hey everyone and welcome to boostupliving.com today we’re gonna learn about seven psychology secrets that school never taught you. Now let’s begin.

The Penny Experiment

In the penny experiment have you ever tried to remember what a penny looks like, almost everyone would know right away it’s a brown coin with Abraham Lincoln on it. But what about the rest, do you know what the words say do you know what building is on the back. This seems like something we should know right, most of us have seen thousands of pennies before. So why is it so difficult to remember these details? A psychologist might tell you that you can’t remember because you never actually knew. This experience is often called mindlessness. 

It’s when you do something without paying attention or storing any new memories, just think back to the last time you brushed your teeth how much were you really paying attention. You know what happened but your memory probably stops there. You couldn’t tell me how much time you spent on each tooth or how often you looked in the mirror. The same thing happens to many students when they study, after looking over your notes you might realize you can’t remember anything. 

The problem isn’t your memory instead of encoding new information you were studying mindlessly. You stopped focusing on the specific pieces, and when that happens you don’t actually learn anything. To make the most out of everything you do operate with intention. Try concentrating your mind on each individual thing. It may take a little more time but you’ll remember information when it counts. 

The 3R Technique

The average person spends about 12 years in school, now if you take out summer vacation that’s one hundred eight months in class four hundred sixty-nine weeks of reading writing, and doing homework. So how can we dedicate one thousand three hundred and forty days to learning yet no one teaches us how to learn. Students are forced to develop their own strategies to study and retain information. Some use flashcards others make huge study guides. There are thousands of techniques but how did they get so diverse.

First of all most students are just trying whatever they think works, they might be studying the wrong way because no one ever told them otherwise. Second, everyone learns a little bit differently, the most commonly used model often called Vark breaks students down into four learning groups visual-auditory reading and writing, and kinesthetic. Each one learns best from a different medium, visual learners for example prefer pictures and diagrams while kinesthetic learners enjoy tactile experiences. 

This has always been one of the biggest arguments against the modern school system. Classes and lectures favor certain kinds of learners over others. however schools have made an effort to even the playing field, many teachers started mixing in spatial and hands-on content to rope in visual and kinesthetic learners who couldn’t retain much information from a lecture. But the Vark model raises another important question if there are so many different kinds of learners what learning techniques should people be teaching. Is there really an optimal way to learn? 

Yes and no many researchers have discovered incredibly effective ways to revolutionize your study habits. The 3r technique for example comes from a 2009 study by a trio of developmental psychologists. They found that a simple change to the way you read significantly improves retention. You start by reading a chapter and taking notes, then you close your book and put your notes away now you recite as much of the content as you can remember out loud after you finish look back and review everything that you got wrong. Participants who use this technique scored higher and spent less time studying. But why does this work?

The 3r technique engages multiple parts of your brain, which means it works for several different kinds of learners. Visual and reading learners enjoy the combination of steps one and three, auditory and kinesthetic learners on the other hand get the most from step two. Even though there are strategies like the 3r technique out there everyone’s ideal way of learning looks a little bit different. For whatever reason school doesn’t teach you to identify the type of learner that you are. But that information will help you way beyond graduation. Your learning habits may point you toward a career. If you’ve been learning the wrong way you may uncover interests and passions that you never knew existed most importantly the right techniques motivate you to continue learning. So no matter what kind of learner you are you should never stop discovering new things. 

Weber’s Law 

Weber’s law this basic principle of perception is rarely ever mentioned, but you experience it almost every day. Imagine you’re in a department store when you see two items on sale, one was originally five dollars but it’s marked down to two dollars the other was originally $40 but it’s marked down to $37 so which is the better deal? Most people instinctively choose the first, even though you’re saving three dollars either way. You think like this because it’s harder to detect small changes in a more intense stimulus. The pricier item is better at hiding the small discount, it seems like you’re saving less money simply because you’re spending more.

Now think about the last time you were standing in a crowded room, if you started whispering would the room be any louder, no you’d have to yell to make a difference in the room’s overall volume. But if only one other person was in the room they could easily hear you whisper. In different contexts, the same stimulus can completely change your perception of the world around you. 

Mental Rewiring

Learning affects more than just what you know or why you know it. The way you learn actually changes the way you think. You develop different habits and cognitive models, you use particular references because your memories are structured differently than everyone else’s. Those unique thought patterns change the way your brain functions, they activate new neurons they strengthen connections in certain places while leaving others unused. Schools tell you what you need to know but they forget to consider how that knowledge might change who you are.

