Dr. Gabrielle Weidemann, a behavioural neuroscientist from the University of Western Sydney, says the key to improving your memory is to understand a few key ideas on how to retain information.
A basic principle is that by ”elaborating” memories, students can remember more information.
”Start with the things you know and add new bits of information into the bits you already know about,” she says.
”That will help you in elaborating the memory and making connections between the bits of information.”
Active study methods such as rewriting information in your own words, quizzing yourself or trying to teach somebody else are also helpful, as is ”spaced repetition”; that is, leaving intervals between study sessions.
Where and how you study is important, too: pay close attention to the task at hand and eliminate distractions such as television or social media.
The best methods not only encourage students to input information, but also to recall it, Weidemann says.
”The act of retrieving information helps to encode that memory better,” she says.
Austin Chapman was born profoundly deaf. Hearing aids helped some, but music – its full range of pitches and tones – remained indecipherable. […]
But earlier this month, that changed when Chapman got new hearing aids […]
Being able to hear the music for the first time ever was unreal.
When Mozart’s Lacrimosa came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn’t a dry eye in the car.
As we go about our lives, it’s important to remember the things we take for granted.
Following that experience, Chapman did what any smart Internet-connected 23-year-old* with a question for a crowd would do: He turned to Reddit, asking, “I can hear music for the first time ever, what should I listen to?”
In general, his preferences tends toward what he terms as “melodic or soothing.” In particular, the Icelandic band Sigur Rós has become his favorite. “Every song [of theirs] haunts me and I’m not even 20 percent done listening to everything by them.” He’s also liked Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Queen, and some occasional dubstep too. Dubstep has really benefited from the new hearing aids, Chapman says. Before them, “I could feel the bass, but because I couldn’t hear the higher tones it was like listening to half of the song so I never really dug it. Now … being able to hear and understand almost the full spectrum of sound has given me a whole different view on bass. To put it simply, I’m head over heels in love with bass”
With so much more to listen to, Chapman says that, “ironically enough, I’m turning my hearing aids off more often than before.” There are too many annoying sounds.
“Silence is still my favorite sound,” he writes. “When I turn my aids off my thoughts become more clear and it’s absolutely peaceful.”
Amen to that.
There are a limitless number of healthy reasons to play and enjoy video games. To recapture a sense of adventure. To compete. To exercise your brain. Or turn it off and just relax.
But I believe the empowering and interactive nature of video games makes them easier to abuse, and easier to consume for unhealthy reasons. I also believe video games are a more attractive leisure activity for individuals with obsessive leanings, or individuals with unhealthy tendencies towards destructive escapism. Fantasy and escapism aren’t inherently bad, but neither can come at the expense of confronting and embracing reality and living a responsible life.
There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with video games. Besides all the legitimate leisure-related reasons to enjoy the hobby I touched on above (and leisure time is absolutely essential), games also create safe spaces for people, especially kids, to experiment and express themselves. They provide safe, consequence-free places to fail.
Video games also help players discover things about themselves. What kind of person do you want to be? When given free range to make dialogue choices or build a world, what do you create? People that would never pick up a paintbrush can do incredible things when given the right tools.
All the good that games can do aside, what I have learned is that it’s important for gamers to understand their own motivations. I don’t believe anyone needs to stop playing video games, or necessarily even cut back. But everyone should strive to understand his or her own compulsions.
It never hurts to occasionally reflect on and reassess all the activities we spend time on. This includes other “good” activities like reading, exercise, socialising, etc. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. Life requires finding the right balance.
Personally, I used to play a lot more games. I particularly enjoyed playing strategy and puzzle games. But I must admit there was also an element of pure escapism. Nowadays, I seem to have too many other “grown up” things to do that I don’t play that many games. The balance has gone too far the other way. But I still do try to put aside some time for gaming. There’s a great sense of satisfaction from completing challenging games like Braid, Portal (2), and Starcraft.
Across the United States—and in developed nations around the world—twenty-somethings […] are taking longer to finish school, leave home, begin a career, get married and reach other milestones of adulthood. These trends are not just anecdotal; sociologists and psychologists have gathered supporting data. Robin Marantz Henig summarizes the patterns in her 2010 New York Times Magazine feature:
“One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year. Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once. They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch. Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married. And marriage occurs later than ever. The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation.”
These demographic shifts have transformed the late teens through mid twenties into a distinct stage of life according to Jeffrey Arnett of Clark University, who calls the new phase “emerging adulthood.”
Henig writes that some researchers think a lengthy preamble to adulthood might be “better-suited to our neurological hard-wiring” and that the general ambivalence of twenty-somethings—feeling that they are sort of adults, but not really adults— “reflects what is going on in the brain, which is also both grown-up and not-quite-grown-up.” Most recently, The Wall Street Journal ran an article recommending that concerned parents of twenty-somethings “chill out” because “recent research into how the brain develops suggests that people are better equipped to make major life decisions in their late 20s than earlier in the decade. The brain, once thought to be fully grown after puberty, is still evolving into its adult shape well into a person’s third decade, pruning away unused connections and strengthening those that remain, scientists say.”
Although these developmental changes continue far longer than researchers initially thought, they are not as dramatic in the twenties as they are in the teens. “In the twenties, the brain is definitely still changing, but it’s not rampant biological change,” explains Beatriz Luna of the University of Pittsburgh. “Most of the brain’s systems are good to go in one’s twenties.”
