Life Has No Limitz

Pumping Neurons

29/2/2016

Almost anywhere you look these days, someone is touting the benefits of exercise in enhancing one's mental process. Pump up your brain while lifting weights. Walk 30 minutes each day to pump all that nourishment into your brain. Try new things. Meet new people. Just don't watch TV and don't stay home alone.

It may not be quite that simple but there is enough evidence accumulating to believe that staying active in our bodies almost magically boosts our mental abilities and helps us stay sharp indefinitely.

List, we must always have a list. So here we go,

Things To Exercise Your Brain
(From Psychology, by Hockenbery, Hockenbery and Nolan).

Get regular aerobic exercise.
Seek out social interaction, don't hide in your room or apartment.
Learn to play a musical instrument. An iPhone doesn't count.
Take a class in a field outside your college major or in a new area.
Read widely - books, journals.
Try puzzles of any kind - word, number, mazes, matching
Unplug your television set.

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Endlose Streit - Sicheren Sieg

23/2/2016

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Who Do You Want To Be

21/2/2016

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Who do you want to be? Or what do you want to be? A doctor. A lawyer. An engineer. A chef. Anything is possible. It just takes commitment and effort.

Behavior, motivation, sensory input, executive function, drive, grit, satisfaction.
Just do it.

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Kick Back Day

20/2/2016

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Today was a great day to kick back and relax. The sky was clear and the temperature truly balmy – almost hot. It is definitely a strange year in the weather arena.

I had a chance to read leisurely in my Psychology text. Experiments and studies, data collection and reduction. Statistics, correlation coefficients, skewed distributions, equations. It was all a lot of fun and very relaxing.

I learned the great value of landing in the control group – you don’t have to record tons and tons of data. And how you can add “power” to a survey by either adding a lot more questions – especially asking the same thing in different ways – or surveying a larger sample of people.

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Homework

19/2/2016

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How many times have we heard students complaining about homework? Let me tell you, as a new student, homework these days is fun. Maybe that should even be FUN.

This week we had a reading assignment in our massive text book. However, we got to go online to something called “BlackBoard” and print out an outline of the chapter. Our assignment was to fill in the blanks and tables in the outline as we read the text. How easy is that? Piece of cake.

Even better, on BlackBoard we can access the same set of slides used by the instructor in class. And even better yet, there are linked in videos to watch – lots of them. The only thing not flowing from the school’s website is popcorn – and I have plenty of that in the kitchen.

This psychology stuff is all right. And school is more fun than ever.

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I and Me

18/2/2016

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I and Me

The two most powerful words in the English language are “I” and “me”.

It is especially interesting how these inward pointing words have the most power when used in an outward pointing context.

“I” understand how you feel.

Let “me” help you.

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Back In School

17/2/2016

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I almost titled this “Back to the Salt Mine” but it seemed that Back In School was actually better. Today was my first day in a class room as an enrolled student, yes taking a class, in 23 years. It was fun. It was interesting. And things have certainly changed.

Last fall, I read a book called The 10 Minute Cognitive Workout. I was skeptical, but I tried it and got amazing results. And quickly – almost instantly. This book explained a thing called cognitive reprogramming. Reprogram the executive centers in your brain and the rest of you body falls into line. It really only takes 10 minutes each day. It really works. I’ll describe my experiences, tests, and trials in other posts.

Having been bitten by the bug of unexpectedly good results, I did a little reading and found this other thing called neuroplasticity. In neuroplasticity, our brain is constantly changing and adapting to the things and environments we experience. And to make things even sweeter, our brain is constantly growing new brain cells. So, if we are going to tend a garden lets go for a great crop.

I sat today in that purposefully uncomfortable student desk and took the first lecture in my Psychology 101 course. (It is 102 in the course catalog but that just indicates a way better introductory class). The professor launched us off with the usual line “so much to cover, so little time” – don’t be disappointed – which is secret academic speak for I am going to kick your butt and if you can keep up you will learn a lot.

My hover board is stowed away. My text book at the ready. In class today, I see that most material is introduced on the web and not in the classroom. You can literally drown in all the stuff a department staff can link into a course web page. But hey, we’re paying for this and a lot of the posted stuff is really good. I haven’t experienced online quizzes yet or take home exams or papers written in the internet age. It will be fun. Psychologically, I’ll probably finish as a better man. Or at least a smarter man.

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Pumping Neurons

Endlose Streit - Sicheren Sieg

Who Do You Want To Be

Kick Back Day

Homework

I and Me

Back In School

On Learning

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