ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY HUMANIST BRAIN STUDY GUIDE YOU CAN LEARN HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS AND ACTIVATE YOUR MENTAL FORCE Ten Essential Assumptions about Human Brain Functions April 30, 2016 Discover how you can quickly learn about your brain's structures and functions and why it is so important to do so. [1] When you decide to spend the time and energy required to learn about your brain's functions, you will be able to improve your brain's fitness as well as your mind's performance in all future situations and relationships. You can make transformative life decisions, including using your time more wisely, and making better choices between right and wrong (good and evil). Your sense of self can be strengthened as you learn about the scientific nature of reality and the significance of using your brain's functions more harmonously to enhance your conscientious awareness of your own creativity and worth as a person. All 100% of your brain's resources are activated together, unless you have some defective brain structure due to disease, genetic disorder, or injury. If you are not using the full 100% of your mental force (brainpower potential), you are simply ignorant of how to use it to create your best self-identity and personality. In addition, brain scientists have discovered that the type of memory resources that your brain uses to remember new information in your long-term memory system is determined by the kind of information that you want to remember. Since the brain ideas and their definitions are factual ideas about your brain and body, the meanings are remembered mainly in your brain's semantic memory and autobiographic memory areas of your hippocampus. Your hippocampus contains triggers for your long-term memory system. [2] The FRONT SIDE of each brain flash card consists of a brain diagram and a memory code (letter or letters) related to the brain idea illustrated by the brain diagram. Also the FRONT SIDE of each flash card contains a QUESTION to clarify the brain idea because questions (interrogatives) are known to help ideas stick in your declarative memory, which is a type of semantic memory. The BACK SIDE of each brain flash card consists of either the same brain image or a different one that provides an additional visual perspective which ANSWERS the question asked on the FRONT SIDE. That short declarative statement (answer) defines the brain idea in the most concise way possible and contains a link to more DETAILS about the brain idea. Also each brain diagram (image) illustrates how each brain structure is connected to the other brain structures in order to produce brain functions. By seeing the simple visual brain models on the flash cards, in addition to the text, you can imagine the functional relationships among your brain's major structures and the smaller organs more easily than without them. The pictures are simulations of the structures of your brain that are processed (understood) by different areas of your brain than the text, which means that the flash cards are stimulating more connections in your brain for remembering the information and relating it to your earlier memories. In addition, since you already know the alphabet of the English language, and you already know how to focus your attention on a specific thing or idea, you can learn each of the new factual brain ideas faster by using the handy infinity symbol to quickly navigate from side to side of a flash card or connect to the DETAILS files for each of the 15 brain ideas. The infinity symbol serves as a flash card flipper. It is located under each brain flash card for quick navigation back and forth. It allows you to flip each flash card over and over again until the brain ideas and memory codes converge and coalesce in both your conscious working memory and your unconscious long-term memory circuits. Using the brain flash cards to memorize brain facts and ideas can provide you with a quick and convenient way to repeatedly expose yourself to the new brain information in order for it to become more memorable and eventually more relevant in your life. Also by using the RIGHT ARROW navigational symbol on the FRONT SIDE of each brain flash card, you can flip it over to the BACK SIDE of each flash card. In addition, by clicking or tapping on the RIGHT ARROW of the BACK SIDES of all 15 brain flash cards, you can go forward to the next flash card. The only exception is for brain flash card #15 WORKING MEMORY, which is labeled "LOOP," since it quickly returns you to the first flash card #1 CONSCIOUSNESS. In addition, you can return to the list of all 15 of the free sample brain flash cards by clicking or tapping on the LEFT ARROW, which is always on the lower left side of all the flash cards and is always labeled LIST. [3] In addition to the 15 free sample brain flash cards, there are three other kinds of files linked to the back sides of the 15 flash cards. They include the DETAILS files, which link essential details to each of the 15 brain flash cards: the FACT FINDER files, which link the files with book sources to each of the 15 brain ideas; and the files with quotations from each of the book sources. The links to quotations focus your attention on relevant quotations from the book sources cited for each brain idea. The reference sources include the best books published about brain science written from a humanistic perspective. This important brain information has been organized in a unique linguistic pattern that provides the easiest way for you to understand your incredibly complex brain structure in terms of a few easy to learn simple brain functions. The structure of the quick links on the website encourages you to do critical thinking and reading so you can easily infer new meanings about how your brain perceives and constructs (re-constructs) your unique perspective of reality and remembers your experiences. Once you have mastered