Consolidating Learning

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Sleeping after learning improves recall of learned material.

Sleeping after learning improves recall of learned material.

A simple method for improving memory, especially for newly acquired information like education, is to simply nap soon after the learning experience (perhaps as part of the learning experience) or to rehearse the learning shortly before retiring to bed at night. That’s what Notre Dame psychologist Jessica Payne and colleagues discovered.

“Sleeping directly after learning something new is beneficial for memory. It would be a good thing to rehearse any information you need to remember just prior to going to bed. In some sense, you may be ‘telling’ the sleeping brain what to consolidate.” (Jessica Payne)

University of Notre Dame. “Sleeping After Processing New Info Most Effective, New Study Shows.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 27 Mar. 2012. Web.

Rumor Brain Game

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How much do you trust your senses?

How much do you trust your senses?

Remember the game you played as a kid where someone came up with a story and whispered it to his/her neighbor; then the person receiving the story would in turn whisper the story to the next person; and so on and on around a circle or group of people until it came to the last person. In every case, the story told by the first person was materially different from that told by the last person to hear it. That’s because each person would introduce an error (in some cases many errors) into the story. The more complex the initial story, the wilder the outcome story.

According to researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization at the University of Gottingen and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Gottingen, this chaotic messaging system is exactly how the cerebral cortex of our brains communicates. Further, they discovered that the information each neuron receives is lost rather quickly after receiving it. And, there appears to be no error correction system. In effect, the cortex is dealing only with occasional quick snapshots rather than a continuous input of sensory data and those snapshots are distorted by the cortex’s chaotic communication system. This could explain sensory illusions…

Approximately one bit of information disappears per active neuron per second. “This extraordinarily high deletion rate came as a huge surprise to us”, says Wolf. It appears that information is lost in the brain as quickly as it can be “delivered” from the senses. (Out Of Mind In A Matter Of Seconds, Medical News Today, 25 Jan 2011 – 3:00 PST)

My interpretation of the data is that we are mostly NOT sensing our world. We are taking short snapshots of it – the rest we make up!

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How to Set Goals?

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How to set goals? First of all, don’t confuse wishes or desires with goals. Often, people want things, situations or accomplishments, and call these goals. Then they’re disappointed when they don’t get them. Just naming your desires isn’t effective goal setting. Good goals have some or all of the following:

1. Good goals are specific. A goal like, “I want to be healthy” is too general. “I want to lose weight and walk three times a week,” is better.

2. They’re realistic. Unfortunately, even if it is possible that you could become an astronaut, if you’re already 55, you better try to become a pilot for now. Unrealistic goals set you up for failure.

3. They’re written down. Writing down your goals is a way to make them more real, and this influences your subconscious mind, especially if you review the goals regularly.

4. They’re measurable. Exactly how many pounds do you want to lose? How much money do you want to make? How will you know if your relationship is better?

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Childhood Fearlessness Reaps Unknown Results in Adulthood

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Childhood fearlessness may predispose a child to later crime in adulthood.

Childhood fearlessness may predispose a child to later crime in adulthood.

Another long-term study (by Yu Gao, Ph.D., and colleagues) has come to the conclusion that childhood fearlessness predisposes a child to later crime in adulthood – and that can be determined by testing children under the age of three. Although I disagree with the study’s methodology, I agree with the premise that prompted the 20 year study – that fearlessness in children often translates into criminal behavior in adulthood.

Why does this matter? Because many of the problems we experience in adulthood have their roots in early childhood – buried in the deepest parts of our brains and psyches – beyond the reach of conscious memory. That can present a real problem when you are looking to make substantial life changes – some of those change efforts may be blocked by subconscious conditioning over which you have no conscious recollection or control.

Although the Gao study noted a possible (maybe probable) connection between early childhood fearlessness and adult criminal behavior, it posits no recommendation as to a remedy.

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Something wonderful is about to happen and this might be it!

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Something wonderful is just about to happen TO YOU!

Something wonderful is just about to happen TO YOU!

Choose today to CONSIDER that something wonderful is about to happen TO YOU! Just considering it sets up the energy for it to occur. Let go of controlling just WHAT that wonderful thing might be – control tends to deflate wonder because control is based on fear rather than joyful amazement.

Each day, awake with your customary energy circle in which you place the excitement of “something truly wonderful is about to happen to me, and maybe today is the day…”. When the mail arrives, get excited about it – each piece of mail might be “it”. When you answer the phone, be aware that “this might be it!”

The principle of thought and abundance suggest that we tend to get what we think about and focus attention upon. Want some excitement and joy in your life? Focus attention on it by anticipating it – get giddy about it.

Then set it up to happen again by expressing gratitude to the universe for supplying what you wanted. And get really clear about letting go of how it has to look or how it has to happen to get you to accept it – be open to surprise.

Something wonderful is just about to happen TO YOU! Maybe this article is IT…

My thanks to Wendi Friesen for this idea. She can be found at www.wendi.com.