Exercise Your Brain (Part –3)

Cool – down: Relax with colour

This exercise draws on the concept that colours have a major influence on our sence.

Time: Preparation takes one to two minutes; the exercise, 10 minutes or longer.

Materials: A timer or an alarm clock, a sheet of white unlined paper and a box of crayons.

Body position: Lying down.

Step 1: Sit at a table, take out your box of crayons and select a colour you really like.

Step 2: Colour the entire sheet of paper with the crayon you choose. Don’t stop until you've achieved the exact shade you want. If you plan to do this exercise in the future with the same colour, save the sheet.

Step 3: Set the timer for 10 minutes (longer if you like). Lie down comfortably. Prop up your colour sheet in front of you, either by drawing your knees toward your chest and resting the paper on them, or by holding it in your hands.

Step 4: Take five deep breaths.

Step 5: Focus your eyes on the centre of your colour sheet. Let your mind reflect on this colour and on any memory associations that come up (re may bring up images of candied apples or red lipstick). Linger over each memory, recalling the incidents in which the colour played a role. Spend time with each image, letting each come and go naturally (you can also just stay with one). If no images come to mind, simply rest your eyes on the sheet and sink into the colour as if it were a large pool. If your mind wanders, repeat the name of the colour to refocus.

Step 6: When the timer rings, lay the sheet down. On the count of 20, get up and stretch.

Exercise Your Brain (Part – 2)

2. Race-Walking Your Mind:

This is a good exercise to run through just before sitting down to a project that requires mental sharpness.

Time: Five minutes

Materials: A pen and some paper, an alarm clock, stopwatch or timer.

Body position: sitting

Step 1: Pick up any form of printed material and select the first noun you see, e.g., the word “frost” on the weather page.

Step 2: Sit down and set the timer to ring in five minutes.

Step 3: At the top of your paper, write the noun you’ve selected. For the next five minutes, write as many phrases or words as you can that tie in with this noun. Don’t stop to think or analyze: Just write. (For example: “Jack Frost”, “frostbitten”, “defrost the freezer”…). The idea is to beat the clock by writing as quickly as you can, even if the associations seem silly. After five minutes, stop, “shake out” your mind by counting to 20, and continue your day.

3. Stretching Your Brain To The Max:

Time: 10 minutes.

Materials: A book, magazine or newspaper.

Body position: Sitting.

For 10 minutes, pick up your reading material, hold it upside down and read it aloud. Immediately you will notice that your reading comprehension and speed decrease dramatically as your brain struggles to “right” the words. This only means that your mind is working harder to stretch and accomplish the task.

Exercise Your Brain (Part – 1)

Do you know that most of us, even geniuses, use only about 10 percent of brain’s capacity? Can’t we do something about this? B. Alexis Castorri, a mind coach, thinks we can. The Book “Mental Aerobics: Exercises for a stronger, Healthier Mind” by B. Alexis Castorri and Jane Heller was written how to sharpen one’s mind just as you do your body. The format of these exercises will seem very familiar: Warm-ups, Strengtheners and Cool-downs. You don’t have to do every one of them; just pick the ones you need the most at any particular stage of your day, or of your life. They can be done in minutes (most take about three minutes), and just about anywhere. You don’t need any equipment, and most of the time no one will even know what you’re doing.

Warm-up:

You already know the advantages of warming up your body; the same principles apply to warming up your mind. It will allow you to perform counts. How often do you not fully wake up until you’ve been at the school for a few hours? Imagine if you could gain an hour or two of sharp, focused thought each day. These exercises are meant to help you prime specific mental functions: list-making, memory, and word visualization and comprehension.

1. Getting Your mind in gear:

· Time: Five to ten minutes upon awakening

· Body position: Sitting comfortably or lying down. All seven steps are recited aloud.

Step 1: Count down from 100 to 1 as quickly as you can.

Step 2: Recite the alphabet, giving each letter a word partner (“A, apple; B, basket….”), as quickly as you can. If you hesitate for more than 30 seconds, skip that letter and go on.

Step 3: Recite 20 men’s names as quickly as you can, numbering them as you go (“1, Phillip; 2, Joe; 3, Robert….”).

Step 4: Repeat, using 20 women’s names.