Cognitive Upkeep

Have you ever heard the phrase it’s just like riding a bike, it means you never really forget how to do something? People often believe once is enough that their skills will stick around for years whether they practice or not. But even riding a bike isn’t really like riding a bike there are some parts of your body that will remember how to balance pedal and steer. even if you haven’t ridden for ten years you won’t have to relearn the basics. But you won’t be good at it either. You’ll feel wobbly and out of control, you’ll wonder how you were so good at it as a kid when you can barely do it now. Your physical and cognitive abilities need regular exercise to stay sharp and capable. If you’re not regularly using them they’ll fade, and the guarantee you stay good at something consistent practice is the best thing you can do. Whether it’s math dancing or playing video games regular rehearsal will keep your talents intact.

The Barnum effect 

School, teaches you how to be logical but we are full of contradictions. Educated or not you consistently make unreasonable assumptions and uphold absurd biases. You can argue you’re a rational person, but let me ask you this when your food looks better doesn’t it taste better too if someone’s better looking than you do they seem more confident. 

When a magician read your mind, are you surprised by how accurate they are? These probably sound like three very different questions however they all point toward the same kind of mistake. When searching for answers we aren’t focused on the truth we’re looking for someone to tell us what we want to hear. We’re more willing to believe a lie or perceive something that isn’t there, simply because we want it to be true. this idea is captured by the Barnum effect which is named after the famous showman PT Barnum. He didn’t actually come up with this theory, but he did make a living off of it. He popularized the idea that people see what they want to see. His shows were filled with a V Sly’s yet people were still fascinated by his productions. All he had to do was convince them that he was a reputable source.

In the modern world personality tests are one of the best examples of the Barnum effect, after answering a few generic questions these tests claim they can offer some insight into who you are. But what are they really saying, about 99% of the time the same results could apply to just about everyone. Their general enough to give every person something to latch on to. That isn’t to say that all personality tests are bogus or that every performer is just lying to their audience. But the next time your mind is boggled by a fortune cookie just take a step back and ask yourself am I just seeing what I want to see. 

A Small World

Have you ever played the game six degrees of Kevin Bacon? This game comes from the idea that everyone is on average six degrees apart. In this case, a degree is anyone you know whether it’s a family member or someone you went to kindergarten with. There’s something most people don’t realize about this game, it’s actually based on real research. It stems from a study run by an infamous psychologist named Stanley Milgram in his small world experiment. He connected people in Massachusetts to complete strangers in Nebraska, on average it took only 5.2 connections or six if you round up. So what does this mean well for some people a single school neighborhood or city can feel like a massive and diverse place. But maybe the world is a lot smaller than you think.

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You are not alone. You might have heard or read this phrase somewhere before we say it to comfort or shoulder someone else’s. A pain to relieve that suffocating feeling of heartache and isolation when you’re picking up the pieces after a breakup or dealing with a loss of a loved one. You may feel like you’ve fallen into a dark hole with no way out. Loneliness can Consume your entire life.

Letting it overshadow your work, cloud your goals, and leave you aimless. It can rob you of the joy you’d get from fun things like your passions and hobbies. Still, the truth is you’re not alone in feeling lonely. Loneliness is a universal problem affecting people of any gender, age, or status. 

You can’t buy a cure, nor can you pretend it Doesn’t exist, like depression or anxiety. Feeling lonely is something you can’t control. Loneliness is so powerful that it can cause you physical pain. It can make your muscles ache, tie your stomach and nuts, and ruin sleep. It’s even one of the leading contributors to chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart disease. 

I point out that loneliness is a natural and overwhelming problem many people struggle with daily. Still, you’re not doomed to sit in this dark hole for the rest of your life. There’s a way out. You can slowly but surely take control of your life, but The first step is to identify why you’re there and why you feel lonely? What’s been keeping you down for so long to help you face and overcome this paralyzing feeling. Here are four reasons why you might feel alone in the world 

1. Unstable Friendships

Unstable friendships are one of the most common triggers of loneliness. Yeah, I know it sounds strange to say that spending time with other people makes you lonely, but it’s true most people try to define loneliness as the absence of friends. They think by having friends that, they can never be lonely. Of course, that isn’t the case isolation is when you don’t have friends. Loneliness is when you aren’t forming personal connections.

