Your Brain

Tips on how to improve your mind and boost your learning speed, using the latest technologies and cognitive techniques.

Why Google is NOT “replacing our memory”

By Andrew Cohen, 2/21/2012 at 8:03 am

Ever since a study from Harvard and Columbia was released last summer “proving” that Google is eroding our memories, educators and technophobes alike have been pontificating on what this means for the future of education and the brain. The Twitter-sphere abounds with doomsday tweets about the “googlification” of our brains. Even Mashable recently weighed in on the subject, lamenting that we may “go into withdrawal when we can’t find something online.” With so much at stake, it’s probably worth understanding the actual context of the Harvard study a bit better. (more…)

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Video of the Week: Food to improve memory

By Amanda Moritz, 2/16/2012 at 8:18 am

This week’s video of the week was chosen by Isabell, who shared the food post on Monday about your diet and your brain. If you haven’t read Monday’s post, I highly recommend it.

Food plays an important role in our lives. Yes, we need it to survive, but on top of satisfying our most basic needs it is also important that we supply our bodies and brains with essential nutrients that will keep us healthy and on the ball. And beyond that it is also within our power to achieve more than basic functionality! Some foods are known to be beneficial for your brain, so add fish, berries, leafy greens, and (SURPRISE!) caffeine to your diet.

Watch below for some great tips and information on what foods are good for your memory:

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How to minimize daydreaming at work and school

By Andrew Cohen, 2/14/2012 at 8:10 am

Over the past few decades, much has been written about the proliferation of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) symptoms among American children and adults. Researchers have postulated dozens of causes and potential remedies for the affliction. Some studies show that the cause is mainly genetic and that the only way to truly treat it is therefore through the use of drugs. Other studies show that the cause is mainly environmental and that the elimination of artificial sugar or TV can slowly restore normality to an ADD-affected brain. And other studies even explore whether the cause of today’s ADD epidemic may actually be rooted in the proliferation of food dyes.

Whatever the causes and potential physiological-based remedies for attention deficit, it’s worth stepping back and considering whether our attention spans could actually be improved by some structural changes in our education & work systems, and in our lifestyles. (more…)

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How an Unhealthy Diet Can Shrink Your Brain

By Isabell Collet, 2/13/2012 at 9:00 am

In our blog we keep stressing the importance and benefits of a healthy diet to improve studying and learning and keep our minds sharp. If you’re tired of hearing or skeptical about brain foods, this article might help you reconsider your stance on the subject. Boosting your test performance with healthy and nutritious food is one thing. Actually losing memory and critical thinking abilities due to an unhealthy diet is quite another. But this is exactly what a new study conducted in Oregon seems to prove.

Researchers took blood samples and scanned the brains of test participants whose mental abilities had been previously tested. The test results show that there is in fact a link between an unhealthy diet and lessening cognitive abilities as well as brain volume. While other factors may have a greater effect than food, if you want to stay sharp throughout life you may want to consider laying off the fast food and eating more fruits and vegetables, fish, nuts and seeds. Below we’ve posted the Huffington Post article which discusses the study in detail, so read on to learn more about the findings. (more…)

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Brainscape’s Vision for the Future of Education

By Andrew Cohen, 2/8/2012 at 5:39 pm

You may have already experienced Brainscape as a mobile education tool that helps you study things more efficiently using intelligent flashcards. If so, thanks for being one of our “early adopters!” Brainscape’s adaptive study algorithm has already helped over one million people like you do things like ace a test or learn a foreign language faster than you ever thought possible.

Yet there’s so much more innovation left to be done in education. Intelligent flashcards can cover only a small part of the knowledge and skills you want to acquire. People deserve a world where any bite-sized learning experience can be made available at their fingertips and delivered seamlessly into their brain. Until Apple invents the iBrain to embed knowledge into our skulls in the year 2025, people deserve to know that every moment of learning time is used as efficiently as possible!

Putting on our science fiction hats for a moment, let’s design a future Personal Learning System that truly optimizes learning. (more…)

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How Much Caffeine Do You Consume?

By Isabell Collet, 2/7/2012 at 8:31 am

Are you among the people who need a cup of coffee to start the day? And then a second one later on to get through the day? Well, why not?

One of the benefits of caffeine is the boost in alertness it gives us, which is exactly what we seek first thing in the morning. If you’re not exactly a morning person, a stimulus to the nervous system might be needed to allow you to function the way you want to and need to. But what about those negative side effects coffee and other caffeinated beverages have? (more…)

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How To Successfully Change Your Habits

By Isabell Collet, 1/31/2012 at 8:31 am

How to Successfully Change habits Like every year, New Year’s and all that it entails has come and gone. Did you make a resolution? Did you stick to it? If you did in fact not succeed, shame on you! We gave you such great tips and offered all the necessary incentive; there really is no excuse. … Except for the fact that changing your habits in order to change your life is probably one of the greatest challenges we can face. It is never easy to kick a long-standing habit, even if we know that the end result will be rewarding on many levels. If it is not the incentive we’re missing, there are numerous other things that can trip us up along the way. In fact, our own happiness and confidence can turn out to be the greatest enemy. David DiSalvo wrote a book on this subject entitled What Makes Your Brian Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite. His fellow bloggers at Psychology Today reviewed the science-help guide and excerpted below are a few tips on how not to fall into that happy trap. Read through the advice and armed with this knowledge, why not give it another shot and finally break your habit? (more…)

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Why We Forget

By Isabell Collet, 1/26/2012 at 10:17 am

When presidential candidate Rick Perry was not able to name one of the governmental agencies he wants to abolish during an infamous presidential debate this fall, the public’s reaction covered a wide range from sympathetic to outright gleeful at the flub. While his supporters would have liked to cite neurological problems as responsible for the lapse , critics just saw it as proof that the Republican does not know his own politics. So why did he forget when he needed to remember? (more…)

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How to improve your long term memory

By Amanda Moritz, 1/24/2012 at 1:37 pm

The Guardian’s recent recap of how long-term memories are encoded, how they decay, and how to strengthen these memories is right on point. It’s great to read such a succinct summary of why repetition intervals are so important to best remember what you’ve learned. A great review of Ebbinghaus’s original findings and how to practice your memory now.

From the Guardian:

“During the 19th century, Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist, spent more than 15 years learning random strings of nonsense syllables, and testing himself on their recall. What he found has become one of the few certainties of neuroscience: namely, that all memories grow continuously weaker, but that the rate of “decay” lessens each time you review the information. Ebbinghaus found that the ideal time to review a memory is just before you are about to forget it.”

You can view an entire series of articles and memory games on the Guardian: Maximising your memory.

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How Memory Works: an Infographic

By Isabell Collet, 1/19/2012 at 8:32 am

For our blog’s sections on ‘Your Brain‘ and ‘Test Prep‘, we’re always on the lookout for great articles, videos and charts on memory and retention. By helping you understand how our brains work, we want to allow you to try different approaches to studying that will hopefully help you become better learners for life.

Over time, we’ve compiled articles on brain foods, how motivation and memory works, methods for better retention, … If we take a look at the sum of all articles and areas of interest, it seems obvious that there should be one chart that combines all of these elements that make up and influence our memory. Thanks to onlinecolleges.com, there now is. (more…)

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