, and up to 13% in 2016 read e-books on their phones.

4. Around 51% of adults in America used their smartphones to do online shopping. Even while in a store, they can use their phones to search for better prices or alternatives before purchasing. Some say they called friends to check on their opinions before they made a purchase.

5. Many more people, particularly those in lower-income households, relied on their smartphones to access the internet. Up to 12% stated they had no broadband internet and solely used their phone.

6. Over half of those surveyed said they receive news alerts on their smartphones.

7. The survey found that 28% of smartphone users don’t use a screen lock or other security features. While they update their operating system or the apps on their phone, they only do so when it is convenient. Those who never update their operating system numbered 14%, and 10% said they don’t update their apps.

8. The rate of smartphone ownership is increasing in developing countries. But those with higher or more advanced economies still had a much higher rate of smartphone usage.

9. There are differing opinions on when and where it is appropriate to use a smartphone. Many think it is okay to use the phone while on public transport, waiting in queues, or walking down the street. But fewer people found it OK to use a smartphone while in a meeting, at church, or at the cinema. Up to 89% said they used their smartphones during a social gathering.

10. Up to 46% of adults said they couldn’t live without their smartphone. In 2014, a survey by Pew Research Center showed that 54% said the phone wasn’t always needed.

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Conclusion

Now that you have read through this book, you will see just how important it is to exercise your brain. Our memory is individual to us, and it is in our minds that we form our own opinions and not those of others. If we don’t keep using our memory, we are at a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment. While it’s true that most people will suffer from memory problems in older age, the longer we can delay this onset, the better.

Memory is a fascinating piece of engineering of the brain, and there are so many different aspects and impacts on how it functions. Many facets of the mind and memory are still being studied, as the more we learn, the more we need to find out more. Theories and ideas change over time, as new information comes to light, searching for the ultimate understanding of memory and the brain.

By learning the information in this book around how the memory works, from the research to date, you will be better equipped to understand how to improve it. And we can all do with improving our memories, regardless of our age or education. Everyone forgets sometimes, that is completely normal, but if you can minimize this by exercising your memory, the more comfortable and better your life will be.

The exercises mentioned are designed to be suitable for anyone and can be done at any time. There is no need to set aside hours a day to do every single exercise. Spread them around throughout the day, and alternate which exercises you do so you don’t get bored or stuck doing the same thing all the time. You might find some of the exercises are so short or easy to do that you could practice them on your lunch break at work or in between classes. You could even do the four details exercise while sitting on a bus or train.

There are online brain exercise programs that can be helpful, but many are not free to use. And besides, it’s better to spend some time away from digital technology and get back to the old way of using pen and paper. Also, many research studies have shown that they don’t help you anywhere near as much as they claim. If you try the method of writing it down, you may be quite surprised at how easy it is to learn and memorize information.

Today we rely far too heavily on technology, and our brains aren’t used to their best capacity. The more we use technology, the less we learn and turn into memories. And if we don’t access those memories regularly, they fade away. Keep your brain healthy and happy, and your memory will be working to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Far too often, we think of health and physical activity as being great for the body, and we forget that one, if not the most crucial organ of them all, is our brain and that this too benefits immensely from us keeping ourselves fit and well. You don’t have to be a gym bunny, just take care of yourself a little better and be mindful of how you are spending your time.

We, as a population has become far too reliant on technology when the best technology of all is our brain. Feed it, nourish it and look after it, and it will undoubtedly take care of you in return.

Resources

https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/how-memory-works

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-memory-2795006

https://human-memory.net/amnesia/

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/do-memory-problems-always-mean-alzheimers-disease

https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/influential-memory-psychology-studies-experiments

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-12/dumc-oay121508.php

https://virtualspeech.com/blog/adult-learners-effects-age- cognitive-ability-memory-retention

https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/12/adults-kids-learn-languages/

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-living/how-to-improve-your-memory.htm

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/brain-exercises#bottom-line

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-improve-memory#12

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-improve-memory#15

https://blog.iqmatrix.com/how-to-mind-map

https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/brain-exercises/

https://blog.cognifit.com/short-term-memory/

https://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/neurobics/

https://www.pocketprep.com/how-sensory-memory-and-your-5-senses-can-improve-study-effectiveness/

https://classroom.synonym.com/memory-games-college-students-8416645.html

https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/enhancing-your-memory/

https://elemental.medium.com/social-media-is-messing-with-our-memories-fae0c14c6b0d

https://time.com/5267710/social-media-hurts-memory/

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/health/15memory.html

http://www.dezzain.com/technology/technology-effects-on-education/

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/17/629517464/more-screen-time-for-teens-may-fuel-adhd-symptoms

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/digital-amnesia-excessive-use-of-mobile-phone-could-lead-to-memory-loss-61660

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/16/life-before-smartphones-it-was-ok-to-be-vague-about-things

https://www.govtech.com/products/How-Smartphones- Revolutionized-Society-in-Less-than-a-Decade.html

https://icebreakerideas.com/memory-games/

https://tophat.com/blog/how-does-technology-impact-student-learning/

https://www.socialmoms.com/know/tech/teens-and-smartphones-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

www.npr.org/2019/10/31/774838891/its-a-smartphone-life-more-than-half-of-u-s-children-now-have-one

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-tweens-and-teens-2019

SUPER LEARNING

Life-Changing Techniques for Accelerate Learning Through Brain Training, Mind Mapping, Mind Hacking and Mindfulness - Declutter Your Mind To Think Faster and Learn Better

By

ROBERT REED

Copyright © 2020   by Robert Reed – All rights reserved.

The content contained within this book may not be reproduced, duplicated, or transmitted without direct written permission from the author or the publisher.

Under no circumstances will any blame or legal responsibility be held against the publisher, or author, for any damages, reparation, or monetary loss due to the information contained within this book. Either directly or indirectly.

Legal Notice:

This book is copyright protected. This book is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote, or paraphrase any part, or the content within this book, without the consent of the author or publisher.

Disclaimer notice:

Please note that the information contained in this book within this document is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All effort has been executed to present accurate, up-to-date, and reliable, complete information. No warranties of any kind are   declared or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical, or professional advice. The content within this book has been derived from various resources. Please consult a licensed professional before attempting any techniques outlined in this book.

By reading this document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances is the author responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a result of the use of the information contained within this document, including, but not limited to, - errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.

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Introduction

Have you ever noticed how some people can read a lot faster and felt as though you had been left behind? Maybe you thought that they were born that way, with some level of genetic component that enables them to read and learn faster. But, the truth is, you can learn to do the same thing with the tips and exercises in this book along with some practice.

There are so many benefits to being able to read and learn faster. To absorb these techniques will enable you to read phrases, not individual words, which will cut down your reading time by at least a half. If you are a student, this is invaluable, as you will be able to comprehend faster, which will enable you to get your assignments done at a super quick speed.

But the ability to read and learn faster is just as important to those who aren’t students. How many times have you signed a contract without reading all the documents because you just don’t have time? This can lead you to all sorts of troubles. So if you can scan faster, you will know what you are getting yourself into precisely.

These skills all take practice, and by reading each day, you will learn a lot of new things, which can be character building and strong in social settings when trying to come up with conversation topics.

Fast reading involves the more effective use of your brain, and this can increase your concentration span. You will start to think faster, improving your reactions to unexpected situations, and enable you to make better and faster decisions. By improving the use of your head, your memory will also improve, so what you are reading is absorbed and stored for later.

From a working life perspective, having the ability to read and learn faster is a tremendous asset to any employer. With these skills on your resume, it will show that your productivity is going to be increased and more effective. Your timekeeping skills will be above others, and there will be no time-wasting, which any prospective employer would see as a significant benefit.

These skills have greatly improved the lives of my clients on many levels. Not only can they communicate more effectively, or take less time to get things done, but they also have gained an incredible amount of general knowledge through practicing these skills. They are no longer stuck in a rut, not moving forward in life.

Anyone can learn to read faster, and this book will show you how.

CHAPTER ONE

Dispelling The Main Myths

No matter what techniques or skill enhancements are developed, there are always going to be myths surrounding them. For some, it is hard to believe that such things can improve their reading and learning skills. For others, they simply think that they don’t have the ‘memory space’ to be able to learn the techniques in the first place!

Whatever the excuses, or the disbelief, there are a lot more people who practice faster reading and learning than those who say it is a farce. Even President John F. Kennedy was a fan of it!

In this chapter, we will look at the three central myths surrounding learning and reading faster, and explain why they are just myths, and other debunked myths will be mentioned in shorter detail.

Myth 1: I Can’t Improve My Memory, and it’s Bad

Of all the potential myths out there, this one is the most prevalent. So many people think that the memory they have, good or bad, doesn’t change from birth. Those with a lousy memory believe they are stuck that way, without realizing that it’s not true.

A lot of people believe that others are better than they are that their memory and ability to learn is a gift. The truth is, anyone can have a fantastic memory and are capable of learning the techniques for reading and learning faster. They just have to learn what the methods are, and practice, practice, practice.

It’s important to note that there is a difference between forgetting and remembering, and it’s not due to the inability to pull information from the brain. It’s actually about storing the information in your mind in a different way, which makes it more memorable.

Myth 2: I Can’t Improve My Memory Because I Can’t Learn Visually

There are generally two ways of learning for most people, which are visual and audible. Some can see what they are learning, while others prefer to hear it being said. For others, they may feel that they can focus a lot better when they write information down. But what visual learning involves is seeing the info in your mind, not out in front of you on a whiteboard. All that is required for the first step is to pay attention.

You don’t have to be a visual learner to have a great memory. All of the five senses are involved in visualization - sound, smell, touch, taste, and see. Any of these senses can create a memory. For example, you may touch some sand and remember a splendid holiday you had at the beach. Or, you could smell roses and remember your bouquet from your wedding day. You don’t have to see them physically; you see these memories in your mind.

Myth 3: My Brain Is Full

There is absolutely no possible way for your head to be too full of learning and storing new information. It is believed that the mind can store up to a million gigabytes of data. To put that into perspective, imagine saving 3 million hours of television programs on your DVR. There may be a limit to the brain’s capacity, but it is so far out of the reach of anyone that it is impossible to reach.

The claim that humans only use 10% of their cerebrums is a ridiculous falsehood. When scientists mapped the brain, they noticed that all areas of the brain light up, showing that each part is functioning. If we only used such a small amount, there would be just a tiny illuminated area on the scan.

Many years ago, there was a belief that humans could only learn 20 numbers and repeat them. This was a standard theory that was used in competitions that tested memory. However, it is now known that the figure is more than 450 numbers memorized and recalled.

There is no real limit to the areas of the encephalon, and by learning how to use it better, you can expand your life in a million different ways.

Here are some more myths about memory:

Myth: Memory cannot be improved by practicing and training. If anything, memory can only worsen as we age.

Truth: Although the synaptic memory in the brain may not improve, using techniques to increase the ability to learn and store memories will result in an improvement.

Myth: As we get older, our memory gets worse.

Truth: Memory does tend to decline slowly with aging. However, if your memory is trained, it will be more resilient, and your cognitive function may increase.

Myth: You can create everlasting memories that will never be forgotten.

Truth: Although we can learn things so well, forgetting them is almost impossible, each long-term memory does have a ‘shelf-life’ depending on how stable it is.

Myth: We don’t forget; we just misplace the information and have to dig it out.

Truth: While strong memories may last a very long time, there will always be some level of deterioration. It may take some effort to recall a memory that has been forgotten, and eventually, that memory will likely be permanently forgotten.

Myth: Memory is infinite.

Truth: Your brain can be overloaded with information, and to make new memories, you often lose some. There is a limit to how much your mind can store.

Myth: It’s better to learn new things before you go to sleep, so the information is processed during the night.

Truth: The best time to learn is in the early morning, after a good night’s sleep. The brain is more alert during this time, and attention is more focused.

Myth: Memory pills will boost your ability to learn, according to numerous companies.

Truth: To date, there has been no memory pill that does what the companies claim. However, some drugs and supplements help indirectly because they help with your overall health. It’s important to remember that there is no magic pill for anything; you will always need to put some work and effort into whatever you want to achieve.

Scientists are working on developing a pill that will boost memory. Still, because the medicine won’t be able to target specific types of memories, there will always be a side effect of all memories being enhanced for a while.

Myth: You can plan your learning while you are sleeping.

Truth: While it is a possibility that selected memories that are generated during sleep can be stored, it is practically impossible to control this process and create productive learning. Not only that, but it could affect your sleep, and as we know, sleep is vital for our body and head function.

Myth: The best brain waves for learning are alpha-waves.

Truth: Being in a state of relaxation is essential for learning, but this type of relaxation relates to being free of distractions, tiredness, and stress. Alpha-waves are active just before you go to sleep, so it is a different kind of relaxation altogether.

As you can see from above, there are numerous myths out there about reading and learning faster, and the majority are because people just don’t understand how the brain works. The mind is hugely complex, but once you know how the memory side of it works, you will see how silly some of these myths are.

CHAPTER TWO

Read Faster And Never Forget It

History of Speed Reading

Humans are natural gatherers of information, and as the need for more knowledge increases, people want to gather that information much faster. Even the United States Air Force employed the methodology of reading more quickly by inventing the tachistoscope. The tachistoscope displays a picture for a brief amount of time and then takes it away. The device was utilized in pilot training so they could identify the enemy faster.

After a bit of adjustment and experimenting, they determined that when they flashed four words at 1/500th of a second, the readers understood what they were seeing. By developing the tachistoscope, they changed how reading was seen. It was now known that people could read more than one word at a time.

During the late 1950s, learning this skill became very popular in the United States, primarily due to one woman. Evelyn Wood was the first to call it ‘speed reading,’ and she studied readers who were naturally fast to help her devise a methodology that was later taught. Her classes were taught in college throughout the country up until the late 1990s.

The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute was founded in Washington in 1959. It was alleged that some of the students could read up to 6,000 words per minute. The reading speed of Wood herself was estimated between 2,700 and 15,000 words per minute, depending on what material she was reading.

You may not be aware, but each year there is a World Championship Speed Reading Competition. Generally, those at the top of the leader board read between 1,000 to 2,000 words per minute. Their comprehension is measured at 50% or more. Anne Jones was the world champion six times, and she recorded a speed of 4,200 words per minute and 67% comprehension after she had previously been exposed to the material.

We all think we know what memory is, but how much do we understand about it? Do we know how memories are formed and stored in the brain? And why does our memory sometimes fail us? Memory has been studied for ages by philosophers and scientists in the quest to discover how memories form and how they are organized and stored in the brain and have come up with the following conclusions.

The process of memory is rather complex, with the acquisition of information, storage of that information, and then the recall of the data. But, there are differences in types of memory.

Although the mind is excellent at storing memories, it’s not always perfect, and sometimes there are problems. These can range from minor nuisances, like walking into a room and forgetting why you went there, to the effect of serious diseases that can reduce the ability of the cerebrum to function. Everyone is forgetful, and you just have to identify whether it is happening more often than previously.

The Formation Process of Memory

At the beginning of the memory process, called ‘encoding,’ the information received is changed into a usable form. The data is then stored in the memory so it can be used later. Although we are no longer aware of the memory being there, it can be recalled later when the information is needed.

Brief, Short and Long-Term Memory

Some of the memories stored may only be very brief, lasting just a few seconds when they are recalled. These memories enable you to absorb sensory information from the world around you. Short-term memories generally last around twenty to thirty seconds, and these are recalled when we are focusing and thinking about something specific.

Long-term memories can last a very long time, from days to years. These are the ones where you may think back to something from your childhood, perhaps, or something that has happened in the distant past. Interestingly, many Alzheimer’s patients can recall long-term memories and not short-term memories.

Retrieving Memories

It is one thing to be able to store memories, but you also need to be able to recover memory when required. The retrieval of memories can be influenced by several factors, including the type of information you are trying to recall.

An interesting fact about memory retrieval is that when you think you know something but can’t quite recall it, this is called lethologica. Another term for it is ‘tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. The answer is on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t grasp what it is.

Memory Stage Model

You are probably wondering what on earth a memory model is, but don’t panic; it’s not that complicated. The memory model is used to explain the function and basic structure of memory often, and it is composed of three different stages of memory. These are short-term memory, sensory memory, and long-term memory.

The first stage of forming a memory is the sensory memory category. This is when the information is stored for just a brief second, and then this is sometimes moved into the short-term memory stage.

Another term for short-term memory is ‘active memory.’ These memories are the ones we are thinking about at the current moment in time. Often this is referred to in psychology as the conscious mind. By placing your attention on the sensory memories, information is then generated into short-term memory. This information is retained for just seconds, and many of these types of memories are forgotten quickly. But, if you pay attention to the memory, it can move forward into the next phase, the long-term memory.

You most likely know what a long-term memory is, as we all have them: that ability to recall something that has occurred in the past.  These memories are referred to in psychology as the unconscious and preconscious state. We are not necessarily aware of these memories, they are stored until we need them, and they are then recalled.

Memory Organization

By being able to recall the information in long-term memories, we can use the information to solve issues, interact socially, and make decisions. It is not entirely understood how the data is stored and organized, but it is believed they are stored in groups, called clustering. To explain this more manageable, here is an example:

When reading the following words, then attempting to recall them, you will naturally group them into categories:

Banana, blue, chair, purple, bed, orange, nectarine, bookcase, fig, mauve, stool, grape

You most likely grouped these into the following groups - furniture, color, and fruit.

There is also a model of memory organization called semantic network. This theory is related to triggers that activate associated memories, such as the memory of an event that would bring up other memories related to it, like how you got there, who was there, and what happened.

Why Do We Forget Things?

Being forgetful could be due to several reasons, and it is entirely reasonable to forget things sometimes. The brain may not be able to recall the long-term memory information, often because the memory hasn’t been evoked and reviewed regularly. In other words, if you haven’t thought about that memory for twenty years, it may not come to you. But if you have thought about it often, it will be easier to recall.

The four leading causes of forgetfulness are failure to store information, retrieval failure, motivated forgetting, and interference. Data is sometimes not held correctly at the start, while other times, memories may be competing against each other, which makes it harder to recall specifics. Of course, there are memories that a person simply may not want to remember, which is motivated forgetting.

There are many exercises and techniques you can do to improve your memory, and this can help you recall information more efficiently. Some signs of memory loss that is standard include:

Unable to remember a word, but the conversation continues with a replacement word.

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You can’t remember the name of the movie you watched but can recall the plot.

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Inability to give directions because you can’t remember the street names, even though you know your way around.

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Walking into a room and forgetting why you went in there in the first place.

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Losing your glasses, keys, or other things because you can’t remember where you put them.

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Calling people or animals by the wrong names, but you do know who they are.

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The occasional appointment is forgotten.

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Reading a sentence then forgetting it.

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Conversation points are remembered, but the details aren’t.

It is sometimes difficult to identify whether a memory issue is a minor problem or something that needs to be taken more seriously. Following are some of the signs that may suggest a problem with your memory:

1. Memory is notably weaker. This is when you are forgetting information that you usually use regularly, such as forgetting a good friend’s name, names of objects, how to get to places you go to all the time. This type of memory issue is more than just the occasional ‘lost the keys’ minor issue. It’s easy to forget something occasionally, but if you forget things that you do regularly or previously knew well, there could be a problem.

2. Increasing forgetfulness that is new. This could be forgetting recent discussions, appointments, or whether you have done a daily task or not, such as medication taking. If this is happening more and more often, and there is no specific cause, there could be a memory problem. There are several medical reasons, situational causes, and issues with sleep that can cause a temporary problem, but if it is ongoing, go and have a chat with your health practitioner.

3. Other people have noticed worsening memory. If you have memory problems, you probably won’t remember that you have memory problems. The people you spend most of your time with may notice that you are becoming more forgetful.

Important Points:

Forgetfulness is declining noticeably from what it was before

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Forgetfulness doesn’t improve

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Forgetting well-known information

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Others are noticing

Digital Interference With Memory

With so much reliance on digital devices, especially smartphones, these days, the ability to memorize information has been dramatically distorted. Instead of recalling things like phone numbers, we automatically pick up the cell phone and look it up. How many times have you forgotten your phone number? Or someone else’s? Part of this is because we rely too much on technology instead of using our brains.

There has been much debate since the development of smartphones about their effect on the human body and, in particular, the brain. A problem related to young adults, in particular, is that they often sleep with their cell phones beside them. It’s believed that this leads to exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on the mind. The EMFs can disrupt the chemical levels in the mind quite significantly, which harms learning, memory, stress levels, and emotions.

Smartphones are highly addictive, particularly in the current generation of young people. Just about everyone has one, and it is common to see people walking along staring at their screens, or even checking for updates while they are driving. This addictive behavior is believed to be due to the dopamine effect that occurs when checking social media, email, news, etc. It produces a ‘reward’ feeling that makes you want to look at it more.

Smartphones and Multitasking

How many times have you picked up your smartphone to look something up and found that an hour later, you’re still looking at other things on the phone? There is just so much information contained in these magic machines that we can’t keep away from them. But, they also make us multitask, which leads to slower brain function. Some reports suggest that it leads to a reduction in intelligence because the mind isn’t being used the way it’s meant to be.

Distractions

When scrolling through the pages on the smartphone, you may find interesting information or news, but you are not likely to store it in your long-term memory. This is because it takes less focus to read the report, thus preventing efficient storage of the mind. You will most likely forget all or part of what you have read within a short period.

Social Effects on Memory

People are just not as friendly as they used to be. You can be in a room full of people and be the only one not looking at their smartphone. On the bus, trains, elevators, everywhere you look, someone is engrossed in their phone. This prevents regular social interaction from taking place. People don’t even say hello anymore most of the time.

Before smartphones hit the market, if you needed to know something, you would often call someone and ask them. It could be a problem you have, a recipe you need, or problems with your homework. You would call a family member or a friend. Nowadays, most people just Google it on their smartphone. You will most likely find that you will have to look up the information more than once because it won’t be adequately stored in your brain.

Those who keep their smartphones beside them at night when they go to bed generally will suffer from poor sleep. Not just because of the EMFs mentioned earlier, but because when you do wake during the night, the first thing you do is look at the phone. It may be just to check the time, but even this is bad if you are having trouble sleeping.

You might start watching a short video or check your social media in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep, and before you know it, you’ve been on the phone much longer than you planned. And so you lose even more sleep. If you’re not getting between seven to nine hours of sleep each night, your brain has difficulty with two main functions that are vital to the health of memory.

Every night while you are sleeping, your glymphatic system in the head undertakes a cleaning process of the mind. It takes away dead cells and old information. This cleansing routine can only take place if you are in a naturally deep sleep. In other words, if you are sleeping well, your mind will be detoxed and fresh the next morning.

Also, while you sleep, synaptic pruning occurs in the encephalon, which takes away old information. This makes more space for new information to be absorbed and stored. This synaptic pruning can also only take place during deep sleep, and if it doesn’t occur, your ability to create new memories and retain memories will be impaired.

How to Solve the Digital Issue?

The main answer is to use our brains more instead of smartphones, but that isn’t always an easy option. For those who use their phone for work, it can be challenging to reduce usage. However, you could get rid of all the apps you tend to browse and just use your phone for calls and texts.

Some people undertake a digital break, staying away from smartphones and other digital devices for a period to try and wean themselves off from relying on the screens. For some, many days can work; for others, they may need weeks. A more natural way to get started on removing your attention from your smartphone is to follow these tips:

1. No devices or smartphones in the bedroom are allowed. If you need an alarm, go back to the old fashioned way of using an alarm clock.

2. If you aren’t sleeping well, stop using all electronic devices for two to three hours before you go to bed. This allows the body to become less stimulated.

3. Turn off the sound notifications. Each time your smartphone makes a noise, it causes stress hormones to be released, which will interrupt your ability to sleep.

4. Remove all messaging apps unless they are essential. Take away email, social media, and other apps that can distract you.

5. Try printing out maps from Google maps instead of using a GPS. The printed map will make you use your gray matter a lot more.

6. Have one day a week where you stay clear of all devices. Use your smartphone only for calls. You might find you develop some hobbies with the extra time you will have.

Fighting with a bad memory and often finding yourself reading the same sentence over and over again, without being able to remember it, is a problem that affects everyone. After all, I’m here to give you all the techniques (from the simplest to the most advanced) that I learned after decades of study and practice. And you will realize by yourself that it is not possible, unfortunately, or fortunately, to summarize them in 1 or 2 chapters. That’s why you can’t miss my latest book: “Limitless Memory” where I have explored all the best techniques to transform any sleepy mind into a steel brain, bombproof.

Check my website www.robert-reed.org to read my last releases about self-development.

CHAPTER THREE

Let’s Talk About Your Lifestyle

Your memory issues can often be due to how you live, eat, and behave. Your lifestyle can affect how you retain and recall memories, and if you are starting to become a bit forgetful, now is the time to take a look at the things that you could change to improve your memory.

Stress is a significant factor in memory loss because when you are emotional, it is difficult to recall information. And in this day and age, stress affects everyone. Sleep deprivation is another significant factor and can affect your memory and function just as much as if you were intoxicated, which leads us to alcohol and recreational drug use.

The use of substances has a significant effect on the memory of young adults more so than in older people. This is particularly true for students in college, who often drink too much alcohol, dabble in drugs, and sleep little. This combination is hugely detrimental to how your gray matter stores and retrieves memories. Ever had too much alcohol and forgotten what happened the night before? This is because when you are that intoxicated or have a blackout, your brain cannot create new long-term memories.

Today everyone is relying on electronic devices, especially cell phones. Everywhere you go, you see people walking along, staring at their phone. They become multitaskers, which is not a good thing for the mind.

To multitask, your brain needs to be able to go back and forth tasks leading to short-term memory disruption. Plus, when your attention is shared across multiple things, your ability to recall memories is much harder than if you were concentrating on just one thing.

Computers aren’t innocent either when it comes to the blue light that is emitted from them. Research has shown that if you spend two hours on your tablet or computer before you go to bed, your level of melatonin, the natural sleep hormone, is significantly reduced, leading to the inability to sleep or sleep well.

Following is more information on specific lifestyle factors that can affect your memory.

Sugar in Your Diet

Not only can too much sugar in your diet affect other aspects of your general health, scientists have discovered that it can also lead to failing memory. Sugar can reduce the amount of volume in the head where short-term memories are stored.

A study undertaken of 4,000 people who have a high sugary beverage intake showed more sad memories and lower brain volumes than those who consumed less sugar.

When the blood glucose levels are elevated, blood vessels are damaged. In diabetes, when the blood vessel damage occurs, it affects the mind and the eyes. Those who have had diabetes for a long time will often suffer from issues with memory, learning, and cognitive ability. Higher levels of HbA1c (how blood glucose is measured) has been associated with a higher degree of shrinkage of the brain.

For those who don’t have diabetes, high sugar intake is still associated with low scores on cognitive function tests. It’s believed this is because of the combination of hypertension, hyperglycemia (high blood sugar), hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and insulin resistance.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a chemical in the head that is vital in learning and the formation of new memories. The higher the intake of sugar in the diet, the lower the level of the BDNF. This has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Fish Oil Supplements

Many people are scared off by supplements, but this one is nothing but good for your body and your memory. This is because it is rich in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which are omega-3 fatty acids. While some fat is bad for your health, these omega-3 fats are essential when it comes to your health.

Fish oil supplements can assist with stress relief, anxiety, inflammation, slow mental decline, and heart disease. There have been several studies done that have reported that fish oil supplements and consuming fish can improve your memory. One of these studies showed that taking fish oil supplements for one year greatly improved memory scores of the 36 older people that took part in the survey.

The omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA are essential for the health of the cerebrum and the function.

Relaxation and Meditation

As mentioned previously, stress is a significant factor in memory loss, and it also has a massive impact on your general health. By learning how to relax and even meditate, you can significantly reduce your stress and anxiety levels. You may think you don’t have time to relax, or you don’t know how to meditate, but you need to learn.

Meditation has been known to reduce stress, blood pressure, and pain and improve your memory. Some studies have shown an increase in the gray matter of the brain through meditation. As we get older, our gray matter starts to decline, significantly affecting cognitive function and memory storage and recall.

Relaxation and meditation can make short-term memory better in anyone, from the young to the old. Plus, it’s a great way to help with your general health. Best of all, you don’t have to meditate for long periods; just 15 minutes each day will have a tremendous benefit to your overall health. There are a lot of different forms of meditation and relaxation exercises, so if one doesn’t work for you, try another.

Keep Your Weight at a Healthy Range

We all know that being overweight can directly affect your health, but did you know that it can also have an impact on your memory? It has been shown that obesity can change the genes related to the mind in the brain, hurting memory. Being obese can cause insulin resistance and inflammation in the body, and both of these conditions can harm the head. When a group of overweight people was tested on their memory, they were worse than others quite significantly, with a much lower memory score. There has also been a link established between Alzheimer’s disease and obesity.

Therefore, keeping your weight down to a healthy range will improve the function of your brain and your memory, and help to prevent other illnesses that could hurt your body and your mind. Interestingly, obesity has been associated with an increased chance of Alzheimer’s disease.

Sleep Well

For those who don’t sleep well, you will know that foggy head is feeling that stops you from concentrating, making decisions, and recalling memories. Sleep is vital for our bodies and our brains, and it is essential when it comes to consolidating memories. This process is the transformation of short-term memories to long-term memories.

It is recommended that an adult sleep for between seven and nine hours each night for a healthy mind and body. Here are some tips to help you sleep better:

Coffee, Nicotine, Alcohol, Tobacco

The caffeine in coffee is a stimulant, so it’s quite realistic that if you drink coffee close to bedtime, it will interfere with your ability to sleep. It is recommended you steer clear of coffee or any other product that contains caffeine for at least four hours before you go to bed. It is also a good idea not to smoke too close to the time for bed.

Many people think that when they drink alcohol, they sleep well, but this is a myth. You may sleep for a few hours, but then the alcohol becomes a stimulant. You will wake up more often during the night, and the sleep quality will be reduced. If you are having a quiet drink, stick to a couple of drinks per day. For those that are going out and plan to drink, stop consuming alcohol three hours before you plan to go to bed.

Sleeping Issues

A night of good quality sleep is vital to keep your body and mind running through the day.  But a lot of people don’t sleep well at all, and this can become a recurring issue if it’s not dealt with it. Young adults have a terrible habit of staying up until the wee hours of the morning, whether because they are socializing or students trying to cram in the study before an exam. Eventually, that lack of sleep will catch up with them, and their brains will be functioning less effectively.

Adjust Your Environment

You need to create an atmosphere in your bedroom to stimulate sleep. Your bedroom should be cold, dark, and quiet if you want to sleep well. Make sure you are comfortable, with bedding neat, because if you have a messy tangle of blankets and sheets, this will make you uncomfortable during the night and lead to disrupted sleep.

To reduce any noise, try a white noise device or use earplugs. If the light is coming in through your curtains, get blackout shades or a mask that covers your eyes. When the head is alerted by light, it naturally thinks it’s time to get up.

Keep electronic devices out of the bedroom, and if you have a pet that bothers you regularly during the night, shoo it out of the room and shut the door. By only doing regular bedroom activities in the room, it will teach your brain the bedroom is the place where sleep happens.

Preparing for Bed

There are several things you can do to make the ideal transition to sleep. You could undertake some activities that are relaxing an hour before you go to bed. Many find that taking a bath can make them tired, which is due to the way the temperature of the body rises then falls. Others may find reading relaxing or doing a bit of meditation is very helpful.

Whatever you do, avoid anything that could be stimulating or stressful, such as having conversations about in-depth topics or doing some leftover work from your job. Keep the television off if it’s in the room.

When the body is under stress, cortisol, the stress hormone, is secreted, and this increases the level of alertness. If you are worrying before bed, try writing your concerns down then put them away somewhere.

Make Sure You’re Tired

If you are trying to sleep while you are still feeling quite alert, it will never happen. Instead of going to bed because you think you should wait until you are feeling exhausted. It might mean a late night, but it will be less frustrating. The rule of thumb is, if you haven’t fallen asleep within 20 minutes, get back up and go out of the bedroom. Try reading or something else relaxing until you feel tired, then try again.

Trying to sleep when you’re not tired enough can be very frustrating, which is just going to make you more anxious about not sleeping, and anxiety prevents sleep. But you can’t force rest. Let your body tell you when it’s ready to doze off.

Stop the Clock Watching

The worst thing you can do when you can’t sleep is to check the time. It’s a bad habit many have, that when they wake during the night, they feel the need to see what the time is. But, this only makes it more challenging to get back to sleep. When you keep track of the time during the night, it can cause extra stress because you are frustrated you can’t sleep. Especially if you have somewhere to be in the morning, and you think you are running out of time to get some sleep.

The easiest way to combat this is to turn the clock around so you can’t see the time. If you lie awake for 20 minutes, get up, and do something else. Dim lighting is best if you have to get up, as it is less stimulating, and once you are tired, go back to bed.

Natural Sleep-Wake Cycle

Using natural sources of light can help your body maintain a healthy sleep-wake cycle. When you wake in the mornings, open the curtains and let the sunlight in, and this will trigger that it is time to get up, that it is time to be awake and alert. The natural sleep-wake cycle can be hugely disrupted for those that work night shifts, and it can take a long time for it to readjust once they return to day work.

Consistency

We all have an internal clock, and having a consistent bedtime and wake time, helps to set the clock, so your body is ready for sleep around the same time every night. Routines are essential, especially if you have trouble sleeping.  Even if you have a terrible night of sleep, you still get up at the same time no matter how difficult it is, so it doesn’t interfere with that internal clock too much.

Early Napping

A lot of people like to take naps during the day, and that is fine, so long as you do it at the right time. When you have trouble sleeping, the last thing you should do is have a nap late in the day because it can lower the body’s drive to go to sleep later. The best time is before 5:00 pm, and the nap time should be kept brief.

Watch What You Eat

Keep your dinner meal as light as possible, as high-caloric density foods can irritate your digestive system and prevent you from sleeping. Try and eat hours before it’s time to go to bed, and if you do get hungry during the night, only eat the foods you know don’t interfere with your sleep. Some people find carbohydrates or dairy foods can be less irritating at night.

Time Your Exercising

Although exercise is fantastic for your body and your cerebrum, it can be a problem if you don’t do it at the right time of the day. It’s essential to make sure that you finish doing any exercise three hours before its time to go to bed. Otherwise, the stimulation of cortisol will make it alert.

More Environmental Factors

Learn About Mindfulness

The term ‘mindfulness’ has been tossed about in recent years, with many not understanding what it means. Mindfulness is when you concentrate only on the present while being aware of how you feel and what is around you. It’s not to be confused with meditation, although mindfulness is often used in some meditation practices.

You can use mindfulness anywhere and anytime, and it can be a few minutes or longer, depending on what you want and need. It is a mental habit that can improve levels of concentration, memory, and can also reduce stress levels.

The regular practice of mindfulness has been shown to reduce the risk of declining cognitive function as people age. Overall, mindfulness can significantly improve your psychological health. Try some mindfulness by sitting quietly, concentrating on your breathing, and be aware of what you can sense. If your mind starts to wander, bring it back to the present.

Lower Your Alcohol Intake

Previously we mentioned how alcohol consumption could significantly affect your memory and your overall brain function. Many people develop a habit of binge drinking, which has been shown to alter it and reduce memory. One study was conducted using college students who drank a minimum of six drinks in a short time each week or once a month. They showed deficits in memory recall tests.

If you repeatedly binge drink, the neurotoxic effects alcohol has on the encephalon can damage the section of the cerebrum called the hippocampus, which is a vital component of memory. There is nothing wrong with having a drink now and then; this won’t affect your mind as much and is relatively healthy. Just don’t overdo it!

Brain Training

When you exercise your brain, it enhances the function and increases your memory. Head games, such as word recall or crosswords, are a great way to make your mind much more vital. Many studies have shown that training your mind regularly can vastly improve your working memory, short-term memory, problem-solving skills, and concentration. There is a whole chapter devoted to teaching your mind further ahead, including exercises.

Reducing Refined Carbohydrates

Refined carbohydrates such as cakes, cookies, white bread, and cereal, when consumed in larger quantities, may have a damaging effect on your memory. This is because these types of foods are digested quicker than others, which increases blood sugar levels, causing a spike. And as mentioned before, a high intake of sugars can significantly affect your memory.

The diet of the Western world is rich in refined carbohydrates, and studies have indicated they play a significant part in cognitive decline dementia.  Children who were studied showed a lowered mental capacity, working memory, and short-term memory when they had a high amount of foods such as noodles, white rice, and fast food.  Here is a list of foods that contain refined carbohydrates:

Simple and refined sugars

- White sugar;

- Confectioner’s sugar (also called powdered sugar);

- Agave syrup;

- Honey;

- Molasses;

- Brown sugar;

- Corn, maple, and brown rice syrup;

- Fructose;

- Maltose;

- Rice bran syrup;

- Tapioca syrup;

- Sorghum;

- Dextran;

- Treacle;

- Dextrose;

- Fruit juice (except lime and lemon);

- Flours;

- Refined or instant grains;

Foods High in Refined Carbs and Sugar

Desserts

- Ice cream and frozen yogurt;

- Majority of bread types;

- Most crackers;

- Cookies and cakes;

- Muffins;

- Pancakes and Waffles;

- Pies and other Pastries;

- Candy;

- Milk and white chocolate;

- Breaded or battered food;

- Most cereals;

- Majority of noodles, couscous, and pasta;

- Jellies, preserves, and jams;

- Bagels and pretzels;

- Pizza;

- Corn chips, caramel corn, and kettle corn;

- Many energy, power, or granola bars;

- Tortillas rice cakes and corn cakes;

- Ketchup, honey mustard, most barbecue sauces;

- Soda;

- Many milk substitutes;

- Liqueurs and sweetened wines.

Vital Vitamin D

Decades ago, the vitamin we were told was essential for our health was vitamin C, but now we know that one of the most crucial vitamins of all is Vitamin D.

This particular vitamin has a dramatic effect on many health problems and has been linked to cognitive function decline when the levels are low.

There have been studies that suggested low levels of Vitamin D may increase your risk of developing dementia. Those most at risk of a Vitamin D deficiency are those who live in colder parts of the world and those with dark skin.

Get Up and Move

Exercise is not only essential for overall good health, but it has a positive effect on your mental health and your brain function. It is suggested that exercising regularly, at a moderate level, can significantly enhance your cognitive function and your memory. This is because exercise stimulates the secretion of neuroprotective proteins, and these lead to the development and growth of neurons, improving the health of your brain. Practice also makes you more alert.

Increase Anti-Inflammatory Foods in Your Diet

Usually, when we think of anti-inflammatory, we think of medications, but some foods have anti-inflammatory properties too, and including these in your diet can help your memory. Inflammation in the body is reduced by antioxidants such as teas, vegetables, and fruit.  Those that eat more vegetables and fruits have a decreased risk of developing a decline in their cognitive function. It also reduces the risk of developing dementia.

Another food that has high antioxidant content is berries. These contain anthocyanins and flavonoids, which are antioxidants, and eating these regularly can help prevent the loss of your memory. Blueberries are particularly useful as are strawberries, but any berries will contain levels of these antioxidants.

Curcumin is a powerful antioxidant that is found in high levels in turmeric root and has a strong anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Curcumin reduces the number of amyloid plaques, oxidative damage, and brain inflammation. The amyloid plaques gather on the neurons and lead to the death of cells and tissue, which ultimately causes memory loss.

Curcumin can also help with mood and depression because it boosts dopamine and serotonin. It also increases a particular growth hormone that aids with cell growth.

Dark chocolate and cocoa! It’s not too often you get told you can eat chocolate, but the cocoa contains flavonoids. These stimulate the growth of neurons, blood vessels and improve the flow of blood in the area of the brain associated with memory. Tests on people who ate dark chocolate showed their mind was better than those who consumed white chocolate.

For the best results, dark chocolate that has a cocoa content of at least 70% cacao or even higher should be chosen. The higher the percentages of cacao, the more antioxidants are contained.

Top foods for your memory and your brain:

Fatty Fish

Sardines, salmon, and trout are all types of fatty fish that have a high source of omega-3 fatty acids. If you aren’t keen to take the fish oil supplements, get yourself some fresh fatty fish instead. The omega-3 fatty acids help to improve your mood as well, and they help to ward off cognitive decline, such as is seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

Coffee

A lot of people get up in the morning and make themselves a cup of coffee without realizing just how good it is for the mind. Coffee contains antioxidants as well as caffeine. Caffeine can increase your level of alertness because it blocks the chemical adenosine that makes you want to sleep. It lifts your mood by boosting neurotransmitters like serotonin that make you feel good. Caffeine can improve concentration and make you more productive. There is a theory that drinking coffee over a long period could be linked to a lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, due to the combination of the caffeine and the antioxidants.

Blueberries

Blueberries are a superfood, providing your body with a fantastic load of goodness to keep you healthy. They also are particularly suitable for the brain. These berries, and others that have a deep coloring, deliver a group of plant compounds called anthocyanins, which have both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

Inflammation and oxidative stress can play a factor in neurodegenerative diseases, and the aging of the cerebrum and antioxidants work against both of these. Some blueberry antioxidants have been discovered accumulating in the brain, which leads to better communication between his cells.

Broccoli

Another food that is high in antioxidants is broccoli. It also contains a high level of vitamin K, which is necessary for the formulation of sphingolipids, a fat that is packed into the cells of the brain densely. Studies on older adults have shown a link between better memory and a proper vitamin K intake in their diet.

Pumpkin Seeds

These seeds are full of antioxidants that protect the brain and the minerals magnesium, copper, zinc, and iron, all of which are essential for the health of it.

Magnesium - this mineral is essential for memory and learning, and low levels have been linked to many diseases affecting the cerebrum, including epilepsy and depression.

- Copper - Copper is used by the head to control the nerve signals, and if they are out of balance, the risk of neurodegenerative diseases is much higher.

- Zinc - This is another mineral that is vital for nerve signaling in the encephalon. The deficiency of zinc has been linked to diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

- Iron - when levels of iron in the blood are too low, the effect is a fog in the gray matter and reduced functioning.

Nuts

Nuts are an excellent choice as they are beneficial to the health of your heart, and this subsequently helps you maintain a healthy brain. Nuts contain antioxidants, vitamin E, and healthy fats, which all benefit the function of it. Because vitamin E protects the membranes of the cells, a decline in mental state can be slowed down.  For an extra boost, walnuts are the best nuts of the all, as they have omega-3 fatty acids.

Oranges

One orange contains enough vitamin C to reach your daily recommended level. Vitamin C is an essential factor in reducing the risk of mental decline. This vitamin is a powerful antioxidant that aids in keeping the free radicals at bay so they can’t damage the cerebrum’s cells.

Other foods high in vitamin C include guava, strawberries, bell peppers, and tomatoes.

Eggs

Eggs contain several nutrients that are good for the health of the brain. These include choline, folate, B6, and B12. Choline is used by the body to create acetylcholine, which assists with memory and mood regulation. Many people are deficient in choline, as it isn’t as easily found in foods apart from eggs. The most potent source of choline is in the yolk of the egg.

Vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 are essential for the health of your body and your brain. They can help slow down the process of decline of mental function in older people and are also known to affect mood, with a deficiency often associated with depression.

A deficiency in folate is known to be a factor in dementia in older adults. Vitamin B12 is associated with creating chemicals in the cerebrum that help to regulate sugar levels.

Green Tea

Green tea also contains caffeine, a proven booster in brain health and function. It also contains L-theanine, which is an amino acid. This amino acid can increase GABA, a neurotransmitter found across the blood-head barrier, which aids in relaxing the body and the mind. While it stimulates the alpha waves, it doesn’t make you tired but relaxes you at the same time.

Green tea also has antioxidants and polyphenols, both of which help to lower the risk of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and mental decline.

Avocados

Eating avocados gives you a big boost of vitamin E and monounsaturated fatty acids, which are suitable for the intellect. It’s important to remember that avocados are also high in calories if you are watching your weight!

Barley

Barley, and some other whole grains, are high in the B vitamins, and combined with the fiber, the cholesterol can be lowered, which helps with our health.

Spices and Herbs for Brain Health

Sage

Recognizable by its pungent smell, sage is believed to help with cognitive function and often is recommended for people with Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

Gingko Biloba

Traditionally used in Chinese medicine, Ginkgo Biloba has been used as a medicine for dementia for a very long time by the Chinese. Ginkgo biloba stimulates the circulation, thus increasing the flow of blood to the encephalon, which is beneficial for cognitive function.

Ashwagandha

Ashwagandha is an ancient Ayurvedic herb that can slow down or prevent the creation of beta-amyloid plaques that are harmful to the brain. Some studies have shown that it may also help with slowing down the process of Alzheimer’s disease by reducing ‘oxidative stress.’

Ginseng

A widely used herbal medicine plant, ginseng contains ginsenosides, an anti-inflammatory chemical. This chemical helps reduce beta-amyloid levels in mind.

Gotu Kola

Another herb commonly used in Ayurvedic medicine, Gotu kola, has been utilized for a long time to improve a person’s mental clarity. The belief is that it can also fight off oxidative stress associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

Lemon Balm

A lovely smelling herb, lemon balm, is often consumed in a tea and can also be used in baked goods. There have been some results with Alzheimer’s patients that indicate an improvement in cognitive function when taking lemon balm regularly.

CHAPTER FOUR

Discovering the Secrets About Fast Reading

Now that you understand what memory is and how it works, you can move on to the exciting techniques of learning how to read and learn faster. As you will see below, there are so many benefits in every aspect of your life; you will be wondering why you haven’t done it sooner!

But it’s better late than never, and you can learn this skill at any age. You can even start children on it once they are at the right reading age and set them up for achievement in their education and their life.

Maybe you just want to be able to be quicker because you never seem to have time to read, or you can’t finish a book due to interruptions in your daily living. With learning to be faster, you will be able to read whatever you like and whenever you want. You will power through any journal, manual, book, etc. quickly but still retain the information using these techniques.

There are procedures and techniques you need to discover, and this chapter will show you how to get started.

Why Don’t You Read Now?

You may have loved reading as a youngster, but as you got older, you lost the enjoyment you used to feel. This is often because our adult lifestyles are just too busy, and we don’t seem to have the time to sit down and focus on a book, let along concentrate on it without being interrupted or distracted.

Have you ever watched someone sitting on a train, and they seem to have been reading the same page for ages? This is usually because their concentration isn’t focused, and it seems to take so long just to get through the page.

Between studies, work, family, and sports, we often don’t take the time to relax with a good book, yet this is so important to do because it encourages you to take some time out and relax. Books help you escape into other worlds, and reading them fast means you can quickly go on to the next exciting chapter.

We have also become lazy and complacent. Why spend 4 hours reading a book whose film will last 2 hours at most?  This is something that is said way too often, yet the movie is never the same as the book. You lose so much information by watching the screen than if you were turning the pages and making your brain work a little harder.

Hopefully, once you have learned the tricks of reading faster, you will go back to this beautiful world, you can get your hands on.

Benefits of Reading Faster

In case you’re still not convinced how the ability to read faster can be a massive advantage in your life, below is a list of benefits that will come with it:

1. Information is absorbed quicker : when you can absorb information more quickly, it gives you more time to be innovative and creative.

2. Comprehension is improved : as you read more material, the ability to absorb and comprehend the information becomes much faster and efficient. You only have to read each day to increase your comprehension by up to 20% in 30 days.

3. Knowledge increase in multiple interests : because it takes less time to read something, you can explore other interests that will not only improve your knowledge but also improve your social interactions.

4. Information recall is more efficient : the process of faster reading enables more efficient memory storage and recall.

5. Visualization is promoted : fast reading techniques can involve visualizing the information instead of just reading it.

6. Provides strategies for information overload : you can pick and choose what you want to read because you can skim and work out whether the material is relevant or not.

7. Reading process is more organized: because it is a structured process, it becomes a lot more organized.

8. The concentration is improved : you need to be able to concentrate well while reading faster, so the more you practice, the better your focus will become.

9. More discipline when reading : you will learn to remove distractions and focus.

10. Quicker decision making : making decisions becomes more comfortable because you know you are well informed.

11. Can read more in the same amount of time: this is a huge advantage for students who need to learn a lot of information in a short time.

12. Career boost : Many potential employers see the skill of reading faster as a significant advantage, as work can be completed in a timely and efficient manner, which could result in promotions.

13. More potential opportunities : by broadening your knowledge through faster reading, there will be a lot more job opportunities available in a broader range of careers.

14. Time management improves : faster reading is all about time management and discipline, so your ability to manage time will increase significantly.

15. Techniques can be applied to all media: you can read any material at all using the faster reading techniques, whether in paper form or electronic.

16. Improved memory : as your speed increases, the brain is exercised, and it increases the retention of memory and improves its function.

17. Self-Confidence increases : being able to read faster can make you feel more confident in your personal life and your professional environment. You will be able to stand up and give presentations knowing that you have read all the information and memorized the essential pieces.

18. Reduced stress : because faster reading takes less time, there is less stress. The ability to understand and analyze quickly is a considerable advantage and removes the fear of not getting things done.

19. Vocabulary: the ability to read faster exposes you to a broader range of written language. When you see words repeatedly, you will remember it and be able to recall it at a later date.

The Process

1. Previewing Text

Just as you would watch a trailer for a movie to get the idea of the content, previewing text helps you understand more quickly what you are about to start reading. To do this, scan the document from start to finish, taking particular notice of all bullet points, anything bold, headings and subheadings, or text that is written in a different or bigger font. By previewing the book, you can work out what is essential to read and what you can skip.

2. Planning How to Tackle the Text

If you think about how you are going to read a text and plan for it, you can improve your ability to digest the content significantly. The first thing to ask yourself is what you are wanting to learn by reading the text.  Write down a few questions that you are hoping the writing will answer for you by the time you reach the end.

The next step is to work out what the author was hoping to achieve by writing the text. If the full text contains sections that don’t answer your questions, avoid them. Also, if the book is more extensive or scientific, plan what passages you should read slower that require more careful attention.

3. Focus and Concentration

To be able to read text faster, you need to have excellent concentration and focus. To aid this, remove or at least minimize any distractions, noise, and possible interruptions. If your thoughts start to wander while you are reading, use your mindfulness skills to bring you back to the text. If you plan and approach text with the proper attention, you will be able to recognize if there is something you don’t understand more quickly, which will save you time. Otherwise, people tend to go back and read sentences over and over and still don’t grasp what’s right in front of their eyes.

4. Never Read Each Word

We are taught from a young age to read each word, when, in fact, by paying attention to how your eyes can scan the material, you can increase your rate. For most people, they can scan text in chunks of about 1.5 inches, usually three to five words, depending on the type of text and the size of the letters.

Instead of reading every word, scan the text in chunks of three to five words, then move on to the next piece. To increase your speed, at the beginning and end of each line, focus on fragments rather than the words at the start and finish of the line.

To help you scan in chunks, you can use a pen or your finger to point at each piece. This will help you teach your eyes to scan faster. Also, it will stop you from saying each word in your mind as you are reading, which slows down your speed considerably.

5. Choose Sections

Students are often taught to read each section of an article or textbook, but this is unnecessary and should fall into the category of ‘myths.’ Unless what you are reading is incredibly complex, leave out the sections that are not relevant. By choosing parts relevant and less relevant, it becomes easier to digest the critical information from the text without having to read the whole thing.

6. Summarize

Once you have finished reading the text, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your task is completed. Instead, write down a summary of what you remember; it only has to be a few sentences. Then take a look at the questions you were wanting to answer by reading the text and determine if you learned what you needed to answer those questions. If you spend a bit of time after the lecture to contemplate what you have read, the information will be stored more efficiently in your brain. This will also make it much easier to recall it at a later date.

For those who learn visually, instead of writing a summary, draw it. A mind map is a great way to summarize and helps visual learners immensely. Alternatively, if you are a verbal learner, find someone to talk to and tell them what you have learned from the text. By repeating it, you are helping it to solidify as a memory.

Practice and Timing

To perfect any new skill, you need to practice, not just occasionally but regularly, and faster reading is no different. You need to put some time aside for practicing as often as you can. Once you are starting to get the hang of it, try using a timer to see how many pages or words you can achieve in a minute. This will give you a reading speed, which you can improve on as you practice more. Make sure you can comprehend what you are reading at the same time; otherwise, you are not learning.

Timing your speed each day will help you improve as you can see your rate gets faster and faster, which inspires you to continue to practice. To calculate your words per minute:

Count how many words are on the page.

- Alternatively, count how many words are in one line then multiply it by the number of lines on the page.

- Set the alarm or time for ten minutes and see how much you can read through before the time is up.

- Next, multiply how many pages you were able to read by the numbers of words that are on the page.

- Divide that number by ten to work out your words per minute reading speed.

It’s a good idea to set goals for yourself to achieve, as this will encourage practice. Within a matter of weeks, most people can double their words per minute. Don’t despair if you’re not quite there, though, for some. It can take a little more time. To help with your goal setting, here are the expected speeds:

- Expected speed age twelve to older - 200-250 words per minute.

- The average student at college - 300 words per minute.

- A college student that is skimming text - 450 words per minute.

- College student scanning for words - 600-700 words per minute.

- Champion speed reader - 1,000 + words per minute.

Comprehending Comprehension

We all know that to comprehend means to understand, but have you ever thought of what skills are needed to have good comprehension? We do so many things without even thinking about what they are, so it’s a good idea to have a look at comprehension and how it relates to our goals.

To comprehend, there needs to be an ability to process what is being read, understand what it means, and integrate that with information the reader has previously known. He/she must know what words mean, how to use context to understand the meaning of the words, the ability to follow how the material is written, and be able to determine the contents of a written passage. They also need to be able to identify the main content, answer questions relating to the content, and determine the mood and tone of the writing. It all sounds complicated, but you are doing this every day! Even while you are reading this book!

There are two comprehension levels in reading, which are low-level (shallow) and high-level (deep) processing of the information. Low-level processing involves recognizing the structure and the process of the sentences and words. High-level uses semantic processing, which involved encoding what the word means and relating it to other similar expressions.

To study comprehension levels, researchers used neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study was to compare brain activity during sentence-level comprehension and narrative-level comprehension. It was discovered that there was less activity during the sentence-level comprehension. When narrative levels were tested, there was increased activation in the temporal part of the brain.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary and comprehension go hand and hand. Being able to pronounce a word is essential, but knowing what the word means has a significant effect, mostly while skimming.

Comprehension Strategies

Research reports have identified that very proficient readers use a selection of strategies with different types of reading material to aid with comprehension. These strategies can be used by readers who aren’t as experienced, so their comprehension improves. Here are the strategies:

Making Inferences : Also known as ‘reading between the lines,’ it is the linking parts of the text that are not directly linked so that a sensible conclusion can be deduced. The person reading the material is speculating on what might be written in the text.

Planning and Monitoring : this involves the mental awareness of the reader and their comprehension, and by previewing the material, they can identify a goal for their reading. They use context and other strategies and ask themselves what they want to get out of the book.

Question Asking : With this strategy, the reader formulates an opinion of the way the author has written the text, the relationships with the characters, and what motivates them in the story. By asking themselves questions, they can gain a better understanding of what the text is about.

Importance Determining : The reader can pinpoint what the essential aspects are within the text, and can summarize how relevant each one is.

Synthesizing : This strategy involves gathering multiple ideas from different sources and marrying them together to conclude to figure out how it all fits together.

Making Connections : The reader identifies a personal connection to the text, whether it is an experience they have had or texts they have read before, to gain a more robust understanding of the context.

Sensory Processing

When reading and comprehending, it involves more than just the eyes and the brain. Using different senses can often create a better memory that can be recalled more efficiently.

Vision

The most used sense of them all when it comes to reading, what we see can evoke the most efficient recall ability than with the other senses. Visual senses not only involve written words, but pictures, graphs, and maps. Many people can recall more from looking at a picture than what they have read. However, when the stress is on the logic and not the details of the image, the value of recall decreases.

Audio

Although auditory information can be useful, it typically is not as effective when it comes to recalling the info as the visual senses.

Touch

When touch is used to memorize, it is very similar to visual learning, but there is a processing level difference between the two.

Smell

This sense is not as strong as visual memories, but it is still relatively high when it comes to the success rate of recall. The results are often better if the person is asked to imagine they can see the smell and associate that with an image.

Can Reading Faster Help Those With Learning Disabilities?

It has been discovered that adults with dyslexia that are taught to read faster have much better results. Typically people with dyslexia are taught to read slowly and sound out each syllable and word, but this is causing a problem with comprehension and fluency.

With an estimated 5-10% of the population of the world being dyslexic, changing how they are taught to read could make a tremendous difference. The results have been so good that researchers are now considering whether reading faster could help those who are deaf and have trouble sounding out what they are reading.

Recap Advantages

For the Student

- Ability to read the recommended material faster without feeling stressed that you can’t get it done.

- Reading faster means you absorb the information more quickly, leaving more room for study.

- Structured study sessions.

- Regular revision timetables.

- Time management skills will improve.

- Ability to study more subjects.

- Time for other projects.

- Less stress, especially at exam time.

- Better sleep patterns.

- More confidence.

- Ability to recall information when needed.

- Increase in sociability.

- Discipline.

For the Worker

- Increased knowledge faster.

- Ability to recall and recite information more effectively.

- Time management.

- Structured schedules.

- Discipline.

- Able to study for advancement.

- Ability to get tasks done faster and more efficiently.

- Less stress.

- Better social interactions.

- Better chances of promotion.

- Higher chance of better pay rates.

- Excellent skill on any resume.

- Better work and career options.

- More attractive to prospective employers.

For the Adult

- More time to read.

- Improved comprehension and language skills.

- Increased knowledge across many subjects.

- Reduction of stress, reading more relaxing.

- Improved social interactions.

- Problem-solving.

- More confidence.

- Time management.

- Discipline.

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CHAPTER FIVE

7+ Incredible Techniques To Level Up in Reading Faster

There are many techniques to learn how to read faster, and it is easier and more efficient if you learn one at a time. Remember that each method will take practice to perfect. The average person could go at a rate of 300 words per minute, but once the techniques are learned, that speed could increase to up 3,000 words per minute!

When speed reading exercises are undertaken, you are practicing the movements of your eyes rather than reading the text. As your methods of moving your eyes improve, so will the speed of your reading.

Don’t be dissuaded if it feels weird at first. It’s just like anything else you are learning for the first time; it takes a while for it to feel normal. The results you will gain from learning these techniques will far outweigh any discomfort or awkwardness you may feel when you first get started.

Process:

1. Learn the technique.

2. Practice the technique.

3. Practice reading quickly.

4. Create a habit and work on comprehension.

Training Your Eye Muscles

It might surprise you to learn that most people don’t use their eyes to read efficiently. There are usually many unnecessary eye movements, so it’s essential to learn how to train them. When your eyes are looking at the text, they are taking a ‘snapshot’ of the material. When the eye stops at a particular part of a page of writing, it is known as a fixation.

Because when young, we are taught that you need to read from word to word, our eyes are trained to complete too many fixations. This slows your reading speed down and can put up a blockage to stop you from reading any quicker. This is just like taking multiple photographs of blank space.

By stopping your eyes from stopping as often on a page, you will be able to read a lot quicker. You will notice that if your eyes fixate on a word, you can see more with your parafoveal and foveal vision.

The Muscles of the Eye and What They Do

Six muscles are surrounding the eye, and these control the different movements of the eye. Most are attached to a band around the optic nerve. The superior rectus muscle enables the eye to look upwards, and the inferior rectus muscle allows the eye to look downward. The muscle that helps the eye to look toward the nose is the medial rectus muscle, and the last muscle, the lateral rectus muscle, allows the eye to look to the side.

The other two main muscles are the oblique muscles, and these are the muscles that help the rectus muscles move.  They all work together to move your eye in the direction you need. It is the scanning functionality that enables us to look at a larger area and sends vital information to the brain. During this scanning, the eyes move quickly around different points in the visual field to gain the knowledge to send.

The pupil and iris of the eye control how the eye takes pictures; they determine the level of light allowed into the rear of the eye, very similar to a camera shutter. This is why the pupils get more extensive when it is dark and smaller when it is light. The images are sent to the back of the eye to the retina. In the retina, the cells convert the light into electrochemical impulses. These impulses are then sent along the optic nerve to the brain.

Here is an exercise to help you practice your eye movements:

Exercise 1 - Eye Training

1. Get yourself a book to read - it doesn’t matter whether it is fiction or non-fiction, any book will do.

2. Don’t look at the first word of the line of text; instead, focus on the second word. This will make your first fixation start with the second word on each line.

3. Fixate on the second-to-last word on the line of text. This prevents your eyes from taking a snapshot of the blank space in the margin, which wastes time.

4. Practice this method of reading for two minutes and try as quickly as you are able. Only stop your eyes every two or three words per line.

Focus and Don’t Reread

Rereading text is not an efficient way of reading, so you want to avoid having to backtrack. Conscious rereading is also referred to as regression, and it is when you stop reading and go back to reread and get a better understanding of what you are reading. Unconscious rereading is when you are fixated on the wrong thing in the text. Moving your eyes and losing your place on the page is a form of unconscious rereading.

One of the reasons some people have to go back and reread a sentence is because they weren’t focusing on the text. Or, they may have gotten distracted, and their mind has wandered.  Thankfully there is a simple exercise to train yourself to stop this practice.

Exercise 2 - Stop Rereading

1. First, get a book and a pen.

2. Using either the pen or your finger to guide you read a section of the book. Some people find it more comfortable with a pen; others are happy to use their fingers.

3. Move the pen or finger at the same speed in a steady motion just beneath the words across the page. Do not look back at the terms once you have read them.

4. As you continue to read, slowly raise the speed of the movement of the pen or finger. Continue to do this until you can only just comprehend a couple of words on each line.

This exercise is not about comprehension; it is about changing the way that you read. Once the old habits have been changed, you will be reading much faster, and your comprehension will be better than it was before. This exercise helps to train your brain and your eyes to read at a steady speed without having to backtrack and reread.

Interestingly, when reading at a rate of 200 words or less per minute, you are more likely to get bored. But, when you are up to the speed of 1,000 words per minute, it is almost impossible to get bored or zone out because you are focusing intently on the reading. Your eyes are moving faster, and you have to maintain the focus to stay at a faster speed.

Once you have trained your brain that you are not allowed to reread, your focus and concentration become so much more intense. Even just doing these two exercises for five minutes every day for a month, your concentration will improve tremendously. By then, you could be tripling the speed at which you read.

Exercise 3 - Thumb-to-thumb glancing

This is a simple eye movement exercise that is focused on your peripheral vision. The exercise stretches the muscles in the eye, which makes them flexible and much healthier.

1. Either sitting or standing, look directly ahead.

2. Stretch out your arms to the sides and stick your thumbs up.

3. Glance back and forth to your left and right thumbs ten times without turning your head.

4. Repeat this three times each time you do the exercise.

Exercise 4 - Use a drawn shape

You can do this exercise using any shape, but the star works best because of the number of angles.

1. On a piece of paper, draw a star.

2. On each angle of the star, write a number from one to six.

3. Without moving your head, move your eyes around the numbers quickly from one to six.

4. Without moving your head, roll your eyes around the numbers backward from six to one.

Exercise 5 - Writing with your eyes

This will have your eyes moving in ways that differ from how you usually see. This exercises the extra-ocular muscles and increased the range of eye movement and the flexibility of the eye.

1. Look at a wall that is across the room from you (as far away as you can).

2. Now imagine that you are writing your name with your eyes on the wall.

3. Try it in cursive writing and block letters.

Exercise 6 - Hooded Eyes

Hooded means when your eyes are half-closed: this relaxes the eyes and is an excellent exercise to do a few times when your eyes need a bit of a break.

1. Close your eyes.

2. Concentrate on stopping the trembling of your eyelids.

3. Concentrating on the eyelids relaxes the eyes.

4. While your eyes are hooded, look at an object that is far away, and you will find that the trembling of your eyes will stop.

Exercise 7 - Squeezing the eyes

Squeezing your eyes together relaxes your eyes, and makes the muscles of the eye a lot more flexible. When squeezing your eyes together, it increases oxygen and blood flow to both your eyes and your face, which improves their health. This exercise will take you around three minutes to complete.

1. While inhaling slowly and deeply, open your mouth and your eyes as wide as you can. This stretches all the facial muscles.

2. While exhaling, squeeze your eyes closed tightly as possible, and squeeze the other muscles of your face, head, and neck, and clench your jaw.

3. Continue to squeeze for 30 seconds while holding your breath.

4. Repeat the process another four times, take a brief break, and then complete a further five squeezing exercises.

Exercise 8 - Gazing at a clock

This is another excellent exercise for your eye muscles, and all you need is a chair and an imagination!

1. Sit in a chair with your back straight and both of your feet level on the floor.

2. Using your imagination, picture a very large clock fact about 12 inches in front of you.

3. Without moving your head, look at the number 12, then down to number 6.

4. Without moving your head, look up to number 1, then down to number 7.

5. Without moving your head, look up to number 2, then down to number 8.

6. Without moving your head, look up to number 3, then down to number 9.

7. Without moving your head, look down to number 4, then up to number 10.

8. Without moving your head, look down to number 5, then up to number 11.

9. Now rest your eyes by closing them or covering them.

Tips for Faster Reading Success

When you first start practicing faster reading, choose a wide variety of simple material for the first week. Something quite light to read and easy to understand. This will enable you to focus on the technique of speed reading without having to focus too much on comprehension.

From then on, begin to read books or materials that are more complex and challenging. You are still working on training your eyes without having to comprehend all that you are reading while you are practicing. Now you are starting to create a habit.

It’s essential to use a wide variety of reading materials and not just novels while you are practicing. But, it is helpful if you use the style you read regularly. You can even practice reading off a screen after the first week, especially if you spend a lot of time on a computer for work or study.

Another tip is to practice with a book you have read previously, but make sure it’s one you are happy to reread it! This will make it easier for many. After all, you don’t have to think about the content as such because you already know it. Instead, you can practice your speed of reading.

By using previously read books, you will soon notice that your eyes are reading in groups of words instead of fixating on each word. Your head will work to process the reading information quicker because it already knows what is ahead in the book. When practiced, it will become easier for your eyes and brain to focus on groups of phrases and words.

An added advantage of practicing with the material you have read before is that it will help you work out what to prioritize when reading. There are parts of a book or chapter that have higher importance than others, and if you can work this out before you start to read, it will be easier to prioritize and increase your reading speed.

When you are practicing these techniques, set aside approximately 15 minutes each day. While reading, look up every 20 minutes and give your eyes a rest. Look at something that is far away, and then something close, and alternate this for about 20 seconds. Then get back into your reading practice.

How to Scan

Scanning is an essential tool for faster reading, but because it is ingrained from a young age to read every word, it can be difficult for many adults to switch to scanning. We now know that our cerebrum is incredibly smart and can fill in any missing information.

Scanning involves reading the text quickly to locate specific data. This method is particularly useful with scientific and complex information where you just want the facts and not all the other text that surrounds it. But you need to know what you are looking for, so choose some phrases or keywords to search for.

Tips:

- Only search for one keyword at a time.

- Scan for each keyword individually.

- Read the text around the keyword to get the context.

- Read questions before you scan and select the keywords from the question.

- Check that the information you found is the answer you were looking for.

How to Skim

Unlike scanning, skimming is used to get a general idea of what the material is about. It gives you generic information in a section and is ideal for previewing the reading material. It’s also useful for reviewing at the end of your reading. With skimming, you don’t read each word, instead of paying attention to characteristics such as different fonts, bold words, bullet points, indenting, lists, and headings.

Tips:

- First, read the table of contents then make an overview of the chapter.

- Look at the main headings.

- Read the introduction.

- Then read the first and last sentence of each paragraph.

- Focus on those that contain the characteristics mentioned above.

- When you find something that could be important, stop reading it.

First and Last

Some people find it useful to only read the first and last sentence in the paragraph. This method is helpful because writers tend to follow a similar formula, where a topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph gives clues as to what is likely to develop in the section. You can also focus on the first and last words of the sentences.

Stop Subvocalizing and Vocalizing

Similar to vocalizing, subvocalizing is just as difficult to stop yourself from doing but is essential for increasing your reading speed. So what exactly is subvocalization? Consider if you have ever quietly read a sentence, but you mouthed the words as though you were speaking out loud - this is subvocalization. And it really slows down your reading speed.

To overcome this problem, you need to be able to look and think about words without the need to hear how they sound. Sounds simple, right? Well, for most people, it’s incredibly difficult, but the more you practice it, the easier it will become.  Take a section of text and pick out a word, then look at it without making a sound. It will take a bit to create a new habit, but it will happen. Just persevere, and it will significantly speed up your reading.

As touched on previously, vocalizing also slows you down as you are paying attention to what the words sound like, as well as what they are. If you are saying each word out loud, or even hearing it in your mind, you are reading at the same speed you talk in when you should be reading at the rate your brain thinks.

To help with both subvocalizing and vocalizing, you need to do something else with your mouth. Try chewing gum, or if that doesn’t work, chew on a pen or pencil.  Try thinking about the perception of the work rather than how it looks.

Understanding Topic Sentences

In a paragraph, the topic sentence portrays the main idea of the paragraph. If you develop the ability to spot topic sentences, you can cut down a lot of your reading time without losing comprehension. You will usually find the topic sentence at the very beginning of a paragraph, with the rest of the sentences expanding on the topic.

However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, and sometimes the topic sentence is hidden further into the paragraph. It could even be the last sentence in a paragraph. So how do you find it then? Well, always read the very first sentence very carefully. Think about what the base characteristic the paragraph is describing, and the sentence that demonstrates the main idea is your topic sentence.

If you know the author well, you will probably find it easier to find the topic sentences as they typically write in the same manner each time.

Each topic sentence will contain a topic and the main idea, which indicates the path the paragraph will take. Examples are as follows:

Topic Sentence: Certain characteristics are required to be an effective CEO.

The topic is ‘to be an effective CEO,’ and the main idea is “certain characteristics.”

Topic Sentence: There are a lot of possible contributing factors to global warming.

The topic is ‘global warming,’ and the main idea is ‘contributing factors.’

Topic Sentence: Improved education my help prevent teen pregnancy.

The topic is ‘prevent teen pregnancy,’ and the main idea is ‘improved education.’

Recognizing Word Shapes

Have you noticed that you can read multiple words in one glance? This ability to read up to sixteen words is because you aren’t looking at the letters. You’re looking at the shape of the terms, and experience will identify what the word is by its form.  If you have only seen a term a few times, you may find it harder to detect by its shape. But once you have learned the word and used it in your vocabulary, it will become easy.

Nottingham University researcher Graham Rawlinson created an experiment in 1976 to determine what information is gleaned from words and letters while reading. He wrote sentences where the letters were jumbled up apart from the letter at the beginning and the end of each word.

He discovered that those who were good readers could not only read the sentences but understand them as well as if they weren’t jumbled at all. Readers looked at the word as a whole rather than individual letters.

CHAPTER SIX

How the Brain Learns and How To Do It Effectively

Every day we are learning new things, most of the time without us even realizing it. But some things take more time to learn, and being able to increase the speed at which you learn can allow you more time for other things. Reading and learning faster go hand and hand, and mastering one will eventually lead to the other.

Once you start learning faster, you will find it hard to stop because you will gain so much more knowledge about a wide variety of topics without it taking you months or years to do so. Often we are put off because it seems it will take too long to study something, but with faster learning, that isn’t an issue, so you can stop procrastinating and start broadening your horizons.

For existing students, this skill is invaluable and will help them wade through the tons of educational material they are handed, especially in college. Learning faster reduces stress and improves productivity. The possibilities and benefits are endless, and in today’s society, the more knowledge you have, the better you can move forward in your day to day life and in your chosen profession.

Benefits of Learning Faster

There are some benefits of being able to learn new information faster and store it for later recall, for your professional life or personal life. They can be broken into sections, Aspiration, Self-Awareness, Curiosity, and Vulnerability.

Aspiration

For most people, they either aspire to be better, or they don’t. Some are quite happy to carry on without moving forward. But through faster learning, it is possible to raise a person’s aspiration level. Instead of being resistant to change, you start to get excited about it and look forward to new challenges.

It is too easy to get stuck in a rut, not wanting anything to change because it’s challenging to learn new things and will take ages. However, learning faster enables you to pick up new skills quickly, so instead of focusing on the negatives, which slows or stops aspiration, you can move forward positively.

By focusing on the positive such as what is going to be the gain by learning the new knowledge or skill, the future can look much brighter, and the rewards will be higher. The ability to look forward positively through learning motivates us to keep learning and to take on new challenges.

Self-Awareness

Many people in the position of leader know about self-awareness and the role it plays. They have a good understanding that feedback is necessary to see how others perceive them. But, with learning, we are often too insecure, lacking confidence, thinking about what we can’t do, or what we don’t know. This produces a state of self-deception and prevents the urge to learn more and go forward.

Those who have an excellent reliable sense of their self-awareness understand that it all has to start in their mind. Once they accept that their opinion or perspective can have flaws or bias, they are more willing to hear what others have to say. Instead of responding to criticism in a defensive manner, they can think more clearly, reflect on their thoughts, and seek answers to the problem.

Curiosity

From early childhood, humans have a great sense of curiosity, always asking questions about anything and everything because when we are young, we are continuously learning. But, once we reach adulthood, this curiosity can slow down or come to a complete stop for some.

Faster learning encourages you to take what may not be very interesting or exciting and ask questions about the topic. All they have to do is find one exciting thing, and that curiosity will lead to more reading and learning. Those who can learn faster develop a more significant curiosity about the world around them.

Vulnerability

It is an unfortunate and common habit to develop hesitancy or fear to learn something once we have become good at something else. We don’t want to go back to that point where we aren’t as good at the new thing, and that can bring up feelings of inadequacy, dumbness, slowness, and awkwardness.

Some things can take a very long time to learn, and nobody wants to be in that position for an extended time. But by allowing ourselves to accept that we can be vulnerable enough to go back to the beginning, it is a great advantage.  With faster learning and the use of that vulnerability at the start, we can dramatically shorten the length of time needed to learn the new skill or knowledge. In this rapidly changing society, being able to learn quickly is crucial.

Other Benefits of Learning Faster

- Quicker to finish assignments.

- Gaining more knowledge.

- Ability to study multiple topics quickly.

- Finish work tasks more efficiently and with confidence.

- Employers like the staff that can pick things up quickly.

- Complete academic qualifications much faster.

- Gain better awareness of the world around you.

- Improved decision making abilities.

- Less stress.

- More time to do other things.

- Increase sociability - able to converse about a broader range of topics.

Tips

There are several tips and exercises to help you learn faster, and in this chapter, we’ll take a look at those tips that work.

Write Notes

In these modern times, many people rely on a laptop to take notes during an educational lecture or a work conference. You may be surprised to learn that studies have shown that those who use a computer to type up their notes have a lower level of information retention. But, those who use a simple pen and paper method for taking notes learn a lot more.

It may seem much slower handwriting your notes rather than typing them. Still, the physical act of writing information increases your comprehension and enables the information to be retained much longer. When it comes to business meetings or school tests, this ability to recall a more considerable amount of data can be critical for ensuring you pass the test or gain a promotion at work.

Take Great Notes

While taking notes by hand is an effective way of increasing your learning, they do need to be good notes. Many people write anything and everything when taking notes, but it is more efficient to take accurate notes that will help you grasp a more robust understanding of the topic you are trying to learn about. There are a variety of methods for taking great notes, and some simple tips are as follows:

Listen carefully to what is being said.

- Write the notes down in your words, not exactly as you hear them.

- Leave lines and spaces in between the main ideas so information can be added to it later.

- Create a system of symbols and abbreviations, so you don’t have to write every word out in full.

- Don’t write in sentences; write in phrases.

- Ignore information that is trivial or irrelevant.

Distributing Multiple Study Sessions

Instead of trying to learn everything in one session, it is a better practice to divide the topic into multiple sessions spread out over a while. Each study session should be short and spaced out so that learning is more meaningful instead of the old habit of cramming. Firstly take notes during a discussion on the topic. Review your clipboard afterward to make any changes or add any additional information.

By doing this one or two times after each period of study or class, the sessions will be easily spread out, beginning with one per day. The sessions will eventually be spread out to three times per week. It is easier and more effective to do short or smaller study sessions as it helps to keep you motivated towards learning.

Sleep and Study

Too many times, we leave something to the last minute, including a big presentation or project, and we end up trying to cram everything in late at night just to get finished. We tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter if we’re tired tomorrow, so long as the work is completed. But, this is the least efficient way for information to be processed by the brain.

There is definitely an essential link between learning and sleeping. Sleeping helps the cerebrum store information and enables it to be recalled later. If you go into a deep sleep, called the non-rapid-eye-movement phase, within twelve hours of learning something, the memories can be strengthened. Also, it helps that when you are well-rested, you are functioning better on all levels.

Change Your Practicing Methods

It may seem logical to learn something, you need to do the same thing repeatedly, but in fact, it is not the best method. If you make small changes while repeating the practice sessions, you will learn the skill a lot faster. Research has shown that people who knew the skill and then had the practice session slightly modified learned the skill a lot more quickly.

However, this method will work only if the modifications to the practice sessions are minimal. Any significant changes won’t be helpful at all. A good example is if you were learning to play baseball, it might be beneficial to try using a heavier bat or change to a larger bat. Small changes foster memory retention.

Mnemonic Devices

You may be at this minute imagining a mnemonic device is some kind of elaborate machine, but is not a device at all, just to confuse you. A mnemonic is a way of using patterns of letters or sounds or other types of associations that can help you learn something new. The grammar rule í before e except after c’ is an excellent example of a mnemonic device.

Using a mnemonic enables you to make information simpler, thus allowing you to summarize the data and compress it making it easier for you to learn. These techniques are particularly useful for those studying law or medicine, where there are a lot of language rules, or for those who are learning to speak a new language. There are no rules to mnemonics, and you can create one however you like, as long as it will help you to learn. You will be able to recall the information a lot easier too.

Music can be used as a strong mnemonic because it not only encourages repetition, but it also provides an information structure. Think about how easy it is to remember a catchy song lyric, and compare it to how difficult it can be to remember sentences or letter sequences. There’s a reason the ABC song was developed to teach children the alphabet - because it is musical, it is easier to learn.

Another type of mnemonic is the rhyming technique, and this is successful because it is similar to musical mnemonic. The rhyming at the end of each line of a poem or rhyme has a song-like quality to it that makes it easier to learn.

The rhyming peg system is a way of using rhymes of numbers to memorize lists of things.

For each number, memorize a picture of a word that rhymes with that number, and this creates a peg for memories to be recalled. An example is - one=fun, two=zoo, etc.

Take a Brain Break

There really is such a thing as information overload, so it’s vital to give your cerebrum a break regularly. This doesn’t mean you cease to function; it is merely methods to stop your brain from becoming stressed and confused while learning. For new skills to be learned, the mind has to send the sensory receptors signals to retain the information, but when the head is overloaded, these processes are affected.

Ever ‘zoned out’ while listening to a lecture that seems to go on and on? This is the shut down our mind does when it's overloaded, and you are no longer paying attention to what is being said.

The easiest way to prevent brain overload is to take a short cerebrum break while learning something new. For just a few minutes, focus on something else to give your head a break, which will not only prevent the overload but will also help you focus a lot more effectively.

Hydration Affects the Brain

We are regularly told how important it is to consume water every day to keep our bodies healthy and functioning, and the same can be said about the encephalon. When you become dehydrated, your mental function deteriorates, leading to a foggy head, and preventing you from learning, concentrating, and retaining information. So, make sure you drink plenty of water every day and especially while you are studying.

Multiple Ways to Learn

There are numerous ways to learn new information and skills, and the more of these techniques you employ, the more areas of the brain are stimulated to retain the information. This enables you to actually learn the information and not just memorize it. When you have only memorized it, you haven’t learned it, so understanding the difference is essential.

Ways of learning include using different types of media, such as audio files, reading texts, looking over notes, listening to a podcast, or watching a video. The more types of media you use, the quicker you will learn.

Connect the Old with the New

If you can relate the new information to something you know already, the quicker that new information will be learned. Your memory has a vital role in our ability to complete complicated cognitive tasks, such as being able to apply your knowledge to problems you haven’t faced before. By connecting the new information with the old, you will discover there are more layers of meaning in the new data you weren’t aware of before. When you have a much better understanding of the information, you will be able to recall it when needed more readily.

You could learn using different methods to stimulate different parts of the cerebrum, and when more of the encephalon is activated, the understanding and retention of the information increases. Some methods include:

- Reading a textbook.

- Reading notes from class.

- Watch an informative video.

- Search for information online.

- Draw a mind map.

- Teach what you have learned to someone else.

Instead of studying just one subject a day, your study will be more effective if you learn about multiple subjects each day. It is better to study a little of each than to try and focus on one or two in-depth. By only looking at one subject at a time, it is easier to create confusion about the information that is similar.

Reviewing Information

To shift information to your long-term memory from your short-term memory, you need to review the information periodically. The intervals between reviews can vary based on the length of time you want to retain the information. But, a commonly used method is as follows:

- First review - a day after learning the information.

- Second review - 3 days after the 1st review.

- Third review - 7 days after the 2nd review.

- Fourth review - 21 days after the 3rd review.

- Fifth review - 30 days after the 4th review.

- Sixth review - 45 days after the 5th review.

- Seventh review - 60 days after the 6th review.

It will be hugely beneficial to use one of those big wall calendars or planners to plot out your review dates so you can keep on top of it.

Choosing a Seat

Where you sit, particularly in a classroom or lecture hall, can have a significant impact on how much you learn. Those that sit at the front of the room generally achieve higher test results compared to those sitting in the middle or back sections of the room. A sample study showed that those who sat in the front had an 80% average, those in the middle a 71.6%, and those at the back 68.1%.

A common belief says, “those that sit at the front of the class are keener to learn and perhaps more intellectual, and those at the back of the class are the ones who aren’t that interested in learning.” But, the sample study moved students around the classroom, so the results were based purely on where they sat instead of their motivational levels.

Stop Multitasking!

There is a myth that those who multitask get much more done, but the reality is that when you are trying to do multiple things at once, you are a lot less productive. Multitasking can make you distracted and shifts your focus, so you are less likely to learn. Ideally, don’t study and watch TV or look at your social media at the same time if you want to learn something new. Follow these tips to help stop multitasking:

Log out of all programs with instant messaging.

Switch off your internet connection.

- Close down all browser windows except for those related to what you are studying.

- Clean your desk or study area, and remove the clutter.

Note Down Your Concerns

If you don’t acknowledge your concerns, especially towards an upcoming test, they can overrun the thoughts in your head and prevent you from retaining and recalling information. When your head is full of stressful thoughts, anxiety can have a hugely detrimental effect on your studying.

Studies have shown that journaling and writing down emotions and thoughts can improve learning and memory. Students in one study who spent ten minutes writing about their feelings surrounding a future exam showed a much better performance than those students who didn’t. If you are a regular worrier, this technique can be a fantastic tool.

Before you are about to sit an exam take a bit of time and write down any worries you may have, such as, “have I studied enough,” “did I study the right work,” “will my mind go blank” or any other questions you may have that are making you anxious.

You may think that talking to someone about your concerns would be helpful, but writing them down is more effective. It shifts the concerns from your brain to the paper, leaving you with a clearer head. When you speak to someone, it engages conversation and discussions that could leave you feeling even more anxious than when you started!

Self-Testing

For decades self-testing has been studied and analyzed, and the results have shown that it is crucial to self-test if you want to improve your learning. One study conducted by a university found that students who weren’t given any quizzes had lower results than those who were given the examinations.

Identify the key concepts you are learning and quiz yourself on them regularly. Quizzing will keep the information fresh in your memory and enable you to understand the material more effectively.

Reading Out Loud

While we know that to read faster, it is better not to read out loud; there is a difference when it comes to studying new information for a test. When key facts or data are read out loud, the reader can not only see it, but they can also hear it. Of course, you don’t want to be reading out everything out loud, just the critical information.

Here are some tips:

1. Underline critical concepts or equations while reading your notes.  Don’t try and memorize them; just underline them and go on to the next thing.

2. After all the notes have been read and underlined, now go back and read only the highlighted notes out loud. Read them at a slower pace and repeat them as many times as you feel you need to.

3. Now take a break for three minutes.

4. After the break, go back to each underlined note, cover it with something such as a hand or piece of paper, and test yourself whether or not you have memorized it.

5. If some of the concepts or equations have not been remembered, go back, and repeat all the steps from 1-4.

Taking Breaks

For effective studying, ensure you take breaks regularly instead of trying to study for hours on end continuously. Every 45 minutes or so, take a 10-minute break. It’s a good idea to get up and regularly move as well, rather than sitting in the same position for long periods. Not only does it help clear your mind, but it also promotes healthy circulation.

If you are likely to forget about taking breaks, set the alarm or timer to let you know when to stop and when to get back into it. Stay away from electronic devices like computers and cell phones during the breaks; otherwise, you won’t be relaxing.

Give Yourself a Reward

To help keep you focused on your studying, set yourself a reward for when you complete it. Rewards can be quite motivating, and you are likely to spend more time studying. The benefits don’t have to be a material item; it could be a favorite food or an outing. Something small. Then each time you start another session, set a different reward.

Process Focus

Many students or people learning new skills tend to focus on the outcome of the study rather than the actual process of learning further information. Instead of worrying about the results, focus on the methods of learning. Too often, we base our success on achievement, especially academically, instead of congratulating ourselves on learning something new.

Learning goals are more attainable and less stressful than performance goals, and you will learn a lot more when you are focused on how to learn the information rather than the grade or promotion you will get.

CHAPTER SEVEN

7+ Miracle Techniques to Speed Up Your Learning Process

When starting out trying to improve your learning speed, keeping it simple is the way to go. The easier the material is, the easier it is for the brain to process the information and store it. Simple information runs through a single pathway in the head, so it’s quicker. When you are trying to learn complex information quickly, it can run through multiple pathways in the cerebrum, causing the process to be disrupted and the storage of the information compromised.

By splitting any complex information into smaller groups or sections, it becomes much easier for the head to store. Repetition can be useful with complex material, but make sure you take breaks in between repetitions. In the previous chapter, there is an excellent example of the length of breaks you should take when learning complex information.

A famous example of complex and straightforward information is as follows:

Complex

Question: What are the characteristics of the Dead Sea?

Answer: Salt Lake is located on the border between Israel and Jordan. Its shoreline is the lowest point on the Earth's surface, averaging 396 m below sea level. It is 46 miles long. It is seven times as salty (30% by volume) as the ocean. Its density keeps swimmers afloat. Only simple organisms can live in its saline waters.

Simple

Question: Where is the Dead Sea?

Answer: Border between Jordan and Israel.

Question: What is the length of the Dead Sea?

Answer: 44 miles.

Question: What is the salt content percentage of the Dead Sea?

Answer: 30%

As you can see, by stripping back excess words and looking at the information more straightforwardly, it’s easier and faster to learn. It also prevents you from getting bored while reading it all. Especially when there are statistics, numerals, formulas, and percentages involved.

Be careful when rounding numbers and volumes down when simplifying material as you can lose some vital information.  For example, in the above information, the original length of the sea was 46 miles, but, when simplified, it was rounded down to 44 miles. If you need to round numbers up or down, change the questions so they are more specific.

Cloze Deletion

If you are struggling with the minimum information principle, the cloze deletion method is often easier to start with. However, even those who have advanced experience with faster learning techniques often still use the cloze deletion. So what exactly is cloze deletion?

Cloze deletion is a speedy and effective technique for converting knowledge from textbooks into knowledge that can be used in spaced repetitions. When using cloze deletion, three dots replace missing parts of a sentence. This is referred to as incremental reading. An example is, ‘’John…was a country music star’. You are simplifying the information, and your intellect will fill in the blanks.

Visual and Graphic Techniques

Many people learn faster and more efficiently when they can physically see the information laid out in front of them. It could be in the form of pictures, graphs, videos, or charts. It can be easier to remember details of an image than the same information in written form.

By breaking everything down to a question-answer scenario, including with visual material, you will still reduce your time spent reading and learning the information. Areas where optical techniques are particularly useful to include medicine, chemistry, geometry, and geography, just to name a few. Any topic where there is a lot of scientific data.

Sets and Enumerations

Although putting information into sets is very useful for speed reading, it is not as helpful when it comes to faster learning. By using sets or groups of objects, you can end up retaining information that is only related to the set and not the individual information contained within the set.

If you need to use sets, it is better to change them to enumerations. These are ordered lists, and the brain is forced to always list them in the same order, which can make it harder to remember and recall. More information is contained within an ordered list as opposed to lists that are in random order.

To learn more efficiently, repetition learning can fail terribly with a list that has a different order. Sets that contain more than five items can be tough to memorize, so it is more effective if you use grouping, mnemonic techniques, and enumeration. Here is an excellent example of the question/answer method when using sets:

Bad Set:

Question: Which countries belong to the European Union in 2002?

Answer: Belgium, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, England, and Sweden.

Enumerated Set:

Question: Aside from France, what countries joined the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952?

Answer: The Benelux, Italy, and Germany.

Question: The Benelux involves which countries?

Answer: the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

Question: Charles de Gaulle opposed whose membership in the 1960s?

Answer: the United Kingdom.

Question: The meeting to discuss the creation of a European Community of Defence was hosted by which country in 1951?

Answer: France.

Question: In 1973, who joined the EEC with the United Kingdom?

Answer: Denmark and Ireland.

Question: In 1981, who joined the EEC?

Answer: Greece.

Question: In 1986, who joined the EEC?

Answer: Portugal and Spain.

Question: In 1995, what countries joined the EU?

Answer: Finland, Sweden, and Austria.

Question: The expansion of the membership of the EU followed which historical course?

Answer: France and Germany, Benelux and Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, Greece, Portugal, Austria and Spain, Finland, and Sweden.

Now, take a good look at the example above. You will notice that the set was originally a 15 member set, and we converted it to 9 items. One of the items is a six-member enumeration, and five contained 2-3 members. You will also notice that the information in the enumerations is more detailed than the original set. By simplifying the set, it was possible to add useful information.

You may be a bit confused right now, but once you try it out for yourself, you will see how easy the technique is. Next is an example of using cloze deletions:

Difficult to Learn

Question: What sequence are the letters of the alphabet?

Answer: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Cloze Deletions

Question: The alphabet begins with which three letters?

Answer: ABC

Question: Fill in the missing alphabet letters A… … … E

Answer: A B C D

Question: Fill in the absent alphabet letters B… … … F

Answer: C D E

Believe it or not, this method will make you learn much faster because instead of recalling or reciting the whole sequence, you can focus specifically on a small part of the material. After you have done a repetition, it’s a good idea to recite the whole alphabet. The more you practice, the quicker and more comfortable it will get.

Another excellent example of how to learn enumerations is through learning poetry. You may find it easy to remember a poem if it is one with rhyming anyway, but if you are having difficulty memorizing a verse, break it down using cloze deletion, and this will make the job much more comfortable.

Interference Leads to Confusion

Often when we are learning about similar things, they can quickly get confused. When the knowledge of a particular thing makes it more difficult to remember another, it is called memory interference. This is common when learning and memorizing multiple numbers, such as medical or chemical dosages and compounds.

You may find you can remember something for years, or even decades, then all of a sudden, it’s gone. That is generally because you have learned something similar that creates interference leading to confusion. Unfortunately, it can be nearly impossible to be able to predict when interference will occur when learning.  The following are some tips to help prevent interference:

Keep the item unambiguous

- Stick to the minimum information principle

- If you notice interference, eliminate it immediately

Optimizing the Wording

How things are worded can dramatically affect the way you learn and store the information. The brain will respond to more straightforward and more optimized wording and therefore increase the speed at which you learn and store the data.

Also, by using optimized wording, the sentences are more readable and less tedious, which keeps the reader engaged, and you are more likely to retain the information.

Take a look at the example below:

Wordy Cloze Deletion - Less Optimal

Question: In 1985, Aldus used PageMaker to invent desktop publishing. There was little competition for years, so no improvements were made. Then Denver-based…shot past. PageMaker remains No. 2 and is owned by Adobe.

Answer: Quark.

Here it is with fewer words:

Question: In 1985, Aldus used PageMaker to invent desktop publishing but failed to improve. Then…shot past (PageMaker remains No. 2).

Answer: Quark.

And even fewer words:

Question: Desktop publishing was invented with PageMaker by Aldus, but it didn’t improve. Soon it was outdistanced by …

Answer: Quark.

More words removed:

Question: PageMaker failed to improve and was outdistanced by …

Answer: Quark.

And finally:

Question: PageMaker lost ground to …

Answer: Quark.

Can you see how much information can be removed because it is non-essential, and you are still left with the same answer each time? The only item you needed to learn and remember was Quark. You may find some of the other bits of information are important to you, and if that is the case, store them separately by using cloze deletion again and optimizing the wording.

If you try to learn all the non-essential information, your learning will slow down dramatically. Remember, in this example, the only thing you needed to learn was Quark; the rest of the data was irrelevant. It takes some time to master these techniques, but once you have practiced often enough, it will become second nature, and you will start doing it without even thinking about it.

Referring to Existing Memories

When learning, if you refer to other memories, it can enable you to store your item in a more efficient context, reduce interference, and simplify the wording. Personalizing memories is a great way to keep them and recall them at a later date. In the following example, you will see you can save a lot of time if you relate the information to a personal reference.

Difficult:

Question: What is a soft bed that doesn’t have a back or arms called?

Answer: Divan

Simpler:

Question: What is a soft bed without backs or arms called? (like the one at Donald’s house).

Answer: Divan.

By personalizing the information using a memory of the item, you can recall much easier what the name of the bed is. Instead of having to try and remember what the piece of furniture is, you can simply recall having seen one before from your memory. When you personalize information, there is a lesser chance of interference, which can speed up your learning pace.

Prioritizing Tools

As mentioned previously, prioritizing what source you use for your knowledge dramatically speeds up the learning process.  Prioritizing is determining what information is essential and what is not, which removes the excess data you don’t need. As you practice prioritizing, you will work out which is the best way for you to learn, whether it is from books or media.

Prioritize Your Information Sources: Because you learn from a wide variety of sources generally, it is vital to prioritize which sources are more useful. You need to work out how much of your time you should spend on each source, with a higher amount of time source a priority, and then work your way down. The more you practice this technique, the easier it will become to work out what is the most useful source and what can be put aside for the sake of a better source.

Knowledge Extraction: You seldom need to memorize an entire article or book, unless it is for a specific test that requires it. So you need to work out which information to extract that will improve your knowledge on the topic. You can do this by highlighting sentences, phrases, or paragraphs, or you could cut and paste to a document, so only relevant information is studied. It will take a while for you to be able to recognize how much information and how much detail your head can manage.

Setting Priorities While Learning Tools:

Remember

With the highly important information, rememorize it. This will enable you to recall it quickly when it is needed. Also, if there is any content that has changed, rememorize that as well.

Rescheduling

Schedule the next repetition date manually. This will help to store it in your encephalon.

Executing Repetition

With specifically vital information, perform the repetition before the due date of the repetition.

What Have We Learned in Simpler Form?

If you don’t understand, don’t learn.

You need to learn the information and understand it before you try to memorize it. If you are just remembering and have no clue what it means, it won’t store correctly and will be completely useless. Your ability to recall the information would be lost. So make sure you comprehend the information before you try to memorize it.

Building on the Basics

Don’t dive into a complex text without following the basic rules of learning fast. Otherwise, you could end up thinking you will never get to the end of it, and you won’t remember what you have read and learned. Start with something simple, a book you have read before, perhaps, or a novel. Save the textbooks and scientific journals for when you have practiced the techniques a bit longer.

Minimum Information Principle

If you find you forget something continuously, try to simplify it as much as you can. If this fails, follow the rules of enumerations, cloze deletions, and mnemonic techniques. Simplified information is much easier to memorize, and you will recall it more effectively because it isn’t a long sentence or phrase to remember.

Use Cloze Deletion

This technique is simple yet effective. Not only does completing a missing phrase or word help you learn, but it also speeds up the learning process dramatically. Cloze deletion is an excellent technique for those who are just beginning to practice faster learning. Like all new skills and techniques, it will take a little time to grasp the concept, but it’s one you won’t forget.

Pictures and Graphics

For those who learn visually, an image or graph can be a great way to simplify the information and enable you to learn it quickly and effectively. Sometimes standing back and looking at information in the form of an image or graph can help you see the bigger picture. You may be able to identify and understand the information a lot clearer than looking at a lot of words.

Mnemonics

There are a variety of ways to create mnemonic techniques, and you can personalize them to suit you. You could create a funny sentence or saying using the first letter of a series of items, or you could take funny pictures that relate to the things to help you recall them. Mnemonics are particularly useful for learning scientific information.

Graphic Obstruction

By obstructing a portion of a picture, it can help you learn faster, especially in topics like geography and anatomy. Take a piece of paper and place it over a section of the picture, and your eyes and cerebrum will focus on the uncovered area without being distracted by the rest of the image.

Sets Are Bad

Small sets are easier to remember, but once you have large sets, it is almost impossible to memorize the information. The only way to make it simpler is to convert the sets to enumerations. The main advantage of it is that they are in order, and the cerebrum is forced to memorize and recall them in that same order.

But Avoid Enumerations When Possible

Although enumerations can help with learning large sets or lists, if you can avoid them, it is better. Perhaps use cloze deletion instead. Poetry is an excellent example of an enumeration because the structure and sentencing are predefined, and so has to be memorized in that order.

Kick Interference

Interference occurs when you are learning similar things. If learning about one of them makes it difficult to remember the other, it is memory interference. You never really know when interference is going to happen, so it is difficult to combat. But, to try and kick interference from setting in, consider using examples such as emotions or something from your personal life to associate with a similar item, so there is a difference between the two things.

Word Optimization

Too many words, therefore, too hard to learn quickly. Reduce the terms to make shorter, compressed sentences that are easier to learn and remember. The shorter they are, the better for recall later on as well.

Memory Referral

Use your existing memories to associate with the new memory, so you are less likely to forget. It can help your brain to store the memory correctly and enable easier recall.  Something you have done somewhere you have been, or a particular feeling that can be associated with the new memory.

Personalization

A practical method of learning and storing memories is by using items and events from your personal life that you can refer to. Ensure the memory you are using is a very established one. You may associate an object with the place you have seen it previously, for example.

Emotions

Your emotional state can affect how you recall memories. For example, if you learn something while you are in a sad state, you will be most likely able to remember it when you are in a sad state. Some memories can induce emotions, and you can use this to your advantage.

Context

Using contextual cues, the wording is more simplified, so you can build on the knowledge you already have without interference.  Look at the words surrounding your keyword or phrase to gain a better understanding of the context.

Provide the Sources

To learn, you need sources of information, and these come from a variety of materials and media. Use sources to update your information and learning, and understand how to identify what source is reliable and how important it may be to your learning.

Time Stamping

It can be useful to timestamp or date stamp any information that can change or shift so that you can update later. It is also essential if you need to refer back to information that may have been reliable at that time, but has now changed. Information changes so fast these days that it can be hard to keep up with new advances. You might finish a large assignment then find that as soon as you hand it in, the information has been updated. With a timestamp, whoever is reviewing the project will be able to determine it was from older information rather than marking it as incorrect.

Prioritizing

To learn faster and more effectively, the ability to prioritize is essential. If knowledge is poorly formulated, you can use incremental reading to improve it as you continue to learn. Information can be split into sections, reprioritized, deleted, or reformulated.

Incremental Reading

This method of learning and memorizing information is accomplished with the assistance of specific computer software programs. The word incremental means portions, so with the use of the technology and your ability to extract relevant information, you can create electronic flashcards from hundreds of sources without having to read everything.

The flashcards are great for the spacing method of learning, and the information is presented in the format of question and answer. There are often cloze deletions used as well. The user you choose what information to learn and can edit the wording of the questions. The software creates the flashcards and schedules them for review using the parameters of spaced repetition.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Unbeatable Exercises To Quickly Improve Your Memory

You don’t have to put up with being forgetful, provided it isn’t due to a medical cause; by training your brain, your ability to store and recall memories will be significantly enhanced. The cerebrum is a magnificent machine, and if you think of it as a muscle, you will understand that you need to exercise the muscle for it to get stronger and more efficient. Remember, you are not born with a head that has a specific potential; you can train and develop it to work better and faster.

Working It

You can apply the head training techniques to just about any situation, at any time, and in any place. You may have seen a show, and by telling your friends all about it, you are reinforcing the memory in your gray matter. Speaking the memory out loud to someone else is a great way to establish that memory.

Repeating something someone else says is also a great way of working the brain. When someone introduces themselves, make sure you respond using the name they have just given you. This will help you store and recall the name, so you avoid some embarrassing social situations later down the line.

Doing Something Different

When you do something new to you repeatedly, new pathways are wired in your encephalon that will help you become faster and better at the new thing you are learning. It also applies when you need to get a more significant task done. Instead of focusing on the big job, start with a small part of it, and this will help those neural pathways begin to develop.

A great example of this is when you have to clean up your bedroom. There could be clothes and shoes everywhere, a real mess, and it seems it's going to take forever to sort it out. So, start small, pick up one sweater, and decide what to do with it. You don’t even have to pick it up; you can use your cerebrum to choose between whether to put it away or throw it in the laundry. It’s as simple as that, and if you are a procrastinator, this will help you make decisions faster and more efficiently.

Learning New Things

Remember thinking of the mind as a muscle? Well, learning new things exercises your encephalon, just as a recent activity can exercise your muscles. It doesn’t have to be knowledge from books or textbooks or studying an event or anything like that. It could be learning to dance or learning a new language. Perhaps you decide to learn to play the piano finally, and this is an excellent way of developing the skill of translating what you can see, the sheet music, to something you are doing, which is playing the piano.

Training Programs

The internet, as you probably know, is an excellent device for finding and learning about anything and everything, including cerebrum training programs.

Get Up, Get Moving

You are probably tired of always being told you need to exercise to be healthy. Well, the same thing applies to your head, so here it is again. Exercising for around 20 minutes improves memory functions and how information is processed in the cerebrum. You become more alert, and this will lead to you learning much faster. And all you have to do is move regularly.

Of course, you can’t discuss exercising without including your diet. We have already talked about the foods to eat in a previous chapter, but just to reinforce the information, make sure you eat the foods that stimulate the function of your brain. Vegetables, fish, and dark chocolate all help to improve your head.

Time with Friends and Family

You probably didn’t expect this to be in the list, but believe it or not, your cognitive function can be optimized through meaningful relationships. By discussing and engaging with others, it can lift your mood and clear your mind. Often extroverts will gain an understanding of what they are thinking and process those thoughts through talking to others.

Crossword Puzzles Not As Good AS You Think

Most of us think that to do crossword puzzles; you have to be smart or that by completing them, you are expanding your knowledge and, therefore, your intelligence. They can indeed be fun to do, and a bit of a challenge, but they don’t benefit your head at all. Isn’t that a surprise!

Don’t Forget the Chocolate!

An ideal boost to your energy while studying, chocolate is great for the brain, but only if it is dark chocolate. The dopamine created through eating the chocolate increases your ability to learn faster and memorize more efficiently. This doesn’t mean you can eat truckloads of chocolate, though! You still have to watch your weight, but a little here and there is hugely beneficial for your mind.

Exercises for Your Brain

There are numerous electronic brain training exercises out there, and for some, they work quite well. But, they can be costly, and in older people, it showed no significant improvement. The best way to train it is by using activities that are in your real world. The exercises you choose to do for your mind need to be varied and challenging to stimulate and strengthen the brain function.

There have been many studies over the past century trying to understand whether the mind is ‘plastic’ and can improve and grow. In some studies, the results showed an improvement, particularly with memory-based recall, also referred to as working memory tasks.

Brain training is aimed at improving working memory, reasoning, problem-solving, attention, and executive functions. These aspects of the mind are targeted due to the differences between people concerning academic achievement and life skills. It is believed that by targeting these areas, the training will encourage improvement over the different domains.

Looking Around

One of the best exercises for it is so simple to do, and you probably are already doing it without even knowing! It involves being more present and observant of what is around you. Noting down details of what you see and then visualizing them is good for the memory. The best thing to use as your ‘observing’ subject is people.

Take note of four details of someone and store them in your memory to recall later. If you want, you could do multiple people or try to remember more details about the person. This will also make you a little more friendly.

Testing Your Ability to Recall

Create a list of items, or anything that you can list and memorize it. A grocery list is a great example. After about an hour, test yourself to see how many of the things on the list you can recall. If you want to stimulate your brain, making the checklists more challenging is excellent.

Calculate in Your Head

Instead of using a calculator, cell phone, or pen and paper, try and calculate mathematical problems in your head. Interestingly, if you are walking while trying to do the calculation, it becomes more complicated and further stimulates it.

Learn to Cook

When learning how to cook, especially if it’s a cuisine you haven’t experienced before, it stimulates it. All the different senses involved in cooking, such as taste, smell, touch, and sight, come from other areas of it.

Word Pictures

If you visualize in your mind how to spell a word, you can work the mind by then trying to come up with words that start with the same two letters of the word. You could also do it by using the last two letters of the word.

Drawing a Map

If you have been somewhere new, when you get home, have a go at drawing a map of the area you have just visited. This is an excellent exercise to do every time you go somewhere you haven’t been before.

Taste Testing

When you are eating, try identifying all the different ingredients used to prepare the meal. If you can narrow down the spices or herbs used, usually the most subtle flavors, you are exercising your brain.

Fine-Motor Skills

Any new hobby that involves using fine-motor skills, such as painting, drawing, or assembling a puzzle, is a good exercise for it.

Learn a New Language

Your cerebrum is stimulated by the need to listen to learn a new language. It uses more than one of your senses, which is ideal for brain training. And if you can learn to sing in a new language, it is even better for your head as it increases numerous chemicals and cortisol in your brain that promotes healing.

Take Up a New Sport

Ideally, choose a sport that relies on your body and your mind, something that will not only get you moving but also thinking. Yoga is a good option or any of the sports that use a racquet or a bat.

Four Details Exercise:

This exercise aims to note the details then recall them later on. The Four Details Exercise is sometimes referred to as passive memory training. The four details exercise relies on your skills of observation and visualization. Examples are:

Describing a Candle

First, close your eyes and use your imagination to tell yourself that when you open your eyes, there will be a candle on the table in front of you. Now here are the four details to observe:

- How big is the candle?

- Has any of the candles melted away?

- Is it close to you or far away?

- What do you think the candle weighs?

Describing an Apple

Try to imagine you have an apple, think about what it might feel like what it looks like, and that you are going to bite it. Imagine it traveling through your digestive system. Here are the four details to observe:

What does apple taste like?

- Is the apple crisp or soft?

- Does the apple seem real?

- What color is the apple?

Exercises with Numbers

To boost your brain and cognitive function, numeracy is superb. Here is a rapid exercise:

1. Choose a number with three digits.

2. Add three to that number three times.

3. Minus seven from the new number seven times.

4. Repeat this five times.

You can also do it with a four-digit number:

1. Choose a number with four digits.

2. Add twelve to that number twelve times.

3. Minus eleven from the new number eleven times.

This exercise works to strengthen your brain because you need to store a lot of information in your memory as you do to complete the training.

Repeating and Recalling What You Hear

This exercise trains your head to focus on what people are saying and then storing it in the memory. To do this, repeat the words in your mind as they are being spoken. Don’t say it out loud, though, or people will think you are trying to be smart or you are strange! When you repeat what’s stated in your mind, your memory is being asked to recall the information. Therefore it’s exercising your brain.

Visualizing Exercise

Practice making pictures in your head. Associate that picture with what you are trying to learn and store in your memory. By creating images, you are essentially creating your mnemonic to help you recall. Some of the benefits of visualizing include remembering what you are told more correctly, being present, showing interest in others, and the ability to reduce conflict because of the information you can recall.

Using a Metronome

A metronome is a tool used in music to help the player keep time. It makes a clicking sound regularly, depending on the time you set it to. Although this exercise might not directly help improve your memory, it improves your ability to concentrate. Simply place the metronome to a reasonable speed, and clap your hands every time it clicks. As you get better at it, increase the speed. If you can do this with just one minute between the clicks, you are doing fantastic, as this is very difficult to achieve.

Memory Palace

This kind of palace won’t house a princess, but it can help you create an incredible memory resource. To make the memory palace, you need to use both your visual and spatial memory.  Follow these steps to build your memory palace:

1. Select a place that is well known to you, such as your workplace or your home.

2. Imagine entering the area and plan out the route from the front door through the house or office. Take note of features that are distinctive that you can use to store memories.

3. Create a list of 20 grocery items you want to memorize.

4. Thinking about one or two of the grocery items at a time, create a mental image of them in different parts of the palace. Make the pictures interact with the part of the castle they are in; for example, imagine a vast apple opening the back door. The funnier you can make the image in your mind, the more comfortable you will recall it.

Mind Mapping to Exercise Your Brain

Mind mapping is a way to use a graphical method to represent concepts and ideas, a visualization tool that helps you structure information. Using mind maps can increase your comprehension and your ability to recall information. It’s also an excellent way to help come up with new ideas. The vital factor of the mind map is to keep it simple.

The reason mind mapping works better than taking down notes is that the map looks a lot like the way your brain works. Your cognitive function is improved by using mind maps.

Here are the steps to creating a mind map:

1. Get a piece of blank paper and lie it down in the landscape position. You may wonder why the sheet needs to be empty, and this is because if you use par with lines on it, a barrier is created between the rules of mind mapping and your thoughts. Also, it is ideal to use landscape orientation because we don’t see the world vertically. Another reason is due to the way our peripheral vision works better when going from left to right, not from top to bottom.

2. Draw an image in the middle of the paper. If you use multiple colors, it is more effective. Your main concern should be represented by the print you draw.

3. Use different pictures as you create the mind map. Changing dimensions is also good.

4. Capitalize the keywords.

5. From each keyword, create a branch.

6. Each component should taper and flow, which resembles the neural networks in the brain.

7. The branch length needs to be balanced.

8. Use a wide variety of colors on your map.

9. Use lines and arrows to emphasize important points.

10. Use blank space to create clarity.

Factors that May Cause Memory Problems

Sometimes your memory loss maybe just a brief thing due to whatever is going on in your life. If you’re stressed out, you are not likely to think clearly, for example. Medications play a big part in cognitive issues, and the benefit must always be weighed up against the risk. Below are some of the more common culprits that can affect your memory, some with a short-term effect and others that have an everlasting impact on your brain. Of course, this is just informative; if you have any concerns, you should see your medical practitioner.

Menopause

There is a wide variety of symptoms associated with menopause, some of which are slightly odd, but insomnia and the tendency towards hot flashes can affect your memory. Thankfully this is only temporary, and your memory should improve.

Depression and Anxiety

Both depression and anxiety cause an increase of cortisol, a stress hormone, which makes the cells of the gray matter lose synapses. This lowers the ability to not only create memories and store them but also to recall them. The more severe the depression and anxiety, the higher it can impact your memory.

Being anxious can impede your ability to think, leading to poor decision making, likewise with a depressive state, which can significantly impact how you take in information and process it. Being fearful of doing things wrong or making the wrong decision is hugely common, and nowadays, there isn’t the same stigma applied to mental illness such as depression and anxiety, so it is a lot easier to seek help.

Medications

Many medications can affect your memory, including those used to treat mental health diseases. Other medications such as beta-blockers, incontinence medicines, antihistamines, and strong analgesics also affect memory. These drugs interfere with the transfer of short-term memories into the long-term storage part of the cerebrum.

Narcotic pain killers are perhaps the worst culprit for affecting your memory. To relieve severe pain takes severe chemicals, and these will affect your ability to think, your ability to stay awake, and overall your daily functioning. If you have to take these drugs, make sure you don’t make any critical decisions just after taking a dose!

Cigarette Smoking

There are a lot of medical issues blamed on smoking, and it might surprise you to learn that it can also cause problems with your memory. Smoking can reduce the supply of blood to the brain, and it can also cause a collection of abnormal proteins, all of which affect the ability to process information and recall it.

Alcohol Consumption and Addiction

The consumption of alcohol can lead to short-term memory loss if it is only occasional or binge drinking. It’s common to wake up after a big night out and have entirely blank spaces in your head. But alcoholism can have a more severe long-term effect.

Some alcoholics develop a state of amnesia and confusion called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome because they often suffer from malnutrition and deficiency of thiamine. Memory, attention, and orientation deteriorate due to this form of dementia, and it is irreversible. However, if the person stops drinking, some of the mental functions may come back in some cases.

Stress

It is believed that high levels of stress can increase the loss of short- term memories in older people. Chronic stress can cause impairment in how memory works in the brain, including retaining, storing, and recalling information abilities.

Stress is a significant factor in how people function. The more pressure you are under, the harder it is to do anything, especially think clearly. If your stress is only temporary, try some meditation or mindfulness techniques to help get you back in balance. If it’s a serious problem, seek medical advice.

Diseases Causing Dementia and Memory Loss

There are more than 50 different medical conditions and diseases that can cause memory loss and dementia, with varying degrees. Some states are short-lived, and the brain returns to its normal function. However, some diseases have a long-term impact and are not treatable, which leads to a steady decline in mental functioning. Below are some of the more common medical causes of dementia and memory loss.

Thyroid Disease

The thyroid gland doesn’t have a particular job in the brain, but if you are suffering from issues with your memory, it is often a symptom of thyroid disease. Hyperthyroidism (high thyroid levels) and hypothyroidism (low thyroid levels) can affect your concentration and memory.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency

A vitamin B12 deficiency, or pernicious anemia, is more common in older people and is most definitely treatable, usually with a series of injections to boost the B12. Common symptoms of this deficiency include confusion, irritability, and slowness. There is a myth that the deficit comes from an inadequate diet, but the real cause is that the body develops an issue with absorbing the B12.

Alzheimer’s disease

Probably the most feared of all the medical causes of memory loss, Alzheimer’s is, unfortunately, an intractable disease that, although there can be treatments to help with some symptoms, the disease cannot be cured. The symptoms include memory loss, a decline in cognitive function, changes in personality or mood, and problems with fine motor skills.

Alzheimer’s can occur in males or females, and interestingly, it usually shows up in women a lot earlier than in men. Many drugs are being trialed to try and stop the progression of Alzheimer’s.

Vascular Dementia

This disease is due to reduced blood flow to different areas of the encephalon. The reduced flow of blood usually is due to atherosclerosis, a condition where fatty deposits accumulate on the walls of arteries.  When the blood doesn’t reach the brain appropriately, it causes the death of the gray matter tissue.

When vascular dementia occurs, it is like a series of small strokes, and you generally won’t notice them. On their own, they don’t generally cause long-term damage, but when there are a number of them, it can be more debilitating. Symptoms typically involve confusion, difficulty with thinking, slurring of speech, and in some cases, a level of paralysis.

Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration

This is a group of diseases that were once known as Pick’s disease. Parts of the front of the brain become atrophic, dead, particularly in the temporal and frontal lobes. Sometimes it is confused with Alzheimer’s because of the similarity in the presentation.

Parkinson’s disease

Perhaps the second most well-known of the diseases that affect the mind is Parkinson’s disease. It is due to a deficiency in dopamine, which is vital for memory function and coordinating the activity of muscles. Typical symptoms include dementia, tremors, difficulty with movement, and rigidity.

Alzheimer’s can sometimes be associated with Parkinson's, and when the two appear together, there is a higher risk of dementia developing.  Parkinson’s is a debilitating disease that progresses, and despite a vast amount of research, there currently is no cure.

Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s is a genetic disorder that is quite rare, and it is associated with a gene abnormality on chromosome 4. Tragically this disease usually develops between the ages of twenty and forty, and often dementia occurs before the physical attributes of the disease. People with Huntington’s can become aggressive, irritable, and erratic. Although medicines are often used to treat the symptoms, the condition is incurable and inevitably leads to death.

Tumors

Any tumor in the cerebrum, whether it is malignant or benign, can affect the thought processes and the memory, depending on where in the brain the tumor is located. Personality changes are frequent with these types of tumors, and cognitive function is interfered with.

Infections and Viruses

Just about any infection in the head can and will cause some level of dementia. The worst of these diseases is Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease. This dementia progresses rapidly, and there are often slight changes in a person’s behavior and fatigue. Eventually, the person develops seizures, coma, and death within a year of the onset of infection. Thankfully this disease is rare.

There is also dementia associated with AIDs infection that can rapidly develop and progress occasionally within a few weeks. The main symptoms demonstrated thinking difficulties, insufficient attention, and forgetfulness.

The severe third infection causing dementia is Neurosyphyllis. Back in the days of the World Wars, this infection was rather prevalent, and it wasn’t until dementia showed itself that many diagnosed. Dementia occurs around 15 years after the person contracted the illness. Nowadays, it isn’t as expected because it is identified a lot quicker and treated with penicillin.

“Neurobic Exercises for Your Brain

These types of exercises combine different senses to give your head a workout that is new and interesting. The senses, smell, taste, hearing, touch, and vision can all help to stimulate different parts of the brain. They also promote an increase in the production of brain nutrients, which helps with memory. Some of them will seem strange at first, but if you do them regularly, they will help your gray matter stay healthy and alert.

Closed Eyes While Showering

If you shower with your eyes closed, you have to rely on other senses such as touch because you can’t see what you are doing. Touching will send different messages to your brain than seeing. Try it; you will find it an exciting experience, but remember to be cautious with hot water!

Use Your Non-Dominant Hand to Brush Your Teeth

By using your non-dominant hand, you are utilizing the side of the brain you would not usually use to brush your teeth. This exercise can cause a substantial increase in the areas of the cortex that process information from the hands.

Turn Things Upside Down

As you look at something familiar, your left brain labels the object then shifts your attention to somewhere else. By turning the object upside down, the other side of your brain is activated and tries to work out the different details of the object. Good things to use are a calendar with pictures on it, photographs of close friends or family, or even a small clock.

Change Up Your Mornings

Most people go through the same routine every morning, and this becomes automatic. But, when you do things differently, the brain will start to notice other things that it hadn’t noted before. Instead of getting dressed before breakfast, get dressed afterward. Or drive a different route to work, maybe even watch a children’s cartoon. Things that you wouldn’t usually do stimulate the brain.

Sit Elsewhere

Around the table, most members of a family have particular chairs and places they sit in. By moving to another seat, your brain will be stimulated to notice a different view. You could do the same in the lounge room. If you always sit in the comfy soft armchair, go and sit on the sofa instead.

You would be amazed at how strange it will feel at first to sit in a different position than you usually do. But it’s a great thing to practice now and then to change your perspective and make your brain work a little harder.

Use Your Nose

When you associate a particular smell with activity, new neural pathways will be alerted. For one week, have a bottle of scent or essence next to your bed, and when you get up, inhale the smell. Do the same after you have showered and again once you are dressed. You can change the scent from week to week.

Certain smells will remind you of something you have seen, done, or heard before, so the recall function of your brain will be exercised.

Scanning Store Shelves

Many who go to the supermarket are attracted to the items that are at eye level, which is great for the store because that’s where they usually put the things that give them the most significant profit. Instead, a standstill in front of a section of the shopping aisle and look at every single item, from the top shelf to the bottom. If you notice something you haven’t seen before, pick it up and read the label, then put it back. How easy is an exercise that?!

The overall premise of these exercises is to do things differently than you would typically do. By switching things up and around, other parts of the brain are stimulated and alerted. Exercising your brain in this way also teaches you to try new things. Either way, the health of your mind will improve, and therefore your memory will improve.

The end… almost!

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Conclusion

You probably think that was a tremendous amount of information to read and take in, but imagine what it will be like once you have mastered the art of reading fast? A book such as this would take mere minutes to read and comprehend and leave you plenty of time to move onto the next, or indulge in another hobby or interest.

There are always going to naysayers who claim the ability to read fast is nonsense, but it has been a proven skill over and over for decades. Even the American military used the technique when training pilots back in the early days. Numerous American presidents have not only practiced fast reading but also encouraged their staff to learn the methods, so if they endorse it, there must be something real about it, right?

We took a look at the myths surrounding fast reading and showed that they could be debunked relatively easily. Perhaps those that are negative towards the skill are afraid they won’t be able to do it. Or maybe they are of the ilk that thinks it’s a skill only for highly intelligent or academic people. But these beliefs are so wrong! As said throughout, anyone and everyone can learn to read fast; they just need to practice.

Lifestyle definitely plays a large part in our ability to absorb information. If the brain is tired, it won’t function anywhere near as well as it should. Students, in particular, have a terrible habit of staying up all night to cram in information before an exam only to get there and forget what they have learned.

The most significant impact on our body and brain health is sleep. You need to get at least seven hours per night, and if you’re not achieving that, try some of the suggestions in this book to help you create the best possible environment for putting you off to sleep and how to deal with waking up in the middle of the night.

Best of all, in this book are the exercises that help you learn the techniques for faster reading and learning. They are simple yet highly effective but remember it takes practice to get it right up to the speed you want to be able to read at. Reading faster will dramatically improve your ability to learn new information quickly, which will open up your world on so many levels.

Practice, practice, and practice. Like any new skill, doing the techniques over and over will get you on the right track to becoming a master at faster reading. Then there will be no stopping you!

Resources:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90246412/3-myths-about-memory-that-arent-true

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/83881/how-to-read-faster

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/323450

https://www.daniel-wong.com/2015/08/17/study-smart/

https://tim.blog/2009/07/30/speed-reading-and-accelerated-learning/

https://ideas.ted.com/a-speed-reader-shares-3-tricks-to-help-anyone-read-faster/

https://improveism.com/how-to-learn-faster/

https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/these-10-scientific-ways-to-learn-anything-faster-could-change-everything-you-know-about-dramatically-improving-your-memory.html

https://medium.com/accelerated-intelligence/elon-musk-albert-einstein-and-richard-feynmans-best-tips-to-learn-faster-380022d7b03

https://nomadpodcast.com/ep-45-arthur-worsley/

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: How Our Brain Works and (sometimes) Fails

Chapter 2: Why and How our Brain is Limitless

Chapter 3: Young Brain vs. Old Brain

Chapter 4: Limitless Learning for Kids and Adults

Chapter 5: Limitless Memory: The method & lifestyle

Chapter 6: Limitless Memory and Technology: enemies or friends?

Chapter 7: Before and After Smartphones: our Complementary Brain

Conclusion

Resources

Introduction

Chapter One: Dispelling The Main Myths

Chapter Two: Read Faster And Never Forget It

Chapter Three: Let’s Talk About Your Lifestyle

Chapter Four: Discovering the Secrets About Fast Reading

Chapter Five: 7+ Incredible Techniques To Level Up in Reading Faster

Chapter Six: How the Brain Learns and How To Do It Effectively

Chapter Seven: 7+ Miracle Techniques to Speed Up Your Learning Process

Chapter Eight: Unbeatable Exercises To Quickly Improve Your Memory

Conclusion

Resources: