How to Get a Better Memory


There are some days when cramming works - and there are more days when they don't. Wouldn't it be great if you could just simply retain in your brain all the things you've been taught, so that when test time comes, you don't have to fall all over yourself trying to re-learn and remember them the night before?

Well, believe it or not, there are actually ways in which you can hold information more securely and permanently in your brain. The first thing that you have to do is get cramming out of the equation. Then, try these tips to remember things better:

1. Establish a study habit. The key word is "regular". Learning a little bit at a time, regularly, gives your brain ample time to fully absorb, understand, and retain all the information that you want to memorize. There is actually a study that shows the human brain is only capable of memorizing between five to nine items at a time, so do expect to memorize the ninety-nine facts you will need to ace your test all in one study session.

2. Make mnemonics. What are the colours of the rainbow? ROYGBIV - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. It's an old school trick, and one reason why it's still around is it works.

Mnemonics don't have to be sophisticated; they don't have to form real words. They're just a way to compress the things you have to remember. For instance, in the case of ROYGBIV, you don't have to remember seven colours anymore; you just have to remember one thing: ROYGBIV. And what does it stand for? Well, it's not too hard to think of colours that start with R, O, Y, G, B, I, and V, right?

3. Sing it out. The more your brain has to hold on to, the better it can hold on. This applies to things you need to learn. When you sing out a list, you are giving your brain something extra to hold on to - tune.

Besides, when you sing something, it becomes a little more fun, and fun is one more thing the brain is able to hold on to. You remember fun days more than boring days, right?

4. Write it down. The more parts of your body are involved in learning something, the better you can learn that thing and retain the knowledge. Now it may be too much to ask you to actually perform a procedure being described in your book (although if you could, that would help you remember it even better!), but it's not too much to ask you to write it down.

When you write things down, even if you just copy the text in the book, you are forced to process the words and the thoughts more carefully and thoroughly than if you just read them. This thorough processing helps you understand and remember things better.

5. If all else fails, repeat, repeat, repeat. Everything becomes easier with repetition. Remember the first time you read Shakespeare? We'll bet that half of the text made no sense to you that first time. And of course, it's pretty hard to remember something you don't understand in the first place.

But if you kept on reading Shakespeare, you would have found (or you did find) that the sentences actually made sense - in fact, they were beautiful. Pretty soon, you'll be "Oh Romeo"-ing like the best of them.

This is a level of learning you achieve simply by repeatedly reading a piece of text. It's pretty effective - but it takes time.

Well, we told you we'd teach you ways to help you remember things better. We never promised any shortcuts. Anyway, in this world, shortcuts are seldom the best way to do things. Remember that.

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Article  :By Louise Goldstein

The Most Important 6 Benefits of Music Homeschooling

As a blogger mom, I have some free time on my hands, and I like to get involved in the education of my kids. When I first decided they need to have music included in their homeschooling routine, I must admit that I thought about the expenses I will cut since paying for a tutor can be pretty expensive. Public schools are not doing the best for teaching kids, and I do not have that much trust in the way they approach the educational needs of the young ones.

Kids no longer have to leave home to learn music

One of the most important benefits I noticed right away was that my kids no longer had to leave home in order to visit their teacher. I must say that I am more at peace now, knowing that they do not have to travel across the town just to get to their teacher.

A lifetime benefit

Learning music can be very beneficial on the long term. This is the type of discipline that I have always wanted to learn, but, as a child, my parents could not afford it. I know that my kids, while learning how to play the piano, will gain a benefit that will last a lifetime.

Children learn at their own pace

A thing that I was not so crazy about when it came to sending my kids away to learn music from their teacher was that they did not took the same time to learn the same things. My daughter, who is three years younger than my boy seems to have trouble grasping certain concepts when trying to understand certain notes, while my son is much more proficient in learning new things. Now, that they are at home, I help them whenever they need, and I do not have to keep one from advancing in learning, while I aid the other to understand the new stuff.

Cutting down costs

As I have already mentioned, cutting down the costs was a very strong factor that influenced my decision to start offer my kids homeschooling for music classes, instead of paying for the expensive services of a professional teacher.

A creative activity

Music theory may sound like a boring thing, but this is where I try to make things more interesting for my kids. Besides teaching them about intervals, keys and interval numbers, I also stimulate them to try to create something themselves. I believe that giving them the opportunity to play the piano while letting them fool around a bit with what they have learned will grant them the ability to get involved into a creative activity that will help them later in life. Besides being an enjoyable activity, I think it will help them think more freely about life in general.

The advantage of online courses

Of course, the question that I must answer to, first and foremost, is how I ended up teaching my kids music at home. I am not a music teacher, but I like music a lot, and due to the fact that Internet is now full with online courses teaching music, I became quite good at it. First of all, I was the one to learn the new things. I did not want my kids to think about me as a newbie, so I strived to get enough information into my brain before even daring to teach them something. Now they are involved in this process, in the same way as me, and there is nothing I like better than seeing them how interested they are in what they are learning.

