Tuesday, September 19, 2011, 11:07pm
Our brain is malleable. It is continually changing throughout our lifetime.Whenever we are stimulated by something new our brain files it and creates neural connections between what we've just learned and associations of what we've learned in the past. Each time we access that file the path to it becomes stronger and more defined allowing us to remember it easily.
There are 3 stages for the brains growth. They are measured in epochs.
Our brain is malleable. It is continually changing throughout our lifetime.Whenever we are stimulated by something new our brain files it and creates neural connections between what we've just learned and associations of what we've learned in the past. Each time we access that file the path to it becomes stronger and more defined allowing us to remember it easily.
When we fail to use a path it becomes weaker. In a sense it is like a dirt path, the more we travel down it the more pronounced the swath, but stop using the path and eventually it becomes overgrown with grass and you find yourself saying, "Now I know that used to be around here somewhere."
Its the same with your brain if you don't continually use it you lose it and that's when you begin to forget things- like where you put your keys or the name of the person you were just introduced to five seconds ago.
Its the same with your brain if you don't continually use it you lose it and that's when you begin to forget things- like where you put your keys or the name of the person you were just introduced to five seconds ago.
The other thing is that the brain is kept sharp by taking in complicated sounds. When an auditory stimuli enters through the ears the brain has to work to differentiate and categorize each sound. If you feed it noise, as in sounds that are impossible to make out it becomes foggy and less capable because you are teaching it to specialize in fuzz instead of clarity. Which means your brain will look for sounds that are closely related to that fuzz. The problem is that most of the sounds on our planet are clear and sharp so it takes it longer to process clear sounds and you end up again not being able to focus and having lag time in recognition.
This is why listening to a complex musical piece by Mozart can make you smarter.
Through training your brain to work better and faster, you can reverse memory loss, dementia, alzheimers, dyslexia improve eyesight, regain hearing, improve brain function in those with disabilities and studies have shown improvement in brain damage, phobias, obsessions, autism, Parkinson's and schizophrenia.
There are 3 stages for the brains growth. They are measured in epochs.
Epoch 1-The brain is continuously taking in everything that happens around you. The more varied the sounds and sights the more complex and specialized the brain becomes at processing.
Epoch 2 -Gains primary skill repertoire. Masters skills based on experience. The brain-body connections learn through trial and error until it becomes a sophisticated user of information between the body and the brain. Also, at this stage the brain makes an evaluation and controls what it wants to learn based on what it believes is important and good for it. It evaluates the success of an attempt and will choose to save the information used to accomplish the success. The success is based on the model it has seen done by other people. Once it has achieved the model it has aspired to and gained the positive goal it records it as a success.
Epoch 3- Uses what you've learned so far. The brain begins to predict what is going to happen based on what it has learned. It associates past experiences, sounds, sights, smells, emotions.
You can mess up a brain with a bad childhood or bad genetic history. However, it can almost always be corrected by guiding it in the right direction.
Children with difficulty learning have a noisy brain and therefore it sets longer time constants because it needs a longer time to process what it has heard or seen.
Richness in the environment greatly effects the way a child's brain learns. It has been found that in professional households children have developed a more complex brain than those reared in lower income homes.
Why?
Because in a professional household there is not the financial stress and anxiety that is found in low income homes. Studies have shown there to be a 30 million word difference between high income and low income homes. Also, the complexity, elegance of the language and the nature of interactions of the child with language varied drastically.
In a low income home children often were spoken to in short sentences and with approbations--that is negative reinforcement. In higher income homes children experienced a positive communication and affirmations.
The low income children, therefore, acquire a negative attitude about language. They learn that language is about getting into trouble and have a limited view of learning language whether speaking or reading or writing. These are the children that will do anything not to be called on in class and tend to fail in language geared studies.Typically, these children are 5 years behind a child who sees language as a positive tool.
Why?
Because in a professional household there is not the financial stress and anxiety that is found in low income homes. Studies have shown there to be a 30 million word difference between high income and low income homes. Also, the complexity, elegance of the language and the nature of interactions of the child with language varied drastically.
In a low income home children often were spoken to in short sentences and with approbations--that is negative reinforcement. In higher income homes children experienced a positive communication and affirmations.
The low income children, therefore, acquire a negative attitude about language. They learn that language is about getting into trouble and have a limited view of learning language whether speaking or reading or writing. These are the children that will do anything not to be called on in class and tend to fail in language geared studies.Typically, these children are 5 years behind a child who sees language as a positive tool.
Exercises that excite the brain can correct degenerated intelligence in children, adults and even subjects in their eighties have shown a significant increase in brain power. Re-stimulating the brains power and efficiency by as much as twenty years younger and science predicts that they can triple that number.
So, how do you do this?
1. Challenge your mind. Do something different, the more difficult the better. As the Education Lady suggests: Start by brushing your teeth with the hand opposite of what you normally do. Once you've mastered that add balancing on one leg. Here is her video.
You can take common everyday things and do them differently. The key is to be active and present in your daily tasks. When you have done something so many times that it becomes automatic you are just using old information. You are not exciting the brain and challenging it to create more neural synapses and paths.
Little moments of correlated activity is what our brain remembers, so pay attention to the details.
2. Take a Brain training course. There is actually software that has been created to do exactly what we've been talking about. Relative to software it seems expensive, but compared to the alternative it is extremely cheap.
For children and teachers go to http://www.scilearn.com/
For adults go to http://www.positscience.com/
3. If you can't afford the software then learn another language or pick up a musical instrument. Anything that engages multiple aspects of complex body-brain controls are ideal. Such as playing the piano, you use fine motor movements to play the keys, you have to listen to hear complex notes and you have to read at the same time.
4 Some video games can be helpful, but you have to be careful. Spending too much time in a game or day-dreaming can hinder your brain power. When your in reality be present in the world around you and actively pay attention to details.
5. Another way is to practice Brain Gym. I won't go into depth on this right now, but I've included examples below.
6. You can also listen to music that has complex sounds, like Mozart. The internet is full of brain training music. I've included a couple below. This works best with headphones.
Dr. Michael Merzenich's speech is the major source for this blog.
2. Take a Brain training course. There is actually software that has been created to do exactly what we've been talking about. Relative to software it seems expensive, but compared to the alternative it is extremely cheap.
For children and teachers go to http://www.scilearn.com/
For adults go to http://www.positscience.com/
3. If you can't afford the software then learn another language or pick up a musical instrument. Anything that engages multiple aspects of complex body-brain controls are ideal. Such as playing the piano, you use fine motor movements to play the keys, you have to listen to hear complex notes and you have to read at the same time.
4 Some video games can be helpful, but you have to be careful. Spending too much time in a game or day-dreaming can hinder your brain power. When your in reality be present in the world around you and actively pay attention to details.
5. Another way is to practice Brain Gym. I won't go into depth on this right now, but I've included examples below.
6. You can also listen to music that has complex sounds, like Mozart. The internet is full of brain training music. I've included a couple below. This works best with headphones.
Dr. Michael Merzenich's speech is the major source for this blog.
Wishing you the best and healthiest brain, Enjoy!
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