Anthony Metivier's Blog, page 10

How to Improve Memory After a Stroke: 4 Proven Methods

Many people come to me with memory loss after a stroke.

They’re confused.

Struggling to pay attention.

Frustrated that they can’t remember details that used to come to mind so easily before suffering their stroke.

Equally troubling are the spouses who email me about their loved ones.

They ask me about brain exercises for stroke recovery.

And they’re generally worried about the future, because we all want to lead rich and fulfilling lives in our old age.

Which won’t be easy or particularly fun without enjoying significant recovery.

Good news.

Life can be rich and fulfilling, even after a stroke.

On this page, you’ll learn all about why memory loss happens after a stroke.

And what can be done to get your precious memory abilities back.

Not only that, you’ve got a chance of having your memory operate even better than before.

Ready?

Let’s dive in.

Does a Stroke Cause Memory Loss? What You Need to Know

Strokes cause memory for a few reasons.

Brain cells die as a result of the strokeNeuronal connections may be severedVascular dementia may developComorbidity or other health issues may exacerbate the previous reasons

There are other factors that might contribute. For example, researchers have found that previous educational experiences might contribute either positively or negatively.

In other words, if you have a strong education background, you may fare better than someone who has not. Likewise, if you’re bilingual, you may have developed “cognitive reserve” that will work to protect your brain.

To be clear: learning a language or completing a degree might not prevent you from having a stroke. But it can help protect your brain from damage, or bounce back much faster.

Of course, a lot depends on exactly where the stroke has hit the brain. For example, a stroke that affects the prefrontal cortex can diminish your ability to pay attention. This cognitive ability affects memory differently than other types of memory.

Finally, you should know that having a stroke creates stress. Stress is known to reduce your memory abilities.

This means that both the stroke victim and family and community members may be affected.

But the good news is that there is a lot you can do to improve.

Let’s check them out!

How to Improve Memory After a Stroke: 4 Scientifically Proven Methods

The following list is in no particular order of importance.

All of them are good.

And all of them can be done after a stroke to enjoy memory recovery.

But they also can be done beforehand to prevent having problems in the first place. You’ll enjoy fewer memory blocks and greater brain health overall.

One: Movement

Researchers have noted significant memory improvements when stroke patients engage in the 8 brocades of Qigong.

I practice these myself and notice great memory boosts. I recommend Mimi Kuo-Deemer’s Qi Gong and the Tai Chi Axis. It contains easy to understand instructions for each of the movements tested in the brocade study.

Movement also improves sleep, which automatically leads to improved memory.

Two: Vibration Work

If Qigong gets the entire body movement, transcranial direct current stimulation has been shown to improve audioverbal memory in stroke patients.

These devices can be quite expensive, but there are two alternatives you can explore:

SingingChanting

There are many studies that show the therapeutic value of these activities. My favorite studies come from Dr. Gunter Kreutz and his team because they also show improved mood in their subjects.

In their studies, singing as part of a choir. This outcomes makes sense because being with others also promotes better health.

But it’s how singing and chanting “vibrate” the brain that most strongly correlates with the findings from studies in transcranial current stimulation.

Three: Brain Exercises

There are all kinds of apps selling “brain exercise” subscriptions. According to Dr. Christine Till and many others, the claims they make are mostly dubious.

So what counts as simple routines that do work?

First, you need brain exercises that follow the mental workout rules shared here. These include new learning, which as we saw above, helps people avoid memory loss from strokes in the first place.

Second, if you want to clear brain fog after a stroke, you need a brain exercise that is designed for such outcomes. Neurobic exercises provide excellent routines for that.

I’ll give you a few specific brain exercises a little further down this page. But first, let’s talk more specifically about what you can do to recover your memory moving forward.

Four: Memory Exercises

Memory exercises differ from brain exercises. Whereas brain exercises train our focus and attention, memory exercises are all about improving recall.

One of the best things you can do is deliberately remember information. You can engage in activities like:

Remembering some of piCommitting vocabulary to memoryDeeply absorbing scriptureLearning a language

To make all of these activities much more fun and easy, I suggest you learn how to use a Memory Palace. It’s a simple mental tool that uses association to help you learn new things faster.

These Brain Exercises for Stroke Recovery Will Help You Restore Your Memory

Now that you know of the key activities you can explore for better memory, let me share a few quick brain exercises with you.

Give each a try and journal your results along the way.

Writing out your experiences and keeping a recovery diary is the best way to note what works. That way, you know what to do more of and what you can replace.

Number Skipping

When it comes to improving the ability to pay attention that so that you can remember incoming information, this exercise is key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7NPi...

To get started, get from one to ten, but not exactly.

Skip representing the even numbers.

In other words, count “one” out loud, but when you get to the “space” you would normally count “two,” suppress it.

For many people, this will be hard. It’s like saying to someone, “Don’t think of a red cat.” Your mind has to do it in order to obey the command.

But with practice, you can assign space in your mind for numbers without representing them.

I know this exercise is abstract, so please watch the video version so you can learn it as thoroughly as possible.

Kirtan Kriya

You can reduce stress at the same time you boost memory and comprehension.

This simple brain exercise involves reciting simple syllables as you work with your fingers.

Here’s an excellent video tutorial on the practice from Dr. Gary Weber:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvok...

If you want a more advanced version of this exercise, try combining it with number skipping.

Memory Training

We’ve already discussed a few ways you can train your memory.

But did you know you can also engage in it as a sport?

ACTIVE is the longest study we have, and although it doesn’t involve memory sports as such, it involved using the same mnemonic images memory athletes use.

People who trained with this form of association showed better abilities to navigate life. This included their ability to reason effectively. In other words, by memorizing something each day, the kept their critical thinking skills intact.

Complete Physical Puzzles

Did you know that science shows completing jigsaw puzzles helps your mind age better?

This is likely due to the benefits of haptic memory exercise, literally the mental exercise you get from using your hands. It could have to do with combining the visual and physical experience of assembling a picture in a way that engages Weber’s law.

One study implies that it would be very good if we all continue to complete physical puzzles as kids, rather than playing too much on devices that create digital amnesia. Basically, the study suggests that you’ll do even better with these kinds of activities if you have prior experience with them.

But anyone can benefit, so get yourself a puzzle and start solving it.

Become An Expert And Maintain Your Expertise

As we’ve seen, it pays to be prepared in the event of a stroke.

But even if you’re recovering, you can work on developing expertise in a topic and then benefit from maintaining your knowledge.

As Timothy Salthouse has found, there is truth to the “Use It or Lose It”  hypothesis.

It’s never too late to develop even just a small amount of expertise in areas like:

ChessMusicThe artsLawHistoryLiteraturePoliticsPhilosophy

In all cases, the trick is to get sufficient amounts of deliberate practice.

Can Strokes Affect Memory?

In a word, yes.

But so can many other things, both positively or negatively.

So whether you’re working on your recovery now, helping someone who is, or hoping to avoid issues altogether, the time to get started with the activities on this page is now.

The best part is that all of the brain exercises and accelerated learning techniques you’ve discovered today are easy and fun.

So what do you say?

Are you ready to give your stroke the boot and enjoy amplifying your memory?

If so, why not give my FREE Memory Improvement Kit a try?

It will help you develop those Memory Palaces I was telling you about above.

And they’re useful for working on the vocabulary memorization exercises that have been scientifically shown to help people live fulfilling lives, even after experiencing a stroke.

If you have any questions, just let me know and I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.

The Number Rhyme System (What It Is & How to Use It)

Remembering lists is tough, right?

Whether it’s items you need from the grocery store or an index of medical terms you need to pass an exam.

Enter the real magic of the number rhyme system.

This simple trick is used by students around the world in multiple fields.

Mentalists use it to create astonishing illusions.

And you can use it too simply by learning it and practicing it with information you want to remember.

The best part?

It’s fun, fast and one of the best memory techniques for kids out there.

Ready?

Let’s get started.

What Is the Number Rhyme System?

Number rhymes or counting rhymes are a variation on the pegword method.

That is, they allow us to follow a series of established associations, sometimes called mnemonic images.

Number rhymes are beginner level pegwords, but you can certainly use them even if you are an advanced memorizer.

Typically, they work by rhyming each number to create an object or some other reference. Like this:

Zero is a superheroOne is a gunTwo is a shoeThree is a beeFour is a doorFive is a hiveSix is sticksSeven is heavenEight is a gateNine is wineTen is a hen

If you don’t like any of these images, feel free to come up with your own.

For example, some people use a “bun” instead of a gun because they don’t like weapons.

For myself, I switched “heaven” for my friend Evan. He’s much more memorable than that rather vague concept.

That said, if you like heaven, a trick is to make it more concrete, perhaps by thinking about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

I do that for most of these. For example, 3 is a bee is generic. But I make it specific by using Jerry Seinfeld as a bee from The Bee Movie.

How to Use the Number Rhyme System

The purpose of this mnemonic system is to “attach” or “associate” information you don’t know what simple mental images.

Then, by elaborating something like a story between the target information and the number rhyme, you’ll find it easier to remember the list of what you want to remember.

For example, let’s say you need to remember that you want to research architecture.

You would then go to your number rhyme system and imagine a famous piece of architecture wrapped up in a bun.

Then, if your second research project is to research steel, you could have steel bars filling up a shoe.

These associations help trigger your memory because of the combination of rhyming the numbers and associating them with the target information.

The cool thing is that if someone tests you: “What was item 5 on your list?” You’ll be able to instantly tell them what that item was.

How to Practice the Number Rhyme System

When it comes to practicing this system, there are a number of things you can do. We’ve already looked at remembering research topics you want to look up in the future.

(This type of use will strengthen your prospective memory, by the way.)

More ways to practice include using the system to memorize lists of:

VocabularyNames of placesBook titles

And this mnemonic strategy will work for just about anything that involves simple items or ideas that don’t involve a lot of words. I wouldn’t suggest using this approach to memorize a poem, for example, though you certainly could give it a try.

The number rhyme system probably won’t help you memorize a poem, at least not with any ease. But it would make for a fascinating and challenging experiment to try.

The hardest thing for many people is putting the time together to create lists of information to memorize. Here are some suggestions:

For vocabulary, use the dictionaryFor names, use something like the Internet Movie DatabaseFor place names, open up Google Maps and memorize street namesFor book titles, use your bookshelves or Ebook catalog

You can also explore software options like the free International Association of Memory training software.

Expanding From The Number Rhyme System

Usually, once people have a taste for the power of using number rhymes to memorize lists, they want more.

One of the next levels of skill to explore involves the Major System. It lets you memorize numbers in a highly refined way. Instead of using rhymes, you associate the digits 0-9 with consonants. You then turn these consonants into memorable words.

The Major can be evolved even further by creating a PAO System. Instead of having words to help you memorize numbers, you also use people, actions and objects in a strategic manner.

Finally, the technique that governs them all: The Memory Palace. It allows you to store information in your mind by placing things like rhymes in an imaginary way throughout a building.

For example, let’s say you’re helping your kids learn memory techniques. You know that 2 rhymes with shoe and 4 rhymes with door.

To help your kids remember that 2×2=4, you can use the number rhyme system in combination with a Memory Palace.

If you learn to use the Memory Palace technique strategically, it’s easy to place the entire multiplication table along a simple journey in one or two buildings.

Learn More Memory Systems Now

What you’ve discovered today is really just the beginning of an incredible adventure you can enjoy using memory techniques to learn and remember more.

If you’d like more information on how these techniques work, register now for my FREE Memory Improvement Kit:

It will show you exactly how to develop a robust Memory Palace Network that scales. You never have to forget important information again.

So what do you say?

Are you ready to master your memory using number rhymes?

Although it’s a simple start to a much larger universe of memory techniques, it will remain useful and powerful for the rest of your life.

The 20 Best Philosophy Books Great Thinkers MUST Read

If you’re looking for the ultimate list of must read philosophy books, welcome.

I’ve been reading philosophy since I was very young, starting with Albert Camus.

In fact, reading Camus at age fourteen is perhaps too young!

It started with stumbling on The Stranger at the local library. It’s a quick and easy novel, but also tremendously profound.

At the back of the novel, the author bio talked about Camus’ work in existentialism, so I went on to read The Myth of Sisyphus and his other novels.

Although I didn’t understand much of his philosophy at the time, it introduced me to an entire world of writing about thinking. I was hooked.

And now I want to share with you my top pics, why they matter and some of the key points that have stuck with me.

Ready?

Let’s get started!

The 20 Best Philosophy Books of All Time

Before we get started, let’s call a spade a spade.

There’s something deeply unphilosophical about pretending we can make a Greatest of All Time list when it comes to philosophy.

Why?

Because what is true in philosophy is true regardless of the book that it appears in. And any book that helps others discover not only what is true but how to think about and discover truths…

Well, that book is undoubtedly fantastic.

Also, I believe that when we define philosophy to our best abilities, it is something we do. In other words, philosophy is not really reading books. It is creating concepts with an attuned awareness of how our reading influences us.

Case in point, I am influenced by Gilles Deleuze in thinking that philosophy is an act of creating concepts. And as you’ll see, I’m also influenced by ancient thinkers and people like Nietzsche that at some level, we don’t even do that. Rather, philosophy does us.

I’ll explain more of what I mean as we go through this list.

One: Plato’s Dialogues

Getting to attend university was an extraordinary opportunity. But it wasn’t until my second year that I chose a major, which at that time was Political Science.

The first reading I was assigned was Plato’s The Republic. It’s an extraordinary read that starts with a memory and takes you not only into deep ideas, but also how to explore them through discussion.

I went to the professor as soon as I was done reading it and asked for more. She told me that Plato had written a ton of dialogues and suggested the Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns edition of Plato: The Collected Dialogues.

All of the dialogs are worth reading, but my favorites are The Republic, Sophist, Ion and Lysis.

Lysis was particularly important for me many years later. It has a lot to do with friendship, which is the topic I ultimately wrote my dissertation on.

In terms of core ideas, there’s so much to highlight, and that’s one reason I make this my top recommendation. A major benefit of reading Plato beyond just a few dialogues is that you get to see just how old certain unresolved problems are.

It’s not that there’s “nothing new under the sun.” Rather, you experience just how nimble the ancient mind was and how little our capabilities have changed. Although you would think our current concerns about technology would be very different, the core anxieties are right there back circa 427-348 BCE.

Pro-tip: Take some time to read about the Pre-Socratics. A lot of what you find in Plato is a reaction to what philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, Heracleitus and others had to say about nature.

Two: What Is Philosophy?

Let’s skip ahead a few thousand years.

What is Philosophy? is a fantastic companion to Plato for a few reasons.

First, it helps you see how Plato created many important ideas as concepts linked to personae.

These points are important because we often think about truth as something objective. In other words, the truth is true regardless of our opinions about it.

But as Deleuze and Guattari argue, it is science that tries to “freeze” observations in time in order to make truth claims about the world. That is quite like what the Pre-Socratics tried to do and why Plato reacted to them as he did.

Instead, Deleuze and Guattari see philosophy as something intensive and coming into being as one does philosophy in time.

They distinguish their preferred kind of philosophy as immanence rather than the transcendence of Platonic thought.

Rather than respond to the world as if there were some other essential truth or God behind it (transcendence), they respond to being itself (immanence).

In this approach, they are heavily influenced by Nietzsche.

Three: The Gay Science

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote many books. They’re all important because, as Martin Heidegger shows in his commentary on Nietzsche, he was incredibly consistent across his career. It’s almost as if he knew what he would write in his last book in some of his earliest youthful writings.

I chose The Gay Science for this list because this is the book in which Nietzsche warns us against the harms created by thinking that the universe is someone “alive.”

Rather, we need to accept that things are just here and happening. We don’t necessarily get to know why.

This book also gives one of the most important references to the notion that “God is dead.”

However, as Fred Ulfers pointed out when I studied Nietzsche with him at the European Graduate School, this crude idea is not really what Nietzsche meant to convey.

Rather, Nietzsche was critiquing how we all behave religiously. And if we are going to go around acting ritualistically to our gods or even the universe itself (as if it were alive), then our gods may as well be dead.

This is a very different pronouncement and if you read The Gay Science carefully, you’ll pick up this nuance. You’ll become a much better thinker too.

Pro-tip: The Bernard Williams edition of The Gay Science is especially good.

Four: The Analects

Of course, Nietzsche isn’t the only person who thought that our capacity for ritual was out of alignment. Confucius focused on this long before he was born.

The Analects often isn’t on lists of top philosophy books because some people think it is merely commentary. And it was also compiled long after Confucius’ death, so doesn’t have an author in the strict sense.

However, as Bryan W. Van Norden points out in Taking Back Philosophy, you find all the important concerns covered by this text. He compares Confucius to Plato for the importance of how the nature of being is discussed as a formal procedure. Conventions are described, interrogated and revised in order to help us live better at the personal and societal level.

Other key points include:

The role of the individual relative to the stateLearning and being a good studentDeveloping and maintaining personal integrityContinual self-evaluation through reflective thinking

Long story short: Don’t miss The Analects.

Pro-tip: The Arthur Waley version looks better on the page than some versions I’ve seen. It also comes with excellent discussions of key terms and useful annotations.

Five: Taking Back Philosophy

Although I think parts of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto are argued strenuously to the point of excess, at least Van Norden acknowledges this aspect of his style.

He’s clearly passionate about this main thesis: We need to be aware of philosophy from a wide number of traditions, cultures and historical periods. This includes philosophical works from:

AsiaSouth AmericaIndiaAfricaAboriginal philosophyNative American

And many more.

He makes a compelling case that many traditions have been not only neglected by European thinkers, but also actively dismissed.

However, a weakness of this book is its lack of acknowledgment of European thinkers who have embraced other traditions. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, possibly Hume, Deleuze and many others not only owe a debt to philosophers from around the world. They embrace them.

Another issue with this book is how the notion of “West” and “Western” is portrayed. Is there anything particularly “western” about some of the most important Greek philosophers? Hardly, given the fact that many of them were from what is now called Turkey.

Nonetheless, I feel that Taking Back Philosophy belongs on your shelf and I’m glad it’s on mine. I refer to it often and it helps me think better about bringing together philosophers from around the globe and throughout history.

Six: The Nichomachean Ethics

Aristotle is not one of the Greek philosophers who originated from Turkey, even though apparently in 2016, the country tried to claim him.

Most people think that Aristotle was born in Macedonia, but where exactly he is from is not what makes The Nichomachean Ethics so important.

This book is important because it discussed many concepts that are important to us today:

The nature and role of happiness in our livesExamples of the golden mean, such as its role in courageHonestyFriendship

I used this text in particular for my own dissertation on friendship. It was essential reading and Aristotle remains a key philosopher for ideas on how to educate yourself and form solid habits for the good of one and all.

Seven: Atma Bodha

Normally, you’d expect a text like the Bhagavad Gita to appear in a list like this.

And make no mistake, I think it’s well-worth reading.

However, there are many texts that have cut out the story and compressed the philosophical knowledge into a much shorter space.

Atma Bodha is one such text.

Some people have also set the text to music, which is useful for memorizing the material if you wish.

My favorite translation of the Atma Bodha is by James Swartz. It comes with his excellent commentary in The Fire of Self Knowledge.

I talk about how I’m memorizing it in the original Sanskrit here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViRws...

Why do I think it’s so important?’

I feel that it’s one of the best condensations of the Advaita Vedanta philosophy at the core of Bhagavad Gita.

Pro-tip: Ramana Maharshi also produced a compression of this knowledge in his Upadesa Saram. Comparing both texts is useful.

I’ve also shared my experience memorizing texts from this tradition in my TEDx Talk.

Eight: Sand Talk

In Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, Tyson Yunkaporta shares key points from Aboriginal philosophy you’ll struggle to find anywhere else.

For one thing, he also shares more than just his own cultural knowledge. He digs deep into the ideas of lesser-known philosophers around the world.

Even better, he shares some of the Aboriginal and Indigenous memory techniques anyone can use to remember the philosophical ideas he presents.

The core philosophy in this book involves a particular style of dialogue Yunkaporta calls “yarning.”

It’s an upgrade of the Platonic dialectal style of discussion, yet also predates it. You’ll definitely want to read this book.

Nine: The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics W. Moore has to be one of the most underrated philosophers ever. He’s one of the few analytical philosophers out there who really understands and underscores the value of continental philosophy.

In The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, his powers of clearly explaining core ideas are in full force. He takes you through the key thinkers starting in the Modern era with Descartes up to people who are often dismissed, like Jacques Derrida.

Since I myself have worked to balance ideas from both analytic and continental philosophy, I especially appreciate the depth of thinking and generosity of intellectual inquiry Moore brings.

Pro-tip: His book Points of View is more complicated, but also astonishing. I think he demonstrates his core thesis that it’s possible to think from no particular point of view very well.

Ten: Modes of Thought

Alfred North Whitehead might not be correct in the end, but in Modes of Thought, you’ll enjoy some of his best ideas and thought processes.

For example, he helps us think about thinking. What’s important and how do we know? What is the nature of understanding? What exactly takes place when we’re expressing an idea?

Philosophical questions like these are tremendously important.

Even better:

Whitehead tackles science and asks us to rethink matter. He sees science as isolating things in time, a point Deleuze and Guattari raise in What is Philosophy? Rather, if change is truly the only constant, then our philosophy must take it into account in a much more integral manner.

By the same token, Whitehead points out the limitations of language and the dangers of relying on it too much. He sees how we use language as one of the main sources of our problems and a key issue with the materialistic worldview overall. Language, like science, causes us to try and “freeze” things in time rather than acknowledging the consistency of constant change.

The best part is that Whitehead often uses stories and anecdotes with references to animals that help make his points clear.

Eleven: Gödel Escher Bach

Although some people won’t recognize Douglas Hofstadter’s epic Gödel Escher Bach as a work of philosophy, I feel that it is one of the best.

It’s about the nature of consciousness with a heavy focus on examples of recursion in computer programming. But along the way, Hofstadter takes care to relate the nature of programming to art, music and our conscious experience of life overall.

Ultimately, Hofstadter sees consciousness as a “strange loop.” And the book is filled with such strange loops, including his excellent meditations on the nature of Zen.

Paradoxically, he later said in an interview, “I hated Zen.” Given how wonderfully he explains the workings of Zen in the mind of the practitioner, I have to believe he meant this in jest.

Twelve: Principles

Some readers will mistakenly dismiss books about business philosophy as “true” philosophy.

