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How paper can make your life better

10/3/2018

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Did you abandon your paper planner and calendars for the efficiencies of an electronic calendar? Have you forsaken analogue clocks in favour of digital ones? Is your brain overwhelmed with juggling bits of information and doing mental calculations?

While electronic calendars and digital clocks certainly have advantages, the downside is that for many people, they take longer for the brain to interpret. A paper calendar or planner can give you a broader context by organizing information in a visual way. (Often, an electronic calendar on a phone can be viewed only one small piece at a time, taxing your working memory as you mentally piece together the bigger picture.)

Similarly, an analogue clock can help your brain visualize the passage of time. When you see a digital clock, you need to do a quick mental calculation to figure out that you need to leave the house in 15 minutes. With an analogue clock, however, you can instantly picture a quarter of an hour because you know what a quarter of a circle looks like. While that quick calculation isn't a lot of effort, it can be one piece of information too many when you're also juggling shopping lists, packing for the day, sending kids off to school, or thinking about a problem that tasks your emotional energy.

Paper and electronic calendars can work very well in tandem. The electronic ones help you to collaborate with other people, and they can be programmed to give you auditory cues when an appointment or meeting is imminent. Paper calendars and planners can help you see the bigger picture, contain to-do lists in a consistent place, and give you a space to physically and visually plan large projects. (And besides all that, your important project information is backed up in case you drop your phone in a puddle!)

Try using Post-It notes on a large wall calendar to plan out when milestones in a project need to be completed. Another idea is to use stickers, icons, or doodles to visually represent tasks. At home, this can also be a very effective way to help children track their responsibilities.


Do you use a paper planner or calendar?

Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen.
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Change your brain for the better

9/11/2018

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Just what is mindfulness meditation, anyway? Perhaps you think of it as some kind of new-agey, feel-good relaxation technique. Or perhaps you think of it as sitting still and trying to clear your mind of all thoughts. These are typical misconceptions of what mindfulness really is.


 
In a nutshell, mindfulness is the antidote to our hyper-connected, frenetic, distracting electronic world. We’re used to letting our thoughts and our attention jump from one subject to another, responding to whatever stimulus comes along. Mindfulness meditation is active training in the discipline of focus. While meditation has roots in Buddhism and Hinduism, you don’t need to follow a religious tradition to give it a try.
 
Mindfulness is a practice, a state, and a trait. The "practice" is regularly taking time, as little as 5 minutes a day, to actively focus on a point of awareness. This is often the breath, but it can also be alert listening to the sounds happening in the moment, observing visual details, or simply noticing feelings and thoughts as they come and go. When these moments of awareness happen more and more in our lives, it becomes a “state” of being. And with continued, deliberate practice, mindfulness can also become a “trait”, as meditation starts to rewire the brain. Mindfulness practice physically changes how various brain regions communicate, and therefore, how we think. In fact, there is scientific evidence to back this up.
 
One 2012 study[1] used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study people with no previous mindfulness training, comparing scans before and after they took part in an 8-week meditation intervention. The scans were conducted while subjects were in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Researchers found that after 8 weeks, the amygdala, that region of the brain associated with the "fight or flight" stress response, appeared less reactive compared to a control group. This shows that brain changes persisted even when not meditating. A 2011 study[2] showed that mindfulness practice resulted in growth in brain regions involved in learning and memory, emotional regulation, and perspective taking.
 
There are many other studies suggesting mindfulness meditation training can improve attention and emotional regulation, reduce anxiety, and diminish physical reactions to stress. It can help us to keep our attention on the things that matter, cultivating the ability to discern what to respond to, and what to simply watch pass by.
 
Mindfulness meditation is simple, although that doesn't mean it's easy. At its core, the practice can be reduced to two simple questions:
  1. Where is my attention now?
  2. Where do I want my attention to be?
 