the 15 brain ideas in the free sample, you will be able to appreciate the value of all the new brain knowledge that is accumulating quickly every year. The 15 free brain ideas can have an enormous stabilizing impact on your consciousness and sense of self or core personal identity after you have memorized them and can recall them easily from your long-term memory system. [4] The self-directed learning process emphasized on this website is the classic spaced-repetition method of memorization. It depends upon scheduling special times to focus your attention on the particular structures and functions of your brain that you need to know in order to master the complete sequence of the 15 free brain ideas in the Humanist Family Brain Survey, one brain idea at a time. The scheduled sequence of exposures to specific brain ideas and diagrams that you choose can help your mind create associations among the brain-related words that you are studying. The more repetitions you do, the stronger the neural signaling will be in your brain's neural pathways. This is your natural learning process that can be used anytime you want to remember things permanently in your long-term memory system. The purpose of the self-guided timed exposures to specific brain ideas is to associate each of the 15 brain ideas with a memory code that can help you remember new knowledge about your brain and integrate it into your consciousness self-awareness. The memory codes for the 15 brain ideas are listed on the FRONTS of each of the flash cards while the declarative answers (definitions) are given on the BACKS of each of the flash cards. Since the memory code letters are already in your long-term memory system, because you have already memorized the English alphabet in the past, the memory code letters can add more connections associated with the new brain ideas in your memory the longer you study them. Soon, just the memory code itself can bring to your consciousness the name of the brain idea. And with very little effort, you will be able to remember what the brain idea means in its most fundamental practical social context. This is the most effective way to remember the new brain information, including both the brain names and the declarative statements related to each of the definitions. Each time you purposefully associate the 15 brain ideas to the recommended memory codes, you will be strengthening the neural signaling that actually changes the physical neural pathway in your brain so a brain idea can be activated by a thought or feeling related to your brain study plan. When you deliberately desire to remember a particular brain idea, it will be saved in your long-term memory system after you have created sufficient impressions of it as you choose to perceive it (think about it) over and over many times. The more you practice the repetitions correctly, the more efficient you can get at exercising your working memory resources. The memory codes on this website can serve as "cues" since they symbolize each brain idea for quick and lasting memorization purposes. [5] Before you start your serious study of the brain flash cards, it is important to realize that simply writing down the names on the list of the 15 sample brain names on the first Survey Quiz can help you remember all of the brain ideas faster than if you merely read them to yourself. You will be activating millions and millions and millions of memory molecules! (Do you remember Carl Sagan's "billions and billions and billions of stars" in the cosmos? Your brain study can have that same kind of drama if you think big!) If you have Adobe Reader installed on your computer or mobile device, then you can use the four printable pdf forms in the Humanist Family Brain Survey file to facilitate your brain study. (The pdf files are accessible only to you for your own personal educational purposes.) However, by just writing down the list of brain ideas at the beginning of your brain study, you can easily reinforce what you are learning. Also by writing down the summary definition for each brain idea, you will be able to refer later to the list of names and definitions as you recall and recite and review the names and definitions of each part of your brain and its essential awesome function. You will be discovering the purpose and function of each brain idea as you progress through the 15 brain flash cards in the free sample and then you will be able to see how they interact to create your unique human consciousness and sense of self. The important educational technique of simply writing down the name and definitions of the brain ideas on paper (the old reliable way of learning anything new) as part of your study plan is a scientifically proven memory booster. That process of learning will give you a stronger mental scaffolding (psychological structure) for capturing the details of the particular brain function through chunking (categorizing) the new details into your long-term memory system. This immersive multi-sensory learning process allows information to be transferred more quickly from your working memory resources in your prefrontal cortex to your long-term memory system that is located in the hippocampus part of your limbic system's intricate emotional center. Also it has been clearly demonstrated that it is more efficient to hold about four or fewer items in your short-term memory resources at one time before they are captured by your working memory and later added to your long-term memory system. This new research finding differs from the old idea that about seven items could be usefully stored in your short-term memory resources for a few seconds at a time. [6] You can increase your learning speed by becoming both relaxed and attentive at the same time. To do this, you need to create a sense of focused attention, which means that you need to deactivate your parasympathetic nervous system. To get ready to learn, you can take a few deep breaths for about two minutes so you will be able to stop or slow down the stream of consciousness (commotion) by using basic mindfulness skills (meditation practices) to achieve a calm attentive personal learning environment. By injecting more fresh oxygen into your brain with several deep breaths, you will be able to remember better when you think about the 15 brain ideas and their definitions. [7] Next, you can write down the appropriate matching brain names to a list of the memory codes provided on Survey Quiz #2, which is on the Humanist Family Brain Survey file. Again it is important to note that the pdf form is only accessible to you for your own educational purposes. If you follow through and do the writing part as recommended together with filling in the words on the online printable files, you will be involved in multi-sensory immersion learning. This proven learning process involves using several senses at the same time, such as sight and touch together in order to understand and remember a brain idea better. The alphabetical memory codes, which are associated with each part of your brain and each brain function, can be thought of as memory "cues," which can assist you in remembering, since those language units of alphabetical letters are already stored in your long-term memory system. Since the memory codes already have thousands of neural pathway connections throughout your cerebral cortex, they can easily connect the new brain ideas to the memory codes and store them in your long-term memory system so they can be recalled more quickly on command. The more you choose to repeatedly associate the factual brain ideas on the brain flash cards with each other, the more integrated and synergistic the new brain information will become in your long-term memory system. And the more you integrate the new brain ideas in your memory system, the easier it will be for your working memory in your prefrontal cortex to activate them for making important decisions. [8] After you have studied the 15 brain flash cards, you can read the list of 15 QUESTIONS located on Survey Quiz #3 in the Humanist Family Brain Survey file and connect the 15 BRAIN IDEAS to the 15 QUESTIONS. As you read each question, think about the NAME of the brain idea that is directly related to each question and remember that your human brain has evolved efficient memory techniques to hunt for and recognize meaningful patterns. For best results, write the name of the brain idea at the end of each question on the printable pdf form at the link provided or write the questions and proper brain names on a blank piece of paper as you make the correct connections. This physical act of reinforcing the mental process of remembering speeds up memory retention. [9] To manage your time better during your brain study, you can keep a written record of the time you devote to your brain study sessions by using the printable 30 Day Timetable Chart at the bottom of the Humanist Family Brain Survey file. If you use the 30 Day Timetable Chart to record the amount of time you spend studying your brain for a few days, you will notice a pattern of your best times for brain study. Knowing your brain study pattern can motivate you to continue your brain study until you develop the habit of thinking unconsciously about your own new brainpower potential. You can find the link to the 30 Day Timetable Chart at the bottom of the Humanist Family Brain Survey. [10] After you have memorized the brain names and functions, they will become habits that will upgrade your thinking and reading skills. You will have mastered real words that signify real things that will connect you to real life, which most brain scientists call reality. When all of the new brain-related words are properly memorized in the linguistic context provided by this website and saved in your long-term memory, they can become part of your active unconscious vocabulary. This means that they can be able to be activated effortlessly by your working memory resources whenever you want to use the new brain vocabulary to help you solve problems or save time. One of the worst enemies of clear thinking and self-directed learning is information overload. It is toxic to your brain if you do not manage it carefully. Many studies have demonstrated that the constant distractions and disruptions of the mass media, fueled by the entertainment industry, on a "24/7" basis, can produce excessive distress in your life due to its never ending visual and auditory assaults on your brain and nervous system. The mass media is constantly bombarding your brain and nervous system because advertisers want your attention and the businesses they work for all want as much of your money as possible. Therefore, it is wise for you to learn time-management skills and self-control skills related especially to protecting yourself from the worst aspects of mass media trivia and information overload. When you learn to manage your time more efficiently and train your brain to remain calm but attentive when studying about your brain (or any other subject), you will be able to achieve realistic goals that will produce maximum happiness and fulfilment as you make plans to solve serious personal problems and deal with consequential social issues from a humanistic perspective or philosophy. Hopefully, you will discover that your new critical thinking and reading skill-sets combined with time management and mindfulness skill-sets and your new understanding of the new brain science wisdom (factual brain ideas) will give you the self-control necessary to keep you learning from mistakes and focused on creating successful outcomes everyday. instantly go to: HUMANISTIC FAMILY BRAIN SURVEY or instantly go to: LIST OF 15 FREE BRAIN FLASH CARDS or instantly return to: INTRODUCTION TO THE IDEA OF YOUR HUMANIST MENTAL FORCE or instantly return to: ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY INDEX produced by Infinite Interactive Ideas™