However, I feel that would be a mistake. Certainly, as a business owner, I’m biased. But it’s clear to me that a business, like every individual and the universe itself, has some kind of being. Businesses exist and we need to philosophize about them.

I chose Principles for this list for a few reasons:

Dalio’s tremendous business successThe structure of the book, which is reminiscent of Spinoza’s EthicsThe multiple layers of philosophy

For example, Dalio divides his suggestions between the nature of the individual entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial team and the business itself as a kind of “machine” operating in the world.

One of his core philosophical ideas is that all business machines are built from multiple moving parts. When conceived of correctly, these parts can be “fine tuned.”

Dalio really is a lot like Spinoza the more I think about it!

Thirteen: Aramis, or the Love of Technology

Bruno Latour took a risk with his wonderful analysis of technology and society by recording his observations in the form of a novel.

Latour introduces Actor-Network theory in Aramis, of the Love of Technology. Although it might seem unusual to deliver a philosophy about how everything is shifting at all times, Plato’s dialogues are essentially stories. And many philosophers have used the format.

If you’re interested in philosophy of science and the notions of pure immanence and becoming, this book is one of the greatest philosophy books I know that experiments with the format.

Fourteen: Striking Thoughts

A lot of people know at least one Bruce Lee quote. It’s usually, “be water, my friend.” Or it might be, “No ego, no enemy.”

These are all great, but like Bruno Latour, Bruce Lee was a philosopher of change and the relations between many things in the world. As he wrote in Striking Thoughts, “to live is a constant process of relating.”

The book is a fantastic study in dealing with constant change as a learner.

But the best part for me is the teaching philosophy. Although it won’t apply to every aspect of education under the sun, Lee focuses on processes that enable students to reach their own conclusions. And that’s including when either teacher, student or both are insecure.

And as many good books of philosophy do, this book includes enriched approaches to ethics. This book belongs on the shelf of every diverse critical thinker.

Fifteen: Discipline and Punish

Michel Foucault has been a controversial figure lately. A lot of people who seem not to have read him have co-opted poorly summarized versions of his ideas and twisted them out of shape.

Worse, they made ad hominem attacks against the philosopher himself. Sure, he may have been engaged in some unpleasant things. Many humans are. But that doesn’t necessarily reduce the value of his work.

So what is that value?

I chose Discipline and Punish for this list for two reasons:

The book tracks the historical shift from public executions to private imprisonment and the philosophical ideas involved in the transitionFoucault helps you think about how we as societies surveil each otherFoucault provides a nuanced definition of power

For these reasons, this book has been so influential, as have many other works by Foucault. You don’t have to agree with him or become “Foucauldian” to benefit from reading it.

But if you do find yourself responding judgmentally, this book might help you see how and why our culture shapes people for whom capricious responses are often the default setting.

Sixteen: On the Shadows of the Ideas

The importance of Giordano Bruno has yet to be fully explored. Many philosophers mention him, including Nietzsche, and his memory techniques remain highly influential.

Part of his ongoing longevity comes from Frances Yates’ portrayal of him in The Art of Memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3GGc...

However, she misrepresents him as a hermeticist. Although he certainly has elements of pantheism in his approach, not dissimilar to Spinoza in his Ethics, I believe Bruno is ultimately a non-dualist.

If you read and even put into practice his conceptions and intentions, you’ll discover that, like the Vedantans, he was essentially working to neutralize or dissolve the notion of the individual self.

Sadly, these ideas are often lost in the discussions of Bruno, who was burned at the stake for the crime of believing in infinity.

Pro-tip: John Michael Greer’s translation is fantastic and we discuss it here.

Seventeen: Ethics

Spinoza’s importance cannot be underestimated. In some ways, the best philosophy that follows his Ethics owes him a great deal.

He is a philosopher of unity and becoming, of pure immanence before Deleuze and Guattari cooked up that term.

As Spinoza writes:

“The idea of the mind is united to the mind in the same way as the mind is united to the body.”

By demonstrating the validity of this claim, he ultimately demonstrates a complete oneness between all things. If he’s correct, we all get to experience infinity.

Pro-tip: Steven Nadler’s recent, Think Least of Death is an excellent and accessible discussion of some of Spinoza’s more challenging ideas.

Eighteen: The Classical Trivium

Marshall McLuhan is famous for his media philosophy. But none of his explosive ideas would have happened if he hadn’t been a student of how ideas were spread before radio, TV and cinema.

In fact, probably his most important book is his study of The Classical Trivium. In it, you’ll learn how some of the most important philosophers thought and wrote. For example, humanists like Erasmus and Bacon took pains to align themselves with the ancient philosophers. We often think of them as helping birth the modern era, but if anything, they were looking backwards, not forward.

McLuhan shows us how during the Medieval and Renaissance periods, thinkers believed we could read the world and the universe itself as if it were a book. It shows the history of the art of interpretation and you’ll learn about how people in this era structured knowledge. These are reading strategies that are still useful to this day.

Nineteen: Powers of Horror

Some books contain ideas that are impossible to forget.

Enter Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.

This book helps you think better about a few things.

For example, why do you feel separate from everything else? Is it because you’re actually separate, or has your culture trained you to feel and think as if you were divided from the rest of reality?

Kristeva analyzes a number of linguistic codes and social processes, including bodily functions and conventions we’ve created to deal with them.

Sure, these topics are not exactly dinnertime conversation. But going through them with Kristeva will change your life for the better. It’s also essential reading if you want to understand cultural phenomena like the horror genre.

Twenty: How It Is F. Cordova is an excellent philosopher to round out this list. In many ways, she compliments Kristeva’s concerns about differentiation. She shows how it happens to entire cultures.

We also find through Cordova’s work a compelling study of Native North American thinking. For example, she shows how individuality is a given, yet always in the context of the whole.