To reflect the ongoing structural changes in the adolescent and twenty-something brain, many journalists and scientists use words and phrases like “unfinished,” “work in progress,” “under construction” and “half-baked.” Such language implies that the brain eventually reaches a kind of ideal state when it is “done.” But there is no final, optimal state. The human brain is not a soufflé that gradually expands over time and finally finishes baking at age 30. Yes, we can identify and label periods of dramatic development—or windows of heightened plasticity—but that should not eclipse the fact that brain changes throughout life.
[W]idening the window of heightened neuroplasticity to encompass one’s twenties may have helped Homo sapiens adapt to rapid shifts in the climate. Unfortunately, as with many hypotheses in evolutionary psychology, scientists do not have a way to objectively test these ideas. Still, if we want to fully understand the brain, we cannot ignore the fact that it evolved in circumstances very different from our own.
For now, let’s put the brains of ancient twenty-somethings out of our minds. What about the twenty-somethings of today? Even if the brain’s developmental changes are more dramatic in the teens than in the twenties, the best available evidence suggests that a twenty-something’s brain boasts a little more adaptability than an older brain. Our twenties might represent a final opportunity to begin mastering a particular skill with a kind of facility we cannot enjoy in later decades. Should people in their twenties buckle down and choose something, anything, to practice while their brains are still nimble? Does the neuroscience suggest that, for all their freedom and fun, gallivanting twenty-somethings neglect their last years of heightened plasticity? Should parents encourage their 20-year-olds to shirk adult responsibilities lest they hamper an advantageous period of self-discovery and wild experimentation?
Solid neuroscience that can directly answer these questions does not yet exist.
Emerging adulthood is real—it’s happening, albeit to a small percentage of the world’s population. Whether we can, at this moment in time, meaningfully link this life stage to neuroscience seems a tenuous proposition at best. By itself, brain biology does not dictate who we are. The members of any one age group are not reducible to a few distinguishing structural changes in the brain. Ultimately, the fact that a twenty-something has weaker bridges between various brain regions than someone in their thirties is not hugely important—it’s just one aspect of a far more complex identity.
Interesting stuff. It wasn’t that long ago (geologically speaking) that human lifespans were so short that people were likely to be grandparents by their late thirties, assuming they live that long. Nowadays, many people don’t think about becoming parents until their thirties (or even later).
[E]xperts say that forgiving those who have wronged us helps lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and heart rate. One study found that forgiveness is associated with improved sleep quality, which has a strong effect on health. And Duke University researchers report a strong correlation between forgiveness and strengthened immunity among HIV-positive patients. The benefits aren’t just limited to the physical, either: Letting go of old grudges reduces levels of depression, anxiety, and anger. People who forgive tend to have better relationships, feel happier and more optimistic, and overall, enjoy better psychological well-being.
Letting go isn’t easy, but will probably be better for you in the long run than holding onto grudges.
It’s a difficult process, Enright says, one that “takes serious hard work over months” or even a year. The first step is understanding what forgiveness is: a decision to let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge, and perhaps even reaching a place of understanding, empathy, and compassion. It’s not reconciling. And it’s not forgetting—in fact, “it’s important to remember what hurt you so you can avoid it in the future,” Howes says. Forgiveness also doesn’t justify or excuse what the other person did. Rather, it helps achieve a sense of peace.
For something as universal and consequential as sleep it’s remarkable how little attention it receives. We all do it; we’re all bound by it. Yet we never stop to think about how we spend nearly a third of our lives. That’s where journalist David K. Randall comes in.
Randall is the author of Dreamland, an insightful new book with a fresh perspective on the strange science of sleep. An unfortunate case of sleepwalking drove Randall to write Dreamland. After finding himself collapsed in a hallway, hurt and confused and not knowing how he managed to stray thirty feet from his bedroom, Randall visited the doctor to curb a history of midnight adventures. The diagnosis revealed an unsatisfying reality: there’s a lot we don’t know about sleep.
The takeaway is plain to see: sleep is necessary for a sharp mind. Yet, Randall also found a surprising amount of cases where consequential mistakes boiled down to a lack of sleep […]
Of course, there’s much more to Randall’s book than this reminder and the research I’ve mentioned. Stories from scientists, dream clubs and even people who have committed crimes while sleepwalking fill the rest of the pages. And in contrast to many popular science books Randall’s tone is humble. He’s an outsider looking in, welcoming anyone willing to join him. I recommend doing just that.
Looks like yet another interesting book to add to my to-read list.
The algebra is an interesting exercise. but as the first commenter points out, how do the coffees compare on taste?
The pursuit of happiness is as old as modern civilization. Books, elixers, religions, and philosophies are all devoted to it. Happiness is a quest, an obsession, and a universal aspiration.
But what does it take to be unhappy?
In some ways, it’s easier than happiness itself. New research and much life experience offers a simple recipe for genuine discontent.
Here’s the (unconventional) list:
• Buy things you can’t afford or don’t want.
• Compare yourself to others.
• Take no joy in the journey.
• Respond instead of initiate.
• Allow other people to determine your values and priorities.
• Refuse to challenge yourself.
• Focus only on yourself.
• Settle.
[…]
Happiness may require more than pithy quotations on Twitter and a good sleep cycle, but unhappiness is fairly simple.
Continuing my research into what motivates highly respected achievers, I’ve come across a few gleaming nuggets of a subject that eludes most of us – what makes some people truly love their jobs.
The ten reasons listed are:
They seldom feel disconnected from the challenge that first engaged their interest.
They’re remarkably well-attuned to the “early years.”
They are “portfolio” thinkers.
They don’t care what you think.
They are born succession planners.
They will stay…but just know, they’ll also leave.
They won’t be stopped.
They draw people to them without even trying.
They live in the now.
They never, ever limit their vision to serve the interests of petty competition.
Read the article in full for more details.