Susan is a full-time freelance writer. She is an avid traveler and reader and enjoys writing on health & fitness, travel, parenting, relationships and personal development.

Article :By Susan B Ward

What Is Moral Development?


Not long ago I heard an interview on the radio show, Humankind, about what parents can do to help children develop a moral core. The host interviewed Richard Weissbourd, a child and family psychologist on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. What is a moral core? Weissbourd believes that a moral core involves being able to take another's point of view, being able to value that point of view, and being able to manage difficult feelings. He believes that these and related qualities are more important to long term happiness that the much touted self-esteem. In fact, these qualities are the basis of caring, and compassionate relationships and life choices which lead to self esteem and real academic achievement.

According to Weissbourd, we often place a higher value on self esteem than morality, to our children's detriment. I think he means that we work to make children feel good about themselves more than we ask them to treat others politely and kindly. Two examples he gave were asking that your child address wait staff politely and advising your child to reach out to the friendless child on the playground. Children who are not inconvenienced by needing to look out for others can become self-centered young adults.

Parents realize that their children know right from wrong in most situations by the time they are in first or second grade. Doing the right thing requires qualities that come with instruction, practice and development. As a child develops and with parents careful attention, knowing the right thing becomes a part of the young person's character. Once it is part of character, it is difficult not to act morally because it causes personal discomfort.

Often I meet with parents of young children who are worried that the self-centered and impatient child they see at four will still act that way at fourteen. I reassure them that child development will help them out. Development is only the prerequisite for moral reasoning and actions. Parents and teachers can and do begin to teach moral behavior in preschool. They ask children to talk to another child whom they just hurt. They ask the child to apologize. We teach little ones to take turns, and they quickly and fiercely take on the cause of fairness.

So, if young children know right from wrong, why do they have trouble acting with integrity? One big reason is the need to control strong negative feelings. A child might know it is wrong to throw a toy at a parent, but when she is very angry, or ashamed, she might act impulsively. In time parents can help a child to learn to manage those feelings and to act with more self-control.

Some situations are complicated and require moral reasoning in order to sort out what the right behavior would be. Children and adults are often in such dilemmas. Sometimes two values are in conflict. For instance, a teacher asks a child who broke a dish, and the child knows her friend broke it. The child knows she should be honest, but she does not want to get her friend in trouble. Honesty and loyalty, two good values, are in conflict. Or a child might be torn between loyalties to two friends who are in conflict. Moral reasoning, or the skill to sort out what is right to do in a complicated situation, comes with age and practice.

Another aspect of moral development is empathy. In order to have empathy a person needs to be able to take the perspective of another person. More than that she needs to be able to value that other point of view and feel the feelings associated with it. For instance, if a child sees another child being bullied, if he can feel a little of humiliation that the victim feels, he is more likely to feel impelled to speak up against the bully.

As parents our behavior is always on view to our children. That does not mean that we always have to act perfectly around our children. No one can do that. It is helpful to children if their parents and own up to their mistakes and apologize. If you realize that you overreacted about a broken dish, you can go back to your child and acknowledge that. When parents take responsibility for their behavior, they teach their children to do the same. We can model what it means to act according to our values. Seeing parents get involved in community affairs, help out an ailing neighbor, shovel an elderly neighbor's driveway, or volunteer at school - all of these behaviors teach children what it is to act morally and to build good relationships in a community.

One problem that Weissbourd speaks of in raising teens is the excessive pressure to achieve for the sake of achievement. I see this in the affluent suburbs in which I work. There is intense pressure on teens and parents to get into a top notch college. For some teens everything they do in high school is done so that it will look good on a college application. Working very hard only to do well and not out of passion for a subject, can lead to alienation and depression. Even the A's that the intense student earns do not bring heightened self-esteem. I agree with Weissbourd that self esteem comes from knowing how to form and maintain good relationships with friends and family and from achieving because one is interested and doing good work is part of acting with integrity.

These are just a few thoughts about moral development. For more information about Weissbourd's thinking and research on this topic, look for his book, The Parents We Mean to Be. Two other good books about raising children with good values are The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and the Blessing of a B Minus, both written by psychologist, Wendy Mogel. Her writing is based in Jewish teachings, but as a non-Jew, I found her thoughts valuable as did a Catholic colleague. I would like to hear from others how you have tried to instill good values in your children. Contact me on Facebook or Twitter.

Parent Coach and Licensed Psychologist, Carolyn Stone, Ed.D. ( http://www.drcarolynstone.com) educates parents of children with learning disabilities, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and anxiety about their children's needs using humor and evidence-based practices. Parents learn new strategies through role play and homework. She teaches children to manage their anxiety and attention and to understand their learning styles. You can learn about Dr. Stone's work from her blog at http://www.drcarolynstone.com/blog/.