You might know hundreds of people but fail to bond with them. You try and try to be social, yet no one understands you. You end up feeling empty and unhappy because none of your relationships go deeper than a bit of small talk, so what’s the problem? Many people come at this issue the wrong way. When combating loneliness, quality matters way more than quantity. 

You might feel lonely because your friendships are weak and unstable; you haven’t put the time into building them, or you’ve just chosen the wrong people. Everyone needs stable companies that make us feel heard, appreciated, and valued. You should eventually find these characteristics within yourself, but you must start somewhere. 

If you’re feeling lonely, take an honest look at the quality of your friendships. Stable friends respect each other and provide support And build each other up. They give each additional space and understand that you’re each your Person unstable friends ignore and criticize you. They don’t value your time and Effort as much as theirs. They might think the real friendship revolves around them. 

If you find yourself in an unstable company, set yourself free. Some people hide behind toxic friends because they’re worried they’ll never meet anyone else. They already feel lonely, so wouldn’t That makes things worse? Not at all. Give yourself the chance to find friends that understand and Appreciate you. 

There are many cruel and self-absorbed people in the world, but just as many are kind and considerate in your friendships. It would be best if you got what you give whenever that’s not happening, don’t be afraid to see what else is out there, 

2. You’re an Ambivert

You’re ambivert’s loneliness isn’t always triggered by the people in your life. Sometimes that emptiness is a product of who you are when we think about personality types. We tend to place people into one of two categories introverts and extroverts. Despite how diverse our personalities can be, we may mistake treating it like a yes-or-no question: Are you an introvert? No, then you must Be an extrovert.

If introversion sits at the far left, extraversion sits at the far, 99% of people fall somewhere between. In other words, almost no one is a hundred percent introvert or extrovert; even the most outgoing social butterflies enjoy some time to themselves. At the same time, lone wolves occasionally like having company since everyone’s got a little of both. Most people are hybrids called ambiverts. We usually use this term to describe someone who’s a 50/50 split between introverted and extroverted. Still, in reality, almost all humans are ambivert s– because our personalities cannot be defined by one set of characteristics of your mood. 

Mental health and the environment can drastically affect how you behave and see yourself and complicate things. You won’t have the same personality, and say, 5, 10, or 20 years from now, you might love to be alone right now. Still, a few years from now, you may find yourself doing the exact opposite, so what does all this have to do with loneliness? Many people characterize themselves incorrectly because they get hung up on one of these labels. 

Let’s say you’re quiet, you find social interactions draining, and you prefer to work alone sounds like you’re an introvert, right? 

You might isolate yourself, thinking it’s good for you. Still, you’re neglecting the little extrovert Inside you. That small part of you wishes you could socialize and make connections. It gets energized and inspired by interacting with other people. Even if you’re 95% introverted, you can still feel lonely when constantly isolated. It works another way around – have you ever felt alone in a crowded room? Even if you’re incredibly extroverted, you can feel lonely when surrounded by people. Because the introvert inside you craves something more profound and personal, it wants you to Make fewer, more meaningful connections. 

How can you use this knowledge to stop feeling lonely? Your loneliness might stem from the habits you’ve only been catering toward one side of your personality while the other is left disappointed. This can leave you empty and out of place, so try diversifying your habits and spend time doing things you wouldn’t normally do. Try something that scares you. If you’re an introvert, surround yourself with new people. 

If you’re an Extroverts, take more time to get to know yourself and the people closest to you. You don’t have to do it all the time, but trying out new social experiences can be enough to satisfy your little introverted or extroverted side. Remember that not a select few words can define a person. While labels like introvert, extrovert, and ambivert give you a general idea of what you enjoy, you should never stop searching for new ways to make yourself happy. 

3. Perfectionism 

Some of the loneliest people spend their entire lives chasing perfection, they claim they like to do things right, but that’s rarely the case. 

Deep down, social perfectionists are often afraid to do anything unless they can do it flawlessly. They never meet new people because they’re scared of rejection. They don’t chase new opportunities because they’re worried about failure. 

In other words, if they never mess up, anything can hurt. Unfortunately, things are never going to be perfect. 

For example, perfectionists might avoid being vulnerable until the ideal person comes around. Still, they never learn what types of people they can be susceptible to. You’ll Have all kinds of friends. Some will be unstable 

and disappointing while others will be fun and supportive, you have to wade through the bad to get to the good, but perfectionists never do.

They Don’t fail enough times to define success. Some people mask their loneliness with jobs, hobbies, and pets. Still, that feeling of emptiness may never go away years later. 