Step 5: Name 20 types of food as quickly as you can, numbering them as in steps 3 and 4 (“1, banana; 2, hamburger; 3, Jell-O…”)

Step 6: Choose one letter of the alphabet and name 20 words that begin with that letter as quickly as you can number them as you go (“1, morning; 2, mother; 3, message…”)

Step 7: If your eyes were open during the exercise, that’s fine, but close them now. Count to 20, and then open them. Your mind is now ready for the day.

Improving Math Performance by Playing Chess

First of all, Math provides the building blocks and foundation that children will need throughout their lives. If you think that the basics are adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing- think again! Today, we live in an information age where it’s reported that information is doubling at a rate less than every two years. The basic skills need to function in the workplace today are decision making, problem solving, critical thinking and deductive and inductive reasoning along with the ability to make judgments and good estimates. We haven’t loved math but we’ve certainly loved our games. That’s when Chess comes into the picture.

Chess is a game that requires problem solving. Math requires problem solving, it makes good sense then to become a good problem solver means you’ll do better in math.

Chess (and other games) require a mental workout, thinking ahead, planning, being systematic, and determining the outcomes of certain moves. Chess moves can’t be memorized, weakness in math often stems from an over emphasis on memory skills have improved problem solving skills over the group that have not been involved in the playing of chess. Chess is the single most powerful educational tool we have at the moment, and many school administrators are realizing that. There are also studies indicates that many students’ social habits improved when playing chess.

President of the American Chess Foundation (ACF) believed that chess could enhance learning, especially for the disadvantaged. He with the ACF founded the chess in schools program. Early in the program, the focus was on improving math skills for adolescents through improved critical thinking and problem solving skills. Remarkably “test scores improved by 17.3% for students regularly engaged in chess classes, compared with only 4.56% for children participating in other form of enriched Activities”.

The ACF reports that Chess improves a child’s: Visual memory, Attention span, Spatial reasoning skills, Capacity to predict and anticipate consequence, ability to use criteria to drive decision making and evaluating alternatives.

Overcoming Math Phobia through Chess:

Why is it, when we ask the majority of people what they think of math or if they’re good in math, they immediately show a look of distaste? When we take a look at why people don’t like math, we’re told it’s because it makes them feel stupid, or that they just don’t understand it because there are too many rules, formulas and procedures to remember. But, can you think of a situation where they’re rules, procedures and such that we enjoy? Games!!! Perhaps if our math instructor treated math like a game, more individuals would excel and would like mathematics. A more favorable attitude in math leads to better performance. Let chess pave the way to better math scores and improved problem solving strategies!

Magnetic Heal

The magnetic therapy plays an important role in medicine. They are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines. In the last 15 years, there have been over 57 studies conducted in the USA about using magnet therapy in certain ailments like osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia.

What is Magnet Therapy?

The Earth is a huge magnet and it passes on magnetic energy to all things. The human body is composed of billions of cells, each of which is an electrical unit. These cells vibrate or oscillate at specific frequencies, picking up their frequencies from the ether. Hence, when the magnetic field of a human being is weakened by known or unknown phenomena, aliments develop in that part of the body. With the help of a correctly-positioned magnet close to the affected part, the yin and the yang in the body are balanced and the disease weeded out.

How To Use Magnet Therapy:

Magnet therapy is easy to practice at home, though it is advisable to seek help from an expert. People fitted with pace makers or other surgically implanted gadgets and pregnant women should avoid this therapy. A magnet has two poles: north and south. In alternative therapy, the north pole of a magnet is the south-seeking pole and vice-versa. The south-seeking pole (N-pole) absorbs the body’s pains, while the north-seeking pole (S-pole) gives energy. For most type of aches like toothache, arthritis, rheumatism, etc, place the N-pole of the magnet close to the affected part for 20 to 40 minutes, once or twice a day, till the pain subsides. While chronic aches take longer to heal, patients with acute pain find relief relatively faster. For problems related to the spinal cord, the N-pole of the magnet should be used along the spine for 20-40 minutes. The magnet should be held alternately on the left side of each vertebra and then on the right, for four minutes at a time. The application should start at the top. For insomnia and other such conditions, where one need energy, place the S-pole of the magnet on the forehead, between the eyebrows, for about 10 minutes daily over two months.

As magnets are known to expel toxins and purity blood, drinking magnet-charged water also helps. To prepare magnet –charged water, two magnets with opposite poles facing each other should be kept against a glass of water for five minutes. One can also hold two magnets with both hands (N-pole in contact with the right and S-pole with the left) everybody for about 15-20 minutes, positive energy.

When the Internet becomes your Teacher…..

Nothing unusual there, considering there are scores of students who panic at the mere mention of mathematics. True, but here comes the twist in the tale. The students now log on to www.mathguru.com and listen to experts explain a problem step-by-step, using colour pens and paper. Math home work is no longer scary.

In the last decade, high school and college students have relied on computers to type and print assignments. And of course, the Net continues to be a valuable resource for researching term papers even today. But, now students can add a host of new software programmes and websites to their toolkit for writing essays, cramming formulae for maths exams, learning new languages and preparing for their science projects.

Technology sure seems to be making students happy! But, there’s flipside to this. Like with most other things, technology can be a boon as well as a cruse. In higher education, students are allowed to bring laptops to classrooms. The advantage is that students remain connected to the Internet and can access material on the topic being discussed. They can also notes on their computers and modify them later. But, at times, instead of being attentive in class, they may choose to chat with their friends on the Net or send emails.

However, by and large, the student’s fraternity is putting technology to good use. They can now learn concepts in algebra, geometry, physics and chemistry from school right up to college level. There are many other sites as well that provides solutions to students’ queries by email, fax, online one-on-one help, or individual tutor courses. They also help in homework or test preparations.

Remember the days when working on school or college projects meant handwriting more than 50 pages of report and gluing pictures? Today, with printers like inkjet, laser, colour, and grayscale, developing an impressively-deigned project is just a command away. So, it seems that technology has managed to transform the mundane chore of homework into an exciting experience for many students.

Say No To Negativity

• Nothing ever works for me.
• I know that I am poor in this subject.
• I am sure that my teacher will angry on me today.
• I can’t solve this question.

Identify with any of the aforementioned? Most of students, at some point or the other, are assailed by negative feelings and thoughts. However, trouble begins when this becomes a habit. Chronic negative emotions not only wreak havoc on one’s psyche, they also deplete your inner resources and make your body clinically weak.

A negative feeling is a combination of different emotions like fear, anxiety, panic and sadness. While most of us do get negative at times, more and more students are regularly lapsing into negative emotions. No one is born negative, but yes, often the traits are genetic or develop due to certain situations like repeated failure, trauma or an accident. According to psychiatrist the deficiency of neurotransmitters like serotonin and noradrenalin cause a person to think in a negative manner. Neurotransmitters inhibit or influence the activity of other cells. Science is yet to find out why, how and when this neurotransmitter deficiency occurs. Depending on the kind of negative emotions a person is going, he could suffer from several physical problems. When the negative emotions are one of excessive worrying, it results in diarrhea, belching, headaches, dizziness, breathlessness and chest pain.

Chronic negative emotions replete with fear or panic may result in depression, panic disorder or even obsessive-compulsive disorder. The other serious fallout is sleeplessness. As sleep is very rejuvenating, students suffering from inadequate sleep are less alert, more fatigued and more irritable. No wonder then that medical experts advise everyone to shun negativity at all cost.

Music Lessons

Does music influence the intellect too? Some studies seem to point in this direction. Psychologists from Chinese University of Hong Kong found that children who are given musical training have better verbal memories than those who have not had lessons. They reported their findings in the journal Neuropsychology

The researchers studies 90 boys between the ages of six and 15. Half had been given musical training as members of their school’s string orchestra and had received lessons in playing classical music on Western instruments, for up to five years. The rest, all students, at the same school, had received no musical training.

All the children were given verbal memory tests, to see how many words they recalled from a list, and a visual memory test for images. Those students who had been given music lessons recalled significantly more words than the untrained students and generally learned more words with each subsequent test. They were also able to retain more words than the other group when tested 30 minutes later. The longer the boys had been receiving music lessons, better their verbal memory was as well.

According to the researchers, music lessons stimulate the left side of the brain, which also controls verbal learning. Giving music lesson to children “somehow contributes to reorganization and better development of the left temporal lobe in musicians, which in turn facilitates cognitive processing mediated by that specific brain area, that is, verbal memory.

In another study conducted out of the University of Toronto and reported in journal Psychological Science, a team led by Dr. E. Glenn Schellenberg examined the effect of extra-curricular activities on the intellectual and social development of six year old children. A group of 144 children were assigned randomly to one of four activities: keyboard lessons, voice lessons, drama lessons, or no lessons. Two types of music lessons were offered in order to be able to generalize the results, while the groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons were considered control groups. The activities were provided for one year.

