The brain cells called neurons use electricity to communicate with one another. The combination of billions of neurons sending signals at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain. This can be detected using sensitive medical equipment such as Electroencephalograph (EEG). The combination of electrical activity of the brain is commonly referred to as Brain Waves. The intensity of brainwaves emitted can be explained through the following states:
Alpha state: During Alpha state of mind, the wave emission rate is 7-14 cps. Alpha state is said to be the relaxed state of mind. This is the state conducive for effective learning and memorizing.
Beta state: During Beta state of mind, the brain waves are emitted at the rate of above 14 cps (14 cycles per second). If the rate reaches 30-60 cps, the person is said to be stressed.
Theta state: During Theta state of mind, the rate of brain wave emission is 4-7 cps. Theta state is called drowsy state of mind, about to sleep or disturbed sleep.
Delta state: During Delta state of mind, our brain sends off its waves at a rate below 4 cps. Delta state is called the state of deep sleep.
Laws of Learning
There are some laws of learning. Important amongst them are (a) Law of Readiness, (b) Law of Use and Disuse, and (c) Law of Reinforcement.
- Law of Readiness says, “To learn something, one has to be ready to learn it.”
- Law of Use and Disuse says, “If you use it, you will remember it; if you disuse it, you will forget it.” A sub-law here is the Law of Exercise. It says, “The more you use it, the more it gets strengthened.”
- Law of Reinforcement says, “If you learn it now and reinforce it after a gap, the learning is strengthened.”
If you understand and strictly observe these three laws while learning anything, your memory will improve tremendously. Regular practice will give you a better memory power.
Intelligence
Intelligence is a multifactor ability. The most common factors are related to language, logic, art, music, bodily, interpersonal and intrapersonal relations. So we can briefly say that we have seven basic factors of intelligence such as:
(a) Linguistic factor, (b) Logical factor, (c) Artistic factor, (d) Musical factor, (e) Bodily factor,
(f) Interpersonal factor, and (g) Intrapersonal factor.
The left brain deals with the first two types, that is, linguistic and logical factors. And the right brain deals with the rest five types in addition to creativity, imagination, intuition, visualization, etc.
Activating Right and Left Brain
Do you know all our activities with our right hands, right legs, and right side of the body have to do with our left brain? In fact, our activities with the right side of the body are related with left brain. Likewise our activities with the left side are related with our right brain. You want to activate your right brain? The simplest method is to rub your big left toe with your left fingers. There are so many other methods. The following exercises are meant for activating the left as well as right brain.
WARMING UP
Remove your shoes and socks. Sit comfortably. Put your naked soles on the ground. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath through your nostrils. Hold your breath for five counts. Breathe out slowly. Silently say ‘Relax, Relax, Relax.’ Do this ten times. At the end of this exercise, you are in the Alpha state of mind. You are quite relaxed and ready to learn anything. After the Warming Up exercise, you can take up the following exercises.
Exercise #1
To stimulate your right brain, close your right nostril with your left index finger. Breathe in and breathe out through your left nostril. To activate your left brain, close your left nostril with your right index finger. Breathe in and breathe out through your right nostril.
Do this exercise for 25 times.
Exercise #2
You can stimulate your right brain by rubbing your left big toe with your left fingers. Rub your right big toe with your right fingers to stimulate your left brain. Continue rubbing for one minute.
Or, Sit cross-legged. Now cross your arms. Rub your right big toe with your right fingers. Simultaneously rub your left big toe with your left fingers. Continue rubbing for one minute.
Exercise #3
Hold your nose with your left hand. At the same time, hold your left ear with your right hand. Change the positions of your hands so that your right hand holds your nose and your left hand holds your right ear. But before every change, your palms should slap your thighs.
First do this exercise with full concentration to avoid mistakes.
When mistakes are not made, start counting the number. Do it 25 times. Increase the number to 50, and then to 100 as you progress.
Exercise #4
Copy a given passage with your right hand. Record the time taken. Copy the same passage with your left hand. Record the time taken. Time taken in both the cases decreases as you progress.
Exercise #5
Read a given passage just as normally as you would read it. Record the time taken. Invert the same passage and read it. Record the time taken. Time taken in both the cases decreases as you progress.
In sum, we all need the help of both right and left brain in learning and carrying out our daily activities. The only difference is right brain is associated to creativity, innovation, problem solving, learning new situations, practical learning, etc. Left brain, on the other hand, is more concerned with language and logical learning.
Yours forever,
Rajendra Sagolsem
What is Memory?
Memory is a mental process. It has three parts such as, - Learning,
- Retaining, and
- Reproducing.
We all give importance to the reproducing part of memory. We all seem to think that improving memory is improving the reproducing part. For your information, we can’t reproduce a thing that has not been learned and retained. Can you remember a person you have never seen? You just can’t. Likewise, you can’t remember a lesson you have never read. Can you? Even if you have read a lesson, you can’t reproduce it unless you have retained it too in your memory. So when we talk of memory, we should understand all the three parts.
What is learning?
Learning means registering or recording. It means entering data into our memory system. Whatever we see, hear, smell, taste and feel through our five senses and whatever we think and imagine are all registered and retained in our memory system. When you read a lesson, you register it in your memory. When you meet a new friend, you register his name, his face, his body structure, and his behavior in your memory. Whenever you do something, you register it in your memory. We are just like a video camera that goes on recording the events. The moment we were born, our camera started recording every event. It didn’t stop even a single second. Whatever it has recorded so far are stored in our mind.
What is retaining?
When you have read a lesson, you have registered it. However if you don’t retain it in your memory system, you won’t remember it. Suppose you have written down on a piece of paper the name of the new friend you met. This is equivalent to registering or recording. You put the piece of paper in your pocket. But when you meet the new friend after a long gap, you search for the piece of paper on which his name was written. You don’t find it. Now can you call his name? Never! Whatever you register or record should be retained properly so that you must be able to remember it whenever required.
What is reproducing?
Yes, this is the part in which we all want to excel. You know something? Joe Louis says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” We all know the only precondition for going to heaven is to die. If we are alive, we are still on earth. Likewise, to excel in the reproducing part of your memory, you have to excel in learning and retaining as well. This amounts to saying that our ability to reproduce something perfectly or nicely is the result of the quality of our efforts put in learning and retaining it in our memory system.
Physical basis of memory
Memory is a function of brain. We can also say the other way round. Brain is the physical basis of memory. Without brain, memory is not possible. So we have to take care of our brain. For proper functioning of our brain, we have to do some special exercises and take special diets.
The brain
Human brain has three main parts,
- Brain Stem,
- Cerebellum, and
- Cerebrum.
Brain stem has three parts – Midbrain, Pons, and Medulla Oblongata. Midbrain controls the eye movements. The Pons links the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. The medulla oblongata elongates to form the spinal cord and regulates breathing, heartbeat and blood circulation.
Cerebellum is situated just behind the brain stem. It controls the body movements. Therefore it has a body movement memory called Muscle Memory or Kinesthetic memory. Athletes have well developed cerebellum.
Cerebrum is part of the human brain where thinking and feeling take place. It is divided into four areas or lobes. They are:
- Frontal lobe: This area deals with abstract problems.
- Parietal lobe: This deals with sensory data.
- Occipital lobe: This deals with vision.
- Temporal lobe: This deals with memory, hearing, and language.
Cerebrum has two systems that work in tandem. They are called Neocortex and Limbic.
Neocortex system: It deals with thinking. - Limbic system: It deals with feeling. It is the system where our mind meets our body, our thought meets our emotion, and our endocrine glandular system interfaces with our brain.
The limbic system is again divided into five parts. They are:
- Hippocampus: It stores short-term memories that are dry and unemotional.
- Amygdala: It stores long-term emotional memories. Any experience involved with strong emotions is stored in it for a life time.
- Hypothalamus: Closely connected to amygdala, it deals with the ways and means with which our body responds to various stimuli. It sends message to pituitary gland which relays it to the rest of our body. It also controls body temperature and hunger. In case of extreme situations, it sends message for more adrenaline.
- Thalamus: It serves as a relay center. It picks up all the sensory messages except smell. It relays all the messages to the concerned processing centers in the brain.
- Pituitary: It is called the third eye and is involved in intuition. It is also called the master endocrine gland. It gives orders to other glands about what to do. It receives messages from hypothalamus and helps our body produce hormones in order to face the situations.
Neurons and synapses
A normal human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. Each neuron can make 100,000 possible connections with its axons and dendrites. This shows that our brain can make 100 trillion possible connections for our thinking, various perceptions, feelings, actions, etc. Each connection is called a synapse. And synapses record the data of life’s events.
Left and right hemispheres
The whole brain is divided into left hemisphere and right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is connected with the right side of our body through a nerve. So it deals with whatever we do with our right side. Likewise, the right hemisphere is connected through another nerve with the left side of our body. It deals therefore with whatever we do with our left side. For our convenience, we will call the left hemisphere left brain and the right hemisphere the right brain. For improving memory, we have to use the left brain as well as right brain.
Left brain has a thinking pattern that is mostly logical, linear, orderly, rational, sequential, organized, systematic, reality based, dealing with abstract ideas, verbal expression, reading, writing, auditory association, identifying facts and figures, phonetics and symbolism, and micro approach.
Right brain’s thinking pattern is mostly creative, imaginative, random, intuitive, non-verbal ways of knowing, unorganized, spatial awareness, shape and pattern recognition, art, music, color sensitivity, feeling the presence of objects and people, visualization, and macro approach.
Why should we have a good memory?
Knowledge is power. If we have knowledge, we have power. We acquire knowledge through learning and experiencing. We go on learning and experiencing every day of our life. But if we don’t remember whatever we have learned, our learning is useless. We must be able to remember what we have learned. We must be able to recall it whenever and wherever we want it.
Whether we are students, teachers, parents, engineers, doctors, administrators, lawyers, businesspersons, sports persons, politicians, or religious leaders, we all need a good memory. You can do better in your profession provided you utilize your memory in better ways.
Types of memory
For the sake of knowledge, let me tell you that there are three important types of memory. They are visual memory, auditory memory and kinesthetic memory. In general, our memories are 65% visual, 20% auditory and 15% kinesthetic. Visual memory is related to seeing, and auditory to hearing. Kinesthetic relates to the muscle memory.
You might have heard about so many other types of memory. But for us, we require only two types of memory. One is untrained memory and another is trained memory. And remember, untrained memory can be trained.
Yours forever,
Rajendra Sagolsem
For all of us, home is a sweet home. It’s here that we relax, enjoy and entertain one another. In works or other engagements, we usually feel physically, mentally and emotionally tense. It’s only at home that we find peace. The amount of daily tension lowers down in a peaceful home.
To make a home peaceful, there are some useful tips that we all can follow. They are:
Leave Work At The Work Place
Leave your work at the work place. Don’t bring home anything from work. You might be thinking of completing it at home. But do you think working at home will give you peace? It might disturb your family responsibilities. This will rather destroy the peaceful home atmosphere. Work is work and home is home. You have lots of other things to do at home. You have to communicate with other members of your family.
Some people work from home. If you work from home, set aside a separate room for your works. Never work in your sleeping room or a common hall. You will mix your works with home responsibilities. If possible, make a genuine work place in your house. Leave each and every work there when you are over with it every day.
Reorganize Your Home
We come back home to relax and enjoy with other family members. But many of us fail to feel exactly how we should feel. Almost everything is untidy. Almost everything is in a mess and disorganized. If this situation is yours, take out a weekend to reorganize your house. Ask each and every family member to join the program. And check the difference. If you keep all your household items in an organized manner, you feel relaxed. And the chances are high that your home is more peaceful.
Suppose your home is well organized and tidy. But you find the same thing at the same place every day. When you come back, you feel monotonous rather than relaxed. You are less attentive to them as usual. We all take interest in new things and give more attention to them. Change the positions of some small items. You will see the same thing, but in new locations. When you come back home, you will fail to ignore them for days.
Rejuvenate Yourself
Some people have the habit of starting domestic activities as soon as they reach home. Rejuvenate and refresh yourself before rushing up to your domestic works. Take 5-10 minutes to relax. Lie on an easy chair for a while. Take a shower. These small things will rejuvenate and refresh you.
Most people play music to lighten the pressures and tension. The positive effect of soft and melodious music is very high. So, as soon as you reach home, play a melodious music that can cool you down. The music may be vocal or anything of your own choice. But choosing a calm and melodious music will drive away most of your stresses. Play the music till you feel relaxed. Or you can play as long as it doesn’t disturb you in your other activities.
Choose A Hobby
The importance of a hobby is seldom questioned. If you have a hobby, you will get involved in it. If you are engaged in interesting activities, there will be fewer distractions. Reading joke books can be one of your hobbies. Read a few new jokes that make you laugh heartily and loudly. You will forget most of the pressures and tension you have experienced in the day. If you are expert in making jokes, share every new joke with other members of the family. Laugh out loudly along with them. Laughing out loudly lessens tension and anxiety. Make this your habit.
Be Considerate And Be Grateful
Look around to see how other members are feeling. They also have stresses as you do. If you feel that someone in your family is not as happy as others, you must try to find out the reasons. Be considerate and talk the things out.
Encourage everyone in the family to do something good to contribute to maintaining peace at home. When someone does something good, take special efforts to praise them. Let them know that you appreciate what they have done.
Be Friendly
Some people have the habit of fighting for anything. If the matter is insignificant and harmless, why should we fight? Be friendly with everyone in the family.
- Don’t indulge in criticizing anyone unnecessarily.
- People make mistakes. Don’t blame anyone for their mistakes. Instead, try to find out other alternatives together.
- Don’t nag, irritate or annoy anyone in the family. If they are irritated, the peaceful home atmosphere is damaged.
When something is not a big deal, just let it go. Take care of maintaining your inner peace too. If you don’t have inner peace, there will be no peace at home. But if you are involved in some sort of conflict at home, allow yourself to cool down. You might realize that the issue wasn’t as big as you first thought. Later, you will be able to calmly talk about your feelings.
Create An Atmosphere For Effective Relationship
Family is a web of relationships that requires all members to work together. It is in the family that each member contributes their share in achieving a common goal. Create an atmosphere for effective relationship at home. Peace at home is well maintained if members have the freedom to express their feelings and concerns. For many, relationship is a very delicate thing. It requires extra efforts to maintain. But it is also something that can provide security in the family. Building an effective relationship is necessary for many reasons. For instance, the well being of the members depends on how efficiently and effectively your family works. Your family is also dependent on how the members work. An ineffective family can really be very frustrating. But an effective family is where peace lies.
Listen Carefully
Listen carefully what others say. Don’t pre-judge anyone. This is important for the members to understand one another. Informal discussions are helpful for a family. They bring out issues and concerns comfortably. They also feel more relaxed when they think independently. Develop an atmosphere where the family members can freely express their feelings. When they fail to express clearly, maintaining peace becomes difficult.
Understanding the feeling and position of the members creates a free atmosphere. The easiest method is to ask them what they want. And carefully listen to what they say. Listening attentively is one way of giving importance to other fellow.
Respect Each And Every Member
Respect is the key to relationship. If there is a good relationship, peace prevails. To create a more effective relationship, members should respect one another. Just listen to what they say and sincerely understand how they work. Sincerely appreciate how they are doing in the family. Don’t allow unfounded facts and prejudices to influence your judgment and appreciation.
Another important area is to tackle differences directly. It is important to know that people differ in perspectives. For any topic, people come up with different opinions. Discussions may provide clear solutions.
Avoid Arguments
Arguments should be avoided. If you win, you lose the relationship. If you are defeated, the chances are high that your relationship is strengthened. You should be the one to know this principle of relationship. Your goal is to maintain peace at home. If there are strained relationships, there will be no peace. Put more efforts to understand what each of your family members want. Be aware that certain things occur naturally. Anger is one of them. Minimize or channelize it in a better way. Control stereotyping, mistrust and blaming in any discussion in the family.
Please note that physical, mental and emotional health of every family member entirely depend on the peace at home.
Yours forever,
Rajendra Sagolsem
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