Each human being is given different opportunities to grow their strengths in this conception. They are shaped by a balance of interest in the individual’s ability to help the whole as a group.

She also talks about our duty to do philosophy, which reminds of Deleuze and Guattari’s insistence that philosophy is about the creation of concepts.

The more we all get together to collaborate on the creation of concepts for the good of everyone, then How It Is will be very good indeed.

How to Choose the Right Philosophy Books for You

I have so many runner-up books I’d love to include, including volumes by:

René Girard for mimetic theoryUmberto Eco for semioticsKitaro Nishida for his work on ZenKey texts by some of the Stoics

But when it comes to choosing the best possible philosophy books, I recommend balancing quantity with quality.

To do this, read in missions.

Remember how I mentioned McLuhan’s study of the Trivium? Well, hidden inside of this style of learning is the idea that you group together a few different categories as you read.

For example, when I was learning Advaita Vedanta, I read two other categories at the same time and used the principle of interleaving. It’s a memory technique that helps you remember more.

So for example, although my core focus was on Advaita Vedanta, I switched in books on Zen and hermeticism.

Then, when that reading cluster was done, I moved on to the next cluster by reading books focused on astronomy, math, geometry and music.

When you read this way, you wind up with a much larger world view, much faster.

Umberto Eco suggested as much in his final letter to his grandson. Eco also urged his grandson to learn how to use his memory.

On this site, I talk about philosophy a lot. But the core focus is to encourage and inspire people to use memory techniques.

In some ways, I’m like what McLuhan thought Erasmus and Bacon were like: People looking at the past for inspiration. 

If you’d like to discover what I’ve learned about the ancient art of memory, get my FREE Memory Improvement Kit here:

You’ll discover how to use a Memory Palace.

That way, when you’re reading the top philosophy books you’re interested in, you’ll be able to remember their key points.

Read Philosophy with Momentum

There you have it. My top picks from decades of reading philosophy.

I hope you’ve encountered some reading suggestions you haven’t found anywhere else.

And I’d love to know what you pick.

Even better, I’d love to know what concepts you create after reading your choices as you do the work of philosophy yourself.

Happy reading!

206 Deep Philosophical Questions for Smart People

News flash: philosophical questions for smart people must actually be philosophical.

I raise this point because so many people ask general interest questions and call them philosophical.

But that doesn’t mean that they actually are philosophical.

At its core, philosophy is the investigation of the nature of being.

As Martin Heidegger often put it, asking deep philosophical questions of his own, we need to question the being of being itself. And how is it that we as beings have come to not only ask questions, but question the nature of what it means to ask questions in the first place?

206 Thought-Provoking Philosophical Questions

With these points in mind, here’s a list of questions that will help you experience rich and rewarding conversations with friends and family.

I’ve split the questions up into different categories and will sometimes discuss why the questions are so valuable to discuss.

Ready?

Let’s get started.

Ontology

As Dale Jacquette points out in his book Ontology, we often take the question of what exists for granted. What does it mean for something to exist? How does existence relate to things that are merely coming into being?

Ontological questions focus on being and who it relates to the opposite: non-being or non-existence.

Here are some of the most important questions in this area:

Why is there something rather than nothing? What does it mean to exist? What must be true in order for us to say that something exists or does not exist?

This question is especially interesting because we talk about many things that technically don’t exist, such as unicorns. 

Yet, the very notion of unicorn is premised upon other things that do exist, such as horses and animals that have horns. We can also think about horns in relation to seashells. So with this in mind, is it really the case that unicorns do not exist?

For more on the problem of non-existence and some proofs that non-being cannot be the opposite of being, see Plato’s Sophist.

What laws govern matter? When does life begin?

This question applies both to life as such in terms of when it first appeared in the universe, and when it starts following pregnancy. You can also ask to what extent that the universe itself might be alive.

Nietzsche was a philosopher who definitely thought the universe was not alive. See aphorism 109 of his book The Gay Science for an extraordinary warning against such humanization of being.

What happens to us when we die?What is the most perfect form of being?Does a god exist? If a god exists, why would we need to prove this? Is change real or only apparent? What is real?What is reality? Is reality one or many?

This question means to investigate not just the nature of one reality as opposed to a multiverse. It is also the question of whether or not everything in the reality is connected, or if there is separation between things.

Is reality material or spiritual? Is reality permanent, or is it itself always changing? If the entire universe is always in motion, can any object ever be at “rest”? Are light and darkness equal?Does history exist or did humans invent it? If so, does it repeat itself? Does the past continue to exist after it is gone? Is the world of tomorrow already here?

These last two questions were raised by Einstein and Gödel. For a full analysis, see A World Without Time.

In essence, it is fascinating to think that even though yesterday is gone, the world of yesterday is still there and potentially accessible.

Epistemology

As Christopher Norris puts it, epistemology boils down to the difference between opinion and verifiable fact. How do we know what we know and by what criteria do we know if that knowledge is valuable?

Knowledge can be about ideas, things, substances or states. Here are a pile of compelling questions you can ask in this area:

What is the nature of knowledge?Where does knowledge reside? In individuals or in humanity collectively? Is knowledge in our sense-impressions? In mental perceptions? In our judgements?What counts as a valid source of knowledge? What are the different sources of knowledge? Is knowledge something that we can possess?What is truth? How do we test what is true? What is a question? What is a good question? Why do some words and phrases translate cleanly between languages while others do not?Can we think something into existence?Can we think something into non-existence?Can we think about things that don’t exist?What is a substance?
What is a number?
Do “spirits” exist? If so, do they “know” things? What is a fact?What is an opinion?What is a mistake? What does the fact that mistakes are possible tell us about the nature of reality? If you know what you’re looking for, why would questions about it arise? 

