Testing and Learning Secret
If you ever sit for the SAT, GRE, MCAT, GMAT or LSAT there is a secret strategy
(no fooling) to raise your scores up to 14%. If you are a student or an executive and
want to ace your learning and memory around 14% the same secret strategy works.
Where do you live? We all live in the Knowledge Economy, where people communicate coast-to-coast and internationally for instant gratification. Skype
permits us to telephone without regard to cost. Video clips are as common as stars in the sky. Downloading first-run movies is already available. On-line viewing in HD and 3-D are on the horizon.
The underbelly of Surfing the Net is the number of executives suffering chronic stress because of Information-Overload and Knowledge-Asphyxiation. Dry-Eye and
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome affect kids and adults world-wide.
Jump back to the year 2,000: Email and Instant Messaging were a novelty and 85% of us had telephone-dialup to the Internet. Can anyone predict our communication future when computer memory is in hundreds of gigabytes?
The Secret
Are you surprised to know that 65% of Americans are seriously overweight?
How about 55% of Israeli students are high school dropouts?
Question: Can you be successful in your field and be obese and under-educated?
Answer: If you train yourself to master a useful area of knowledge and make
it your nano-niche, your expertise will shines brighter than your
appearance and lack of formal education.
Yale Medical School scientist Tamas Horvath says hunger is the secret weapon to
being smarter, acing exams, learning and memory.
Huh?
For those who must know where the feet grow from, the hormone Ghrelin is produced by our stomach lining only when there is no food being churned and
digested. Ghrelin shows up in our hypothalamus which registers emptiness and
hunger, and also in our hippocampus helping consolidate memory and learning.
Ghrelin activates both left and right hemispheres. Logic and reasoning together
with pattern recognition and spatial organization are changed for the better
by Ghrelin. More Ghrelin flows in the absence of food.
Intelligence
Hunting and gathering required group cooperation and the knowledge of
seasons. Farming followed with the group of protein containing crops of
wheat and barley, rice and legumes. The great breakthrough was maintaining
flocks of goats, sheep and cows because of their concentrated proteins.
The ancients used their domesticated creatures as a supplier of food, clothing and the accumulation of wealth on the hoof. Many scientists believe greater population growth increased our requirement for more powerful memory and learning skills.
More mouths to feed in a village required increased intelligence in building shelters,
raising and processing food and maintaining a water supply.
When you are hungry you are driven by your brain stem and basal ganglia to fill
the void in your stomach. When you stay hungry and sit for an exam or study both
halves of your brain are focused on getting a reward.
The neurotransmitter Dopamine causes us to seek rewards. When you consciously set a goal of eating hardily after your exam or study session your mind and body cooperate to motivate your efforts.
Thinking Leads to Behaviors
Linking your desire of learning or acing your test with mild hunger gives you the
competitive edge. No Hershey Bar with its carbos for you because it will reduce
the flow of Ghrelin. Your goal requires all your Attention, Interest and Desire.
Use your volition (will power) to maintain hunger and you create your learning
state of mind.
Part of your success is creating a mental visualization that drives you
to a winning emotional-state. Attitude, state of mind and your emotions work
together for successful test-taking and learning.
All this applies to sitting for an interview. Do not eat before an important interview
or presentation. You can have your favorite liquid but no sugar.
Endwords
Our learning and memory are driven by adrenaline and dopamine. We need a surge
of adrenaline to get us in the Flow (in the Zone), and dopamine to offer us pleasure
as a reward. Finally, hunger may lead us away from endemic obesity.
May we suggest elevating your skills for learning and memory through speed reading. Would you have the competitive-edge and be in the fast-lane in your career
by reading-and-remembering three-times as much as your peers?
Imagine reading three books articles and reports in the time others can hardly finish one, and remember the gist of it with double your present memory.
Check it out and remember Ghrelin your hormonal competitive edge.
Oh yeah, the scientific report is in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, 2006.
See ya,
copyright © 2006
H. Bernard Wechsler
http://www.speedlearning.org
Author of Speed Reading For Professionals published by Barron's; partner with Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating 2 million including the White House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.
Interviewed for articles by the Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine.
http://www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org
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