Sandra H. Rodman, CEO, Right Brain Aerobics
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| Photo Courtesy MayaHennessey.com |
Fundamentally, Right Brain Aerobics is "mental techniques," and those very techniques cause more "new techniques" to pop up too. In college, I can't remember a "Mental Techniques 101" course yet that's what we needed! At 70, it's needed more! Now I'm trying to do "deep dive" learning into new social media and blogweb techniques -- but if there are 10 new programs/apps a week to enjoy your Twitter experience more, there are at 100! So I decided to just USE these Right Brain techniques to learn them and discovered that other wisdom started sprouting from the right brain. New things like TweetDeck, Lost at EMinor and 12Ahead were entering my mindscape beyond learning--and I was having fun! For your "adventures in learning" try:
3 Right Brain Ways to Learn Something New & Not Go Ughhh!
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| Example: Stereo-Braining: What we in Right Brain Aerobics like doing: Activate Right Brain + Integrate: with Left Brain = Stereobraining |
Turn the Terms into Art or Sketches -- or Try "SketchNote Handbook"
Here's where that "doodling" habit you have can pay off. At the least:
Write the new terms, words, phrases and doodle all sort of cool things around them, turning it all into something new. You imprint the shape, textures of the words this way in the mind differently.
Savants have long since been known to be able to perform amazing mental feats reporting that they "see" the answer in textures, patterns, colors, shapes, and more. Doodling and Making Art of What You Learn = A Doorway to Savantness... It also "fires up" more creativity in the mind about what you're learning: You're not just memorizing, your experiencing the essence of the new thing and it can thus more readily stand out in your knowledge banks...
So: Don't just "take notes" learning something new, Draw & Doodle them!
You might also like "The SketchNote Handbook." - a new startup. This will get you to "journal" more with your pen and that seriously activates the right brain to help the left remember together... Quote from Steve Jobs' Sister, Mona Simpson, in her beautiful eulogy to Steve:
"For the really big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on this sketchpad."2. Study the New Thing Outside in Nature: Anchor Learning with All 5 Senses.
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| Photo Credit: S.H. Rodman |
You will remember the smells and temperature and richer sights associated with the learning subject/ experience; you will remember the sounds you heard, the temperature and emotions you felt, the taste of the air... It is richer for the brain -- and a richer landscape for the new material you try to learn.
Anchor "words" with all 5 Senses and watch new "knowledge" arrive: Take those new terms, that formula, and assign a taste, smell, color, temperature to each. If you put a list of 5 things with 5#'s and write them in 5 different colors you are apt to "see" more about them and "experience" them integrally not just see them as separate objects having nothing to do with you personally. THrough 5-sense anchors this becomes more "personal learning." And it is likely to prompt your "Inner Genius" to unexpectedly pop up an even wider range of qualities or symbols--even new meaning and analysis that you would never have explored otherwise.
This is not memorizing but Natural Sensory Learning, "feeling" and "chewing" on the material reinventing it -- beyond a string of words in a list.
3. Put a Hat on It.
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| iStock Photos |
Take one of the key concepts or vocabulary or formulas you're trying to learn and understand and: "Put a Hat on it."
This means you have to "think" about it both consciously and subconsciously and consider what "kind" of hat to put on it; what color is the hat, what does it make you think of, is it a hat you'd like to wear?
If you put a hat on it, you may want to give it a Name & Make a Logo.
Imagine learning Trig by putting a Hat on the Key Formulas and giving them each their own Names... Really: Wouldn't you have a lot "friendlier feeling" about Trig? And while you're at it, put a hat on Trig too -- Call it Sam or Iphegenia! You'll never forget it.
This applies to reading dense training Manuals, learning new Code, or studying Chinese, French, or Business English!
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That's 3 Tips for Today. If you're a Right Brain Aerobics Graduate, use Inner Genius or 6 Impossible Things tomorrow and YOU try to pop up 3 new Right Brain Tips for your journey! Send them to us and we might feature them in future Right Brain Blogs...
Sandra Rodman
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| Photo Credit: S.H. Rodman |
Sandra H. Rodman, CEO, Right Brain Aerobics
Email Sandra Rodman
Follow us on @SHRodman Twitter, Google+, Pinterest
(c) 2013, S.H. Rodman.
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