BRAIN BOOSTING TOOLS

In this video, Tim Ferriss, the renowned author of the 4-Hour Workweek and entrepreneur clearly explains the steps to speed reading to increase your reading speed by at least 50%. Like everything else, speed reading requires a bit of practice to be mastered but essentially the steps are:

1. Use peripheral vision to focus on the centre of the page

2. Track the words with a pacer to avoid the eyes jumping

3. Practice reading faster at 90% comprehension to then go back to a lower speed.

Improve your memory

Nishant Kasibhatla is a memory Grand Master and holds a Guinness World record for memorising over 2000 digits, yet as a child, he could not even remember 5 digits telephone numbers, so how does he do it? The good news is that memory can be trained to perform better as long as you follow the right process of attention, comprehension, visualisation and recall, explained in the attached pdf.

Meditate for 5 minutes per day

Research shows that 13 minutes of meditation daily for several weeks increase concentration for several hours afterwards but for Teens 5 minutes is a very good start. Find somewhere comfortable, put your headphones on and focus on breathing every time your mind wanders. Here is a selection of some good meditations you can try:

Then and put a reminder on your phone to make it a daily practice.

Use self-control & willpower wisely

Roy Baumeister has been researching will power and self-control for over 4 decades coming up with interesting lab experiments. The results are that:

1. Everyone has a finite amount of willpower and it gets depleted as you use it

2. You use the same stock of willpower for all tasks

Self control is therefore like a muscle and you should decide when it is is worth exercising and when it is better to have pre-set rules to automate some of your decisions and focus on what is important. Make a list of all the temptations that you come across daily and think of which ones you can eliminate.

Do you struggle to remember instructions or to do mental maths?

Working memory is the very short term memory we use when we have to hold a number in our head to make a calculation or remember the question when we answer it. Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience in Stockholm, shows in his studies that working memory can be improved and increased by 15% to 20% after training. Try the Simon game online on in the app and if you score less than 8 then spend 5 minutes practicing for a week or 2. But if you score 8 straight away then don't waste your time, do something more useful for you!

Improve your focus with 40 Hz Gamma Binaural Beats

Studies have shown that listening to Gamma Binaural Beats with headphones twice a week for an hour improves mood, memory and cognition. Other studies showed that after listening to Gamma Beats for 20 minutes, recalled words were increased in the working memory. So I'd say you have nothing to loose in trying if it saves your time learning your vocabulary!

Put a reminder with the link to this music on your phone for 2 school work sessions per week to see the results already after a couple of weeks.

Do you need a dopamine detox?

Are you constantly checking your phone? Do you play video games or spend more time on social media or Youtube than you'd want to? Do you struggle to focus on other tasks like homework, having a normal conversation or going out for dinner? If the answer is yes, it probably means that you need a dopamine detox. Watch this video to understand what happens in your brain with instant rewards and let me know if you are able to do a 1 day, 2 days or 3 days detox.