A Nation of Time Wasters?

Statistics are an easy way to organize your thinking. It improves attention span, comprehension and long-term memory. Here’s a good one: 78% of readers skip- over boring statistics unless they are masters of the subject discussed.

Get this: the Gallup poll researchers find the majority of Republicans (51%+) are not convinced of Evolution. Many interviewed are insulted Darwin suggested there are ancestor monkeys in our genome.

So what, it’s a free country, as long as they are not voting on the educational curriculum, right?

Continuing right along on statistics: U.S. employees (according to time/effort engineers) waste a minimum of two (2) hours daily. This is in addition to lunch hour and two additional breaks.

It breaks down to: 45% spend their two hours surfing the web, 23% socializing about sports and romantic involvements, 7% attending to their personal business, and 4% engaged in snoozing.

Attention

It is easier for scientists to explain Attention Deficit Disorder than simple, basic attention. When you ain't got attention, you cannot focus, concentrate and use your intelligence. The cause of inattention and lack of concentration is distraction.

Attention is derived from Latin meaning to stretch. To date scientists have not explained consciousness; a majority do not agree on the location of consciousness. We can agree that without consciousness – no attention.

In September 2007 the first evidence was offered consciousness is located in the Thalamus area of the brain. Physicians placed a pacemaker (DBS deep brain electrical stimulus) in the thalamus of a patient comatose for six years; and he became conscious, awake and speaking.

Five Degrees of Attention

a) Focused Attention: using your volition to choose to a sensory stimuli and inhibit the distract of others. It’s your decision.

b) Sustained Attention: you must refocus your attention continuously to maintain it.

c) Selective Attention: battle between competing stimuli.

d) Alternating Attention: you have the volition to shift between different stimuli back-and-forth.

e) Divided Attention: multi-tasking successfully.

Intel

Intelligence is the ability to consciously (no robots need apply) focus attention for concentration.

Overt attention is using your volition to direct your senses (eyes-ear-touch) to a specific stimulus. Covert (hidden) attention is when you focus on one of several (five) sensory stimuli. So what? Directed Mental Effort makes perfect.

How we use our eye movements for foveal (sharp, acute vision) or peripheral vision (out-of-the-center) is an example of overt and covert attention. Foveal vision produces six-letter wide sight, while peripheral can access up to 36 letters wide or six-words.

Foveal uses cone and rod photoreceptors to produce sharp vision in color. Peripheral depends on the rod photoreceptors for a wider view. Speed reading depends on both, with peripheral vision dominant.

Executive Attention

Consciousness operates through your cerebral cortex to process cognition, processing your goals independent of your motor and sensory responses.

Google: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous systems of your Autonomic Nervous system.

Sympathetic uses adrenalin (epinephrine) and cortisol for Fight-or-Flight, and Parasympathetic (acetylcholine) balances your nervous system for relaxation.

Our executive attention (a/k/a/ cognitive control and executive function) is located in the parieto-frontal cortex of your brain. It controls your thoughts and actions to create in most us, coherent activities. You function socially to contribute to your society. Executive attention is subject to improvement by training and experience.

Neural Networks

Attention is based on the firing of your synapses. Donald O. Hebb coined a phrase still useful decades later, “the cells that fire together wire together” (permanently into circuits). Experience produces enhanced neuronal firing and you improve in your skills.

Google: D. L. Strayer, 2003 Cell phone induced failures of visual attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 9, 23-32

Let’s Get Crazy

Irrelevant speech (by others) reduces test performance up to 66%. Chatter or music disrupt memory, reasoning and problem solving up to 50%. They produce employee frustration and loss of productivity (up to 30%).

Traced by fMRIs, there are changes in processing by the 8th cranial nerve governing auditory reception and equilibrium (balance). Google: vestibulo-ocular-reflex.

A Powerful Resource

The sound of the phrase Hu as in Hu-man being, relaxes the brain and reduces stress and anxiety. To appreciate the power inherent in repeating Hu –u-u-u for 60 seconds, you must do a thought experiment, not read statistics.

The mantra (focusing sound) Hu, has an ancient history derived from the Sanskrit (Indo-European) word for God. Five thousand year old Egyptian records discuss the use of Hu to reach a higher spiritual state.

Hu is noted by the Sufi Mystic Saints of Tibet, the Druids, and even the Kabbalah as the original sound creating the universe. It has been compared in power to the primary mantra – AUM.

It has been reliably tested to reduce insomnia, induce deep relaxation, and improve attention, long-term memory, and concentration.

We suggest you test it now. Feel the vibrations on your lips, nose and face. Focus simultaneously on producing the Hu sound for 60 seconds with your eyes closed, while being aware of your breathing.

It works equally well with your eyes open or closed, silently or in a humming sound. Students use it prior to exams to avoid the flop-sweats. Executives testify it juices up their presentations. Do your own experiment to verify professional testimonials.

Endwords

An EEG (Electroencephalograph) measures the electrical frequencies of the brain. Beta rhythm: 13 to 40 cycles per second (Hertz); Alpha Rhythms: 8-12 cps (Hz) Theta Rhythms 3-7 cps (Hz); Delta Rhythms 0.5-2.05 cps (Hz).

These four Neurofeedback responses begin with Beta: alert consciousness, to Alpha: eyes closed alert awareness; Theta: deep relaxation and learning integration; Delta: sleeping and dreaming. Attention is a metric of an EEG.

We recommend you 3x your learning speed and 2x your long-term memory for improved efficiency of your Executive Attention. Ask us how.

See ya,

copyright H. Bernard Wechsler www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org
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