Article :By Dr Carolyn Stone

Let's Grow Happy Children
We have been created for greater things, not to be just numbers in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees, this work and that work, we have been created in order to love and to be loved.' Mother Teresa.

Children are the future of our nation. We cannot exist without the rainbow of colours which are created by children. In the modern times, children are being sent to so many classes and have to achieve so much that they do not have time to be happy. Happiness is losing its value under the pressures of performance. Several classes have cropped up on the name of extracurricular activities which just consume children's time and parent's money.

People should start admiring children as healthy beings with beautiful smiles instead of worrying about their future. Evening classes should be opened for children of all ages to teach them to live for their happiness and to stop worrying about results of their performance. It is good to live in the present then to worry about what is going to happen. The burden of society does not give freedom to be happy. First it is essential to study hard and be a qualified person. When finally you are a graduate or even a post-graduate then comes the pressure to get a decent job, which is again dissected to limits. Finally if everything goes right the crucial question of marriage arises and hence it goes on.

It is essential to break through this vicious circle and start bringing up children with a mentality of giving priority to happiness above other things. Happiness comes from basic things like playing with friends, enjoying the bonding at home and many other mundane things. Crores of rupees cannot give happiness as much as a simple hug can give. Hence it would be useless for the children to spend their lives proclaiming to achieve something in life when everything is right next to them.

Children today have many goals to achieve and in the horse race they forget the essence of life. They have been given targets to fulfil right from when they start their lives. The world is full of engineers and doctors waiting for the right job. What we lack is happiness and contentment within people which is becoming extinct and which needs to be saved before it is too late.

The seeds of happiness should be sown right from the beginning, a child should be loved and hugged more often and time should be spent with the child. It does not mean that an hour or so of quality time is enough. It means that one must make the child wanted at every step of life and tell the child that he/she is the best in the world. This would work wonders for the confidence of the child and the child's happiness would soar beyond limits.

Children should be first taught to be happy, instead of teaching them other unnecessary things in life. When several children were asked as to what would give them happiness the answer was that they wanted time of their own to do whatever they wanted and not be guided by parents as to do what they want.

Children should be guided periodically and prevented from falling in wrong directions but let us all stop expecting more from children and just let them lead a happy and contented life.

 Article By: KAVITA G

Type 2 Diabetes - Five Plants Show Promise for Diabetes Treatment
Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in South Africa, just as it is in much of the world. Investigators at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University have looked at five plants used in traditional healthcare, for their possible potential in treating high blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes. Their results were published in November 2011 in the African Journal of Traditional Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The cause of Type 2 diabetes is the cells poor ability to take in and use sugar floating around in the bloodstream. Blood sugar levels rise when cells are unable to take it in and use it to form energy. The study involved measuring whether extracts of certain plants could increase the cells' ability to take in sugar and convert it to energy.

The investigators used human liver and muscle cells in glass containers, adding extracts of these five plants:

    yellow bulbine,
    pregnant onion plant,
    ruta grav,
    camphor bush, and
    society garlic.

The liver cells were able to take in more sugar and use it to form energy when extracts of yellow bulbine, pregnant onion plant, and camphor bush were added. Muscle cells were able to take in more sugar when ruta grav and society garlic were added.

From this it was concluded these particular plants have the potential for use in treating Type 2 diabetes and should be studied further.

Yellow bulbine is a succulent plant that originated in South Africa. Other names for it include snake flower, cat's tail, and burn jelly plant. It is used in home remedies for burns, rashes, blisters, insect bites, cracked skin and lips, acne, cold sores, coughs, colds, and arthritis.

Pregnant onion also originated in South Africa, and is also cultivated in Europe and Asia as an ornamental plant. It is used in Africa as a traditional remedy for arthritis, muscle pain, headache, toothache and minor injuries.

Ruta grav, also known as garden rue, bitter herb, and herb of grace, is commonly seen around the Mediterranean and Australia. It is used in traditional healing for bruises, pain, headaches, eyestrain, coughs, and toothaches.

Camphor bush, or bushman's tobacco, commonly grows in Africa. It is traditionally used for blocked sinuses, headaches, coughs, bronchitis, toothache, abdominal pain, and stiffness.

Society garlic, also called silver lace or pink agapanthus, is indigenous to South Africa. It's traditional medicinal uses include treating HIV and AIDs, stomach and intestinal ailments, asthma, tuberculosis and diseases that cause fevers.

Plants are complex sets of molecules, and can contain both helpful and poisonous substances. Traditional and herbal remedies should be used with caution of at all. More research will be needed before any of the five above plants might be proven safe and effective for treating people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. On the other hand, isn't it nice to know that as research progresses, so many possibilities are coming to light?

By the way, do you want to learn more about how to be healthier and live longer in spite of having Type 2 diabetes. If so, I suggest you check this out: Natural Diabetes Treatments
Article by Beverleigh H Piepers