To begin, sit comfortably and choose a point of focus, such as the feeling of your breath in your nostrils. Concentrate on the sensation of the breath as it comes and goes. When you notice your thoughts have wandered (and they will!), gently, and without judgment bring your attention back to the breath. The whole practice is about repeatedly "failing" and bringing attention back to the breath, "failing" (where is my attention now?), and returning (where do I want my attention to be?).  The success is the instant you notice that your mind has wandered, so expect many successes! 
 
If you're ready to give it a try, there are many resources, from local meditation classes to websites and even apps for your phone. It's easy to start. Why not give it a try?



[1] Gaëlle Desbordes et al, Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state, 2012

[2] Britta K. Hölzel et al, Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density, 2011
Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen
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How to learn just about anything

8/17/2018

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Have you heard of “growth mindset”? It’s a concept identified by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck over 30 years ago that now has decades of research behind it. In a nutshell, growth mindset is the belief that your intelligence, talents, and abilities are not fixed traits, and that you can actually become smarter through effort. 

The opposite of growth mindset is “fixed mindset", the belief that talent and intelligence are traits you are born with, and can’t do much to change. A fixed mindset believes in the “natural musician” or the “born athlete”, and may believe that someone born without those traits will never be as good as those born with innate talents.

Facing a situation with a growth mindset makes it possible to see mistakes not as failures, but as opportunities to learn where to direct your attention and practice. Growth mindset makes it possible to continue your efforts, even when a new skill is frustrating or difficult.

Having a fixed mindset, on the other hand, may lead to not wanting to admit to failures or difficulties, because this brings our intelligence into question. It can lead to cheating in order to save face and preserve a particular image, to laying blame on outside factors, or not putting in effort at all, since effort feels like a waste of energy. A fixed mindset turns mistakes into “evidence” of not being good enough.

This may be a controversial statement, but you probably have a fixed mindset.

That’s because virtually all of us actually have “mixed” mindsets. On some days, or on some topics, we are more open to trying and failing and trying again. In other areas, we give up fairly quickly, rather than seeking support or trying new strategies.

If you’ve ever said, “I’m just not good at X”, that is a fixed mindset statement. If that “X” would be a valuable skill for you, try changing your self talk to “I’m just not good at X… yet.” That may take courage, and it opens up the doors to skills you may never have thought it was possible for you to learn.

In her book Yarn: Remembering the Way Home, knitter Kyoko Mori writes, “The folklore among knitters is that everything handmade should have at least one mistake so an evil spirit will not become trapped in the maze of perfect stitches.” The mistake is “a crack left open to let in the light.” Mori goes on to name the “evil spirit” she wants to be free of: “It’s that little voice in my head that says, ‘I won’t even try this because it doesn’t come naturally to me and I won’t be very good at it.’”

Perhaps she doesn’t realize it, but Mori is describing the fixed mindset! When might you have heard that little voice in your head, too?
Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen​​
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Add meaning for memory

6/12/2018

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In 1987, four researchers[1] identified the "Baker-baker" paradox. In their experiment, subjects were asked to learn the names and occupations belonging to unfamiliar faces. The result? The researchers found recalling names was much harder than recalling occupations. In fact, people found it easier to remember that a person was a baker, than it was to remember that a person's name was Baker, even though it's the same word.

In further experiments, the researchers showed that occupations are easier to remember because we can associate them with ideas or memories that are meaningful to us. When you hear that a man is a baker, you associate him with all kinds of ideas about what that means: he bakes bread, his workplace smells fantastic, maybe he even wears a funny white hat. 

But the name Baker isn't really associated with anything except with the stranger's face, which isn't particularly meaningful to you.

How can we use this information? If you want to get better at remembering names, you need to add meaning.

Here are four simple steps to getting better at remembering names.

1. Pay attention
First, remember to be mindful and pay attention. If you're thinking about what you're going to say next in the conversation, the person's name won't even enter your short-term memory. Focus and repeat the name back. Ask for the spelling or for a last name if that helps you to focus.

2. Add meaning
In your mind, add meaning to the name. You can think of an object that sounds similar (a garden for Gordon, a stove for Steve). You can think of someone else you know who has the same name (like your brother John, or your best friend Angela). Or find a rhyme for the name (Jane rhymes with chain, Leigh rhymes with flea). Turning the name into something visual can be especially powerful. (Garden, stove, your brother, chain, flea are all things that you can visualize.)

If you yourself have an unusual name, you can help others by adding meaning for them. Actress Soairse Ronan helps people to remember the pronunciation of her unusual name by saying, "SIR-shah, like 'inertia'". I often help people to remember my name by providing the visual: "Fawn, like the baby deer."

3. Pick out a distinctive feature
What is an interesting feature of the other person? Does he have large ears? Does she have a streak of white in her hair? Do they have big dimples?

Now attach that meaningful name to that visual cue. Mike with big ears could have microphones in his ears. Jane might have a chain in her white streak. Gordon's big dimples might have flower gardens growing in them. The more ridiculous the better; your brain loves to remember novel images.

4. Review
In our last blog post, we described how effortful retrieval is key to remembering in the long term. At the end of an event or at the end of the day, ask yourself, "Who did I meet today?" Take the time to revisualize the name and the key feature of the person to anchor them in your mind.


Does this sound like a lot of work? It certainly does take more effort than forgetting! But let this thought encourage you: unlike your shoe size, your memory is not fixed. Memory is something you can grow. So while this is more work, remember that you are training to get a better and more powerful brain. The steps above take just a few extra seconds. Get into the habit, and you'll be on your way to growing your brain and your memory, not to mention impressing everyone you meet when you remember their name.


[1] McWeeny, Young, Hay, & Ellis, Putting names to faces, British Journal of Psychology, 1987

Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen.
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How forgetting is good for your brain

5/2/2018

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It’s one of life’s most frustrating experiences: that feeling that you know something – or at least that you used to know something – and now you can’t quite call it up. It might be a person’s name, or where you last put down your keys or your glasses, but any way you slice it, the result is frustration or even embarrassment.
 
In those moments, it might also be hard to remember that it’s actually good for your brain to forget things.
 
Why? Well, there are at least two reasons.
 
First, you encounter so much information every day, it’s not useful to remember it all. Temporarily remembering today’s weather forecast, or the room number for that appointment, is relevant only for a short time, so it’s useful to retain it for that short period, and then throw it out.
 
Second, your brain’s natural forgetfulness helps you to train it to distinguish between what is important and what isn’t.
 
When you are learning something new, the new information first goes into your short-term memory. Think of your short-term memory as a small basket that can hold only a handful of items. As you go about your day, you need to keep putting new things into your basket, so you take some things out to make room.
 
Uh-oh! You’ve started to forget that new thing you’ve learned! So you retrace your steps to go pick it back up again. When you do that, you start to carve a path in your brain to that piece of information. In brain science terms, this effortful retrieval helps to strengthen the neural pathways to that piece of information. Regularly engaging in effortful retrieval of a particular piece of information strengthens your ability to recall it, and gradually moves it into long-term memory.
 
It’s not as effective to retrieve or repeat information that is still in your short-term memory (which is like putting something into your basket, pulling it back out, putting it back in again) because even though it feels like you know it, it hasn’t been moved into your long-term memory and the learning is superficial. It's soon going to get crowded out of your basket as you move onto some other activity.
 
To really get something into your long-term memory, you need spaced repetition. You need to practice retrieving that piece of information over time, forgetting it just enough between retrievals that it takes a little bit of work, so you can strengthen that neural pathway. This is like creating a trail through the bush. You have to keep walking that path and clearing the weeds and branches out of the way to get the trail clear.
 
Over time, your brain also combines related bits of information together into more complex structures so that you can access those chunks as a whole rather than as separate things. Now you are becoming an expert!
 
Knowing all this might help you to understand why practice and study affect your brain, but how does it help you remember names or where you put your glasses? In our next blog post, we’ll look at some strategies for improving memory.

Audio read and recorded by Fawn Fritzen.
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AURORA Workshops are created and presented by LDAY Centre for Learning
  • ABOUT
    • THE TEAM
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