The participating children were given IQ test before and after the lessons. The result of this study revealed that increases in IQ from pre-to post-test were larger in the music groups than in the two others. Generally these increases occurred across IQ subtests, index scores, and academic achievement. Children in the drama group also exhibited improvements pre-to post-test, but in the area of adaptive social behavior, an area that did not change among children who received music lessons.

11th Hour Tips Before the Examination (part – 3)

Schedule for Your Final Revision

The last 3 to 4 weeks immediately before your examination should be set aside for revising the important points again and again from your revision notes. Do not attempt to learn new things. Prepare a revision plan for this period, so as to leave time (atleast 2 days) for a final wrap up just before the examination. Set your target dates or dead lines by which you are to complete each part of your course.

One of the most frightening aspects about examination revision is the very size of the task. The very sight of books and mountainous stack of notes can put you off. Break up this large task into small tasks. Divide each subject into units. Now set aside notes on each unit separately. If it still looks frightening, divide it further. This will make it easier for you to conquer. Avoid finding an opportunity to postpone your studies.

Devote more and more time in testing and fine tuning your final strategy. The difference between successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not even lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.

Never! Never!! Never!!! Give up

The ideal recommendation schedule for one month before exams is as follows:

Day 1 – 20

Daily

8 hours: Revision of all subjects (divide all units into 20 parts and revise one part everyday, give more time to topic of more weightage do not try to learn new things or thing you feel very hard). Make rapid review notes during revision.

3 hours: Rehearsal test (focus on improving speed and accuracy)

½ hour: Test analysis; find out areas, in which you need more practice.

4 hours: Problem practice. Work on weak areas found in test analysis of rehearsal test so as to perform better in the next test.

Please take good sleep of 6-7 hours daily, otherwise you will lose your efficiency (Feel happy).

Day 21 – 28: Review all notes, take ‘sample paper’ test.

Last 2 days: Avoid any activity which may cause anxiety. Just go through rapid review notes you have prepared. Try to get your full period of sleep

11th Hour Tips Before the Examination (Part - 2)

Remember!

“Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger and faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.”
When you find weariness approaching, rouse yourself and remember that if you give up, all that you have done has been done in vain…” It is this belief, confidence and faith in oneself which helps a person in performing better.

Turning Your Body Clock

In the last one month, make your study schedule according to the schedule of the examination. So get into the habit of serious studying during the hours of the day as per your exam schedule. Tune your body and mind to give the best output at the time the exam is scheduled. If the exam time is 8 am to 11 am, schedule your serious study in one stretch (i.e. without any break) during these hours of the day and most importantly all “guess paper” test you take should be taken strictly at this time only.

11th Hour Tips Before the Examination (Part - 1)

Students now you have entered the final stages of your preparation and by now you must have started feeling the pressure. In the last stages of preparation apart from subject knowledge what is equally important is the state of mind. Please follow my words for better output.

“The difference between a topper and an average student is not much as far as subject knowledge is concerned but the major difference is in terms of mental preparation.”

Last one month before exams is the time for real test and a student should keep himself cool, calm and collected. All your efforts and attempt to do well in the examination may collapse if you do not think positively about yourself and your performance. Motivate yourself positively. Think of your past successes and convince yourself that you will experience success in future.

Over Learning

Hello students let us look another aspect of learning.

Dear students when you learn something and remember it, some kind of a memory trace is laid down in the brain. Whether you are able to retain a given fact depends upon two things:

• The strength of memory trace – which will depend upon how thorough your learning has been , and
• The strength of interfering factors which work to destroy or weaken the traces.

You can increase the strength of your memory traces by over learning your lessons taking precautions against subsequent interference, and by distributing your practice over a period of time.

Material is unlearned when it has not been studied for long enough for you to be able to recall it correctly. It is over learned when you continue to practice it after you can recall it 100percent correctly. For, example, if you take, 60 minutes to learn a particular chapter of history and you then carry on learning and reciting with the same attention as before, then you are over learning the material. Ideally you must give about 1/3rd time of the total time taken in learning a material for over learning.

As in the above case, a continuous learning and reciting for about 20 min (1/3rd of 60 min) may help you in retaining the material for very long period with revision. Over learning strengthen the memory traces. Things which nearly everyone has over learned world include the alphabate, the multiplication table and nursery rhymes. Motor skill are also over learnt. You don’t forget how to ride a bicycle or to type or swim after a long period of discussion.