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, how is it possible that you have enough knowledge to know that you want to find it? (This is essentially Meno’s Paradox.)

How much can an individual person know? Can an individual ever know anything on their own?

This question is very important because language is not owned by any individual. At its core, all knowledge is likely shared by virtue of this fact alone.

What is “language”? Are all languages equal? What makes a justified belief justified? How does language refer to the real world? What is truly objective and not subjective? What is the order in information? Or is it all chaos?What is philosophy?Why is philosophy important? Am I doomed to always be naive?Ethics

Peter Singer is one of the most important philosophers associated with ethics. One of his core concerns involves the duties of individuals with respect to the whole.

Within this field, one must consider the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. It’s very hard to balance these two factors without causing harm to some by minimizing pain for others – and this problem explains a lot of the strife and turmoil we see in the world throughout human history.

These questions will help you think through philosophical questions related to ethics.

By what principles do we judge things right or wrong? What does it mean when we say that things “ought” to be a certain way?What are the principles, criteria and standards by which we should decide what to do? Is justice good because we prefer it, or do we prefer justice because it is good? What makes a human being moral? Should you seek to maximize your personal pleasure? Is it right to take on pain for yourself if it helps maximize the pleasure of others? What does it mean to be a good friend? What are my personal responsibilities as a local, national and global citizen? Is there a scientific basis to ethics?Sam Harris thinks that the answer to this question is yes. He defends his answer in The Moral Landscape.What is fairness? What are rights? How would I act if I cared for all life on the planet? How would I act if I considered both the short and long term outcomes of all my actions? How do we know when an authority should be followed? How do we know when it’s right to disobey authority? Is it right to keep a person alive artificially? Is killing always immoral and/or illegal? Should people be allowed to worship in any way they please? Is it right to allow children to determine their own gender? At what age should people be allowed to marry? How should we decide who gets to receive organ implants? How do we determine when death has occured?Religion

One of the fascinating aspects of religion is that people make truth claims about their chosen faith, yet all chosen faiths are under constant attack. As Mikel Burley has pointed out, this has put all religions on the defensive.

In some ways, this makes religion very similar to philosophy because neither of them are a science. Although philosophy and religion are not the same, they both exist to help us answer the questions that science has yet to address.

And as you’ll see from the following list, it is possible for some religious questions to be philosophical in nature. It basically boils down to looking at the philosophical questions that have come up in both the attacks against religion and the defenses various believers have mounted.

Does god exist?What are the reasons to believe that god exists? What is the nature of a god? Is god the ultimate reality? What is the relationship between an individual and a god? If a god does not exist, is there some other form of transcendent reality? Is it rational to believe in a god? Do you choose your faith or does it choose you? Can you be faithful and still experience doubt? If infinity is real, has god already reached it? If so, how is that possible given the definition of “infinity”? Does heaven exist?
Does hell exist? Is it right for a god to create and/or allow harm for any reason? If god exists, why is there evil in the world? Is god supernatural, or at one with the universe? Is religion philosophical? Does any scientific evidence validate any religion?Are all religions fundamentally the same? Why do different religions exist? How do we evaluate different religions? Why do so many religions rely upon stories instead of facts? If religion is real, why do atheists exist?Is it possible for an atheist to have a religious or spiritual experience? To what extent do moral positions have religious significance? Is morality pointless without religion?Do science and religion conflict with one another?Anthropological Philosophy

Anthropology has to do with people and their environments and how this relationship leads to the formation of thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. One of the greatest philosophers in this area was Friedrich Nietzsche, who sought to understand how humans create their own values. He was especially puzzled by how humans failed to see that they are the creators of their own values in the first place.

What are human beings?What is human hope? Desire? Belief? What is consciousness?What is a thought?What is thinking? How is it possible for the mind to represent the world? Can we really know anything? Is human nature inherently good or evil? Do you humans act out of free will, or are our actions determined? What is technology? When is our technology good? When is our technology bad? Who is ultimately responsible for the outcomes of using technology? Individuals, or the entire species? What is enlightenment? Why do some people think they have it?Does education improve people? If so, why do we seem to make the same mistakes repeatedly?Why do people limit themselves by giving responsibility to a god? Does free will exist? If free will doesn’t exist, why do I feel like I am in control?What is human evolution? How do humans evolve differently than other life forms? Why is there ethnic conflict in the world? Why do the behaviors of people differ based on where they are born? How do families form? How do individual identities form? Why do our personalities change over time? If your brain were transplanted into another body, would you still be you? How do social hierarchies form?Why are there different social classes? How do people learn languages?Why do some languages die? Do minds cause physical events, or does the physical body exclusively cause events in the mind? (Epiphenomenalism) What is it like to experience something? Why do humans pretend? How do I know that other people think and feel in the same ways I do? How do I know I’m not dreaming?Happiness Is happiness the product of chemicals flowing through your brain? Or is it more? What is the good life?Can people be happy? Do they actually want to be happy? Should people pursue happiness?Can you legitimately achieve happiness without making others unhappy? Is it selfish to want to be happy?Is it wrong to not care about being happy? Do we need goals in order to be happy? Does life have a meaning?Can meaning be found or does it have to be invented? (Existentialism)What is suffering?Is it rational to donate to charities?How do you describe happinessHow do you measure happiness?

Some people have thought that you actually can measure happiness. Jeremy Benthem’s felicific calculus is one strategy.

How do you control your own happiness?For whom is happiness possible?Is the pursuit of happiness self-defeating? When does seeking happiness make you unhappy?How do you find happiness with others?