You’ll end up looking back and regretting the chances that you didn’t take regret, a feeling that goes hand-in-hand with loneliness. In this case, you feel guilty when you could have made yourself happy but didn’t. You could have potentially changed your life for the better but got scared. 

Perfectionists think they will regret that time they failed or made a dumb mistake. Still, those errors eventually turn into funny stories and learning experiences. On the other hand, regretting a missed connection or opportunity may keep you feeling lonely for years to come. 

4. High Expectations 

When you’re trying to be friends with someone new, what do you expect from them? 

• Do you expect them to make you laugh? 
• Do you expect them to blow your mind with all the fantastic things they’ve done? 
• Do you want them to be fun and kind? 

You might be lonely because you believe everyone has unreasonably high expectations. More often than not, they’re entirely in your head. 

They don’t expect those things from you, just like you don’t expect extraordinary things from them. This mental obstacle keeps you from making connections and filling that void in your life. 

Imaginary expectations also ruin your self-esteem. It would be best if you didn’t go through life feeling like you. 

Aren’t you worth trying to remember that strangers are people just like you? You don’t have to prove yourself to make them like you. You don’t have to show off your talents, knowledge, or status. Just Be open, happy, and respectful. In the end, those are the people that make the best friends. 

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Hey everyone, and welcome to boostupliving.com. Today, we will learn about seven memory tricks to learn anything faster. Now, let’s begin.

The Production Effect

Have you ever locked your car only to forget five minutes later whether you locked it or not? Why do we have so much trouble remembering such obvious things? Your memories are separated into two different categories. Implicit and explicit. Implicit memories are things you remember unconsciously. You don’t recall brushing your teeth or eating breakfast most mornings because you do these activities without thinking. Explicit memories, on the other hand, are things we consciously remember. When you study for a test, this information is a lot easier to recall because you’re deliberately trying to learn. 

Habitual activities like locking your car falls into your implicit memory. We do them so often that it doesn’t make sense to store each as a conscious thought. Since you’re essentially doing it without thinking, it’s hard to be 100% sure it happened. 

This is where the production effect comes into play. It converts an implicit memory into an explicit memory by bringing your attention to your behavior. All you have to do is say what you’re doing out loud. It’s effortless and takes no extra effort but transforms your regular recall. 

A 2010 study tested this exact phenomenon. They split participants up into two groups. One read words silently, while the other said every word out loud. Sure enough, the second group recalled content better than their counterparts, showing the considerable impact that vocal production has on recall. By incorporating this simple but powerful technique, you can start to sharpen your memory instantly.

The Power of Paper

Over the years, pencil and paper have fallen out of favor. In most colleges and even some high schools, students are taking notes exclusively on computers. Typing lets you copy down more information faster, but what if typing your messages makes it harder for you to learn? 

A 2014 study compared students’ test scores who typed and wrote out their notes. The researchers guessed that the pencil and paper students would perform better. It turns out they were right. Pencil and paper students out-performed typing students because of how writing things out interacts with your brain. This older method forces you to spend less time copying and more time processing. Many students can type as fast as their teachers talk. Without realizing it, they do more transcribing than actual learning. Because pencil and paper are slower, you must constantly condense and restructure new information. In other words, you get a deeper understanding by writing less. Pencil and paper also get rid of the most detrimental key on the keyboard: delete. You need to be able to make mistakes while you learn. When you type, it’s easy to erase errors without mindlessly understanding what was wrong. On paper, you’re forced to make physical corrections. That way, you learn from your mistakes instead of pretending they never happened.

Context Cues

Context sharpens your memory because it’s encoded alongside the information you’re trying to remember. Let’s say you want to memorize a presentation for work. While you’re practicing a challenging section, you start eating an apple. Your brain will naturally pair the apple and that part of the presentation in your memory. The apple becomes a sort of cue that you can use to retrieve more detailed information. 

These contextual cues can take pretty much any shape, but the most common is visual. Another study from 2010 examined the exact role of visual context in memorization. The researchers gave each participant a set of words to remember. Each dish was paired with a specific type of picture. Group 1 saw pictures of regular faces, while group 2 saw pictures of scrambled faces. As the researchers predicted, visual context significantly boosted recall. The first group, who saw images of regular faces, had a much easier time remembering their list of words. 

There’s been a noticeable stimulus in each of these examples, but context cues will work either way. The uniqueness of lines like the apple or the picture didn’t matter. So you don’t have to do weird stuff while studying to improve your memory. Your brain encodes all types of context in the same way, so all you have to do is be aware of your environment.

Spacing Effect

Every student has been told not to cram right before a test… yet we’ve all done it anyway. You’ve known about the difficulty for weeks, but try to re-learn an entire semester’s worth of information in 24 hours. How does this strategy usually play out? You end up only remembering a fraction of what you studied. Your brain gets so overwhelmed and exhausted that it can’t perform.

 According to the Director of the Cognition and Education lab at Dartmouth College, our brain can only retain so much information simultaneously. We need extended periods of practice to make long-lasting memories. 

Scientists call this the spacing effect because the space in between practice sessions is what gives our brain the chance to encode and recover. To test this, researchers looked at two learning techniques: massed practice and distributed practice. Think of massed practice as cramming. After exposure to a stimulus, you try to retain all that information by studying it immediately afterward. And just like packing, it doesn’t typically work. Distributed practice is when you spread the learning process out over several shorter sessions. By studying the same thing each time, you absorb the information, so you can recall it whenever necessary. 

But why does spacing make such a big difference? The best explanation is called the study-phase retrieval theory. Each time you encounter a piece of information that you’ve learned before, your brain tries to retrieve any encoded memories. When it successfully finds a memory, the information becomes more challenging for you to forget. Distributed practice forces you to do this repeatedly while creating the necessary space. 

That way, you have time to remember something, forget it, and then remember it again. Each time, the information becomes more pronounced. It becomes easier and faster to recall because it’s sitting closer to the surface of your memory.

Mental Stretches

Why do athletes always stretch or jog before practice? A good warm-up gives your muscles the flexibility and strength to perform at their best. For most people, this is second nature. You can’t just start sprinting right off the bat… so why do you expect your brain to do the same thing? Like any muscle, your brain needs the proper warm-up to maximize its potential. It can’t go from 0 to 100 instantly. You can’t transition from watching Netflix to learning some complex concept. If you do, you’re going to feel hazy and slow. You’ll have difficulty absorbing information because your brain isn’t ready. 

You can use mental stretches to efficiently prepare your brain to work, think, and encode memories. Mental stretches are low-intensity games that gradually get your brain up and running. Concentration is a great example. Not only is it quick and relatively fun, but it also focuses on boosting your ability to retain information. 

Just make sure you aren’t going too hard, too fast. Mental stretches shouldn’t make you feel cloudy or cluttered. If your warm-up is too intense, your brain will tire more quickly than usual. Always keep things fun and simple to see improvements in your cognitive performance.

Interleaving

You can stimulate your memory by regularly alternating between different topics. Interleaving is the process of mixing multiple subjects to enhance your ability to learn. You might, for example, start with math, transition to English, and then finish with history, all in the same study session. On the surface, interleaving sounds pretty inefficient. It’s precisely the opposite of blocking, which is probably the most common learning technique. Blocking is when you dedicate an extended period to only one subject. You might spend Monday on math, Tuesday on English, and Wednesday on history. Blocking makes more sense to most people, but interleaving is more effective. Rotating between topics forces your mind to stay active and adaptable. When you only learn one thing at once, your brain slacks off. It pays less attention because things are getting more accessible and more repetitive. By jumping from subject to subject, you force your brain to shift gears each time completely. 

These smaller, hyper-efficient chunks are easier to learn from because they offer more of a unique challenge. But that isn’t even the best part of interleaving. This learning technique compels you to draw broader connections in a way that blocking never will. You’re allowing your brain to see the bigger picture. To understand what something is and where it fits into the field as a whole.

Self-Testing

Self-testing is another effective way to boost your memory. Once you think you have something memorized, you shouldn’t wait until your exam or presentation to test whether or not you studied enough. Put yourself to the test beforehand to get an idea of how well you know the content. Nine times out of 10, you’ll discover you’re not as prepared as you thought. Luckily, self-testing shows you exactly where you’re weakest.

It tells you what you need to re-learn, but only if you do it right. Your tests won’t do anything for you if you let yourself cheat. For example, when using flashcards, don’t flip over the card before you answer. It’s tempting to make excuses like, “Oh, that’s what I meant,” but you’re only hurting yourself. If you can’t get the correct answer in this low-stress situation, there’s no way you will when the pressure’s on. Try to write down or say your answers out loud to make this doesn’t happen. It’s easier to let an incorrect answer slip by when the test is in your head.

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