Learning Acceleration

Learning is an essential process to students everywhere. And students need to know the best way to make sure they can learn information quickly and easily.

So, how can we accelerate learning? The secret is to pay attention.

If you didn't hear it or see it, you won't remember it.

So, how can we pay attention?


Lifestyle


In order to perform at you optimum physical and mental ability, you need to pay attention to your lifestyle.

First you must get sufficient sleep. A healthy adult requires 7-8 hours. Recent studies show that 8 hours is significantly better for you.

You must eat healthy, nutritional foods. Your brain can't work on sugar and caffeine alone!

And you must stay active. Physical exercise is good for your body, and it has other benefits as well, emotionally and mentally, too!

Finally, mental exercise. If you don’t use it, you lose it, so do mental exercises as well. The best mental exercise is learning a new language. If you already multi-lingual, solving various puzzles and word problems can help you stay sharp.

Social connections. There are many doctors and scientists who have made the connection between healthy aging and an active family or community life. It turns out friends are good for you!


Toastmasters International, the organization which makes improving communication look fun and easy, provides some ways to pay attention:

At every meeting, someone is selected count every "um," "eh," or "ah" the speaker makes. The “ah-counter” is responsible for counting all the unintelligible utterances that come out of a speakers mouth. It takes a little effort, so you definitely have to pay attention to count them.

Every speech gets evaluated, the evaluator gives feedback on the words, body language and content of the speech. Pretend you are the official evaluator for this speech, lecture or class.

It is recommended to take notes during the speech, as if you might be tested on it later. This helps you perform the evaluation and also helps if you need to review the information later.

Other creative ways to pay attention

I recently heard that doodling is beneficial to listening. You don't need to exert much effort to scribble on a piece of paper, so it doesn't interfere with listening, like daydreaming does. While daydreaming you may be 90 miles away in Orlando, or 4000miles away in Paris (France), so you definitely cannot attend to the speaker or teacher.


Then of course, there's self-hypnosis. This can be used to make sure you are a brilliant student and perform well on tests, but the regular practice also enhances your memory and concentration. And since hypnosis is defined as focused attention, you can even use it during class. There are books that instruct about self-hypnosis techniques, but most people will find it helpful and enjoyable to learn from a Consulting Hypnotist.


Thank you for paying attention. I hope you learned something!

Monday Mourning

Monday is a good day, because I get a newsletter every monday morning, Coffee with Kevin Hogan. But it did not come this week until Tuesday. I guess thats why it wasn't such a good day for me. I wound up wearing black from head to toe, and while that isn't unusual for most people, I rarely wear black. It's not a very flattering color for me, so I usually only wear black skirts or pants. I have a black sweater, but never wore it until this year when it was just too cold at work and I needed several sweaters to keep warm.

When I left the house, I observed that I was wearing all black and felt a little down, so I realized I was in mourning. I guess I was in mourning for my weekend. They seem to go too fast. And the week flies by without my accomplishing anything I really want to accomplish....

The Real Guidelines

I wrote the previous article because I was planning a speech for the ToastMaster's group. Although the previous article contains much good, practical advice, the 10 points are too lenghthy to present in a 5-7 minute speech and frankly, just too boring. I bored myself the first time I ran thru it verbally.

So I decided I should take a risk and be more truthful. And funny.

Here are the real guidelines for 2010:

1. Go Green. It seems that almost every week I find myself in the grocery store, on line for the cashier, putting on my things on the conveyor belt, and as soon as I load the last item, it hits me, I left the reuseable shopping bags in the car! I keep them there for convenience, of course. At this point is is too late to run to the car and get them, so I wind up with 5 or more plastic bags to add to my collection of 7000 bags in the cabinet in the Florida Room. (What I hate the most is when the helpful bagger puts only one or two items in each bag and I get 30 more bags!!)

2. Take a 10 min walk every morning in order to eliminate 10 pounds of excess baggage which has decided to make a permanent home around my waistline. I read recently that the 10 minute walk in the morning is a good way to kick-sttart the calorie burning process, so you burn more all day long!

3. Make Healthier food choices-- for me this means more vegetables. I love vegetables, but I have just gotten out of the habit of preparing a salad or cooking some fresh veggies for dinner. This needs to change. It will help with number 2. Guideline number 2!

4. Indulge in a Creative Outlet Daily--for me this means to write every day. I like to think of myself as a writer and I usually write most days, but I need to write every day and get some more articles published. Also update my blogs more often.

5. Increase Laughs Per Day (LPD). The average adult laughs 15 times per day. The average small child laughs in excess of 400 times per day. Martha Beck recommends at least 30 LPD in her book, The Joy Diet. And I bet you didn't know that if you laugh long and hard enough, it is a cardiovascular exercise!

6. Self-hypnosis-- I recommend this for 2 ten minute periods each day. It is portable,costs nothing, doesn't require any special equipment, and you return refreshed, as if you have taken a mini vacation! Self hypnosis done on a daily basis triggers the "relaxation response," reduces stress, and boosts the immune system.

7. Don't eat snow! There is a 40% chance of snow in my area of Florida tomorrow. So I want to caution you that putting snow in your mouth, letting it melt and then drinking the melted water, causes your body temperature to drop, increasing your risk of hypothermia and death. So please don't eat the snow!

These are my guidelines to reduce stress and improve my health in 2010.

Feel free to use these guidelines if you like them and want to have more laughter, creativity, and vegetables in your new year!

Gloria's Guidelines for 2010

Instead of Resolutions, which nobody keeps, I have come up with some guidelines for the new year that contribute to wellbeing in mind, body, and spirit.

1. Eat Breakfast! You have heard this saying or somthing similar, Eat Breakfast like a Queen, Lunch like a Princess, and dinner like a pauper.
It's true. They find that people who eat breakfast every day live longer than those who do not.
2. Choose fresh fruits and vegetable every day, use olive or canola oil for salads and cooking, consume the mediterranean diet, which includes little red meat and dairy products but lots of fruit, vegetables and olive oil. Red wine too, see #6.
3. Sleep 8 hours per night, this is ideal for most adults, but if you take advantage of the relaxation response, by doing yoga, meditation, tai chi, or self-hypnosis on a daily basis for at least 20 minutes, you can be healthy with just 7 hours of sleep per night. Just 2 10-minute sessions of self-hypnosis per day leaves you more rested and refreshed than an extra hour of sleep!
4. Physical activity--take the stairs if you are going to 4th floor or lower. Take a walk instead or a cart when golfing. Do whatever you like to do. If you resolve to swim every day, but you hate swimming, it's not going to work!
5. Don't smoke.
6. Don't drink, unless it is one glass of red wine per day. Red wine contains resveratrol, which is an anti-oxidant. Grape juice also contains resveratrol, but red wine is more fun!
7. Reduce intake of foods made with refined sugar, like candy, cookies, cake, pie, donuts, etc.
8. Friendship--social connectedness is good for you. Eliminate some of your negative relatives and replace them with positive supportive friends!
9. Do something creative--write, draw, sing, knit, sew, make something!
10. Laugh every day. This can even be counted as exercise if you do it long enough or often enough!
11. Feed you mind. Learn something; challenge yourself.
12. Feed your spirit. Whatever makes you feel connected to something larger than yourself. Express your spirituality in your own way; meditation, prayer, or just walking in nature (see #4).

These are my recommendations for taking care of your body, mind, and spirit.