Philosophy of Art

Can art be defined?Do artists, consumers or institutions like galleries and museums get to define the meaning of art? What media belongs to art and what doesn’t? (Film, literature, cinema, etc.) Why do certain artists resemble one another while others couldn’t be more different? What is it about art that causes a response in humans?What are the different kinds of responses to art? Is the value of art in the work or in the mind of the beholder? Does art have a purpose, or is it an end in itself? What is an authentic performance of a musical piece?In Philosophy: The Basics, Nigel Warburton wonders how we could ever experience Bach authentically without a time machine? Is a high quality forgery still art? What is an artistic style? How do we know one when we see it? What do the cinematic arts teach us about the nature of time?Political Philosophy

Plato believed that societies can be harmonized through political philosophy. He suggested an aristocracy would be best, and had some ideas we might think crazy now. For example, artists and poets would need to be expelled altogether because their representations bent reality.

Ironically, one of Plato’s stories, the Allegory of the Cave (found in The Republic), forms the basis of The Matrix, one of the most popular movies of all time.

Here are some of the most compelling questions from political philosophy.

What is equality?What is freedom?Are equality and freedom reasonable goals? How can they be achieved? What can justify the limits on freedom enacted by the state? Should money be equally distributed? What does it mean to “deserve” something without having “earned” it? Why do different people have different needs? Why does discrimination arise? Since voters typically cannot become political experts, is their voice really valid? Is there a right to freedom of speech? Should people be allowed to lie and/or misrepresent the truth? How can we protect the innocent from punishment?Philosophy of Science

As James Ladyman points out, many aspects of life do not change. Most people still work very hard just to survive. Yet, we’ve never had more access to technology than ever before, all thanks to the advancements of science. 

It’s not just that science has given us miraculous tools like phones that take high quality photographs. Science has also helped us figure out how to ship them around the world and link them to satellites flying above our heads.

It’s questions like these that have made it all possible.

What is science? What is an experiment? How do we know if the results of an experiment are valid?What are the limits of science?How far might science actually go given enough time and resources?Are there any limits to the problem-solving capacity of computers? Will progress continue on into infinity? Are there any problems with the empirical method? What is the nature of information, data and evidence? How do we know that our tools of detection provide accurate and precise information? Was math discovered or invented? Is a final “theory of everything” possible? If scientists determine that something should be done but people reject it, is it right to impose science upon them? Are there a finite or infinite number of questions for science to tackle? How should we understand universal cosmological time? What is life? What is the nature of a living system? What is the difference between a living system and the matter described by physics? Does life have a goal? If science shows that something is true, are we obliged to use the result? What should we do when scientists break the law or lie?How to Remember Good Philosophical Questions

I hope you’ve enjoyed this list, even if it includes some unanswerable philosophical questions. That’s just the way it goes with many intellectual questions, and it’s great brain exercise to at least try and answer them.

One problem people face, however, is that they come across good philosophical questions, only to forget them.

If you’d like to continue enjoying the benefits of deep thinking, learn now to memorize as many philosophical questions as you wish with my FREE Memory Improvement Kit:

Many of the best philosophers and deep thinkers have used the techniques I talk about in this course to reflect on deep philosophical questions about life.

And because of how the techniques work, they remembered their answers too.

Happy questioning and leave a comment below if you’ve got questions that belong on this list.

 

Mnemonic Images: What They Are & How They Help

Mnemonic images are powerful tools learners use to speed up the remembering process.

You can use mnemonic pictures for nearly everything:

Language learningInfo from textbooksChemistryMathNamesFactsHistorical datesListsVerbatim tasks like quotes and speeches

The trick is to assign your mnemonic images correctly.

Miss just one step, and the process can be slow, boring and not worth the time.

But learn to use mnemonic images well, and you’ll learn at a much faster pace.

Ready for the real deal when it comes to this powerful learning strategy?

Let’s dive in!

What Are Mnemonic Images?

Mnemonic images are associations.

For example, if I want to remember a name like “Bruce,” I might think of Bruce Wayne from Batman lore.

You attach a simple image like this to information you want to learn.

They can be simple and direct like Bruce Wayne, or more complex as needed. For larger learning projects, we typically place our associations in a Memory Palace.

You can also draw them out, which I often do to speed up the learning process. Here’s an example from one of my language learning missions:

This kind of visual mnemonic works because the answer isn’t on the card. Instead, it presents a puzzle to be solved

And solving it makes memories form faster.

The Truth About Mnemonics

Frankly, there’s a bit of a problem in how we use this term “mnemonic image.”

You see, the idea of an image mnemonic makes it seem like the associations have to be visual.

But visual mnemonics are actually just one category of associations you can assign.

In the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass, I teach you all the major categories of association through KAVE COGS:

Kinaesthetic mnemonicsAuditory mnemonicsVisual mnemonicsEmotional mnemonicsConceptual mnemonicsOlfactory mnemonicsGustatory mnemonicsSpatial mnemonics

Those are the major eight categories most of us draw upon the most often. But there are twenty more that I teach, and knowledge of these can be useful from time to time.

The point is this:

True Mnemonic Images Are Multisensory

Good mnemonic images are always multisensory. They don’t just rely on the visual mode.

So if you want to learn faster and remember more, visual mnemonics are okay. But you’ll do a lot better if you add in more mental imagery based on other sensations. In the Magnetic Memory Method world, we call the range of sensations we use the “Magnetic Modes.”

Why?

Because we know from personal experience and a variety of sources that multisensory association is the key to associative learning.

First, we have thirty years of memory competition records, and I’ve interviewed dozens of memory athletes like Nelson Dellis, Braden Adams, Lynne Kelly, Katie Kermode and John Graham to name just a few. I’ve also interviewed the creator of the World Memory Championships, Tony Buzan.

We know from studies that mnemonic processing works a lot better when it is multisensory. Studies have shown that multi sensory mnemonics can beat flash cards, for example. (I’ll show you a way you can combine mnemonic images with flash cards in a moment, however.)

Overall, multisensory association is a kind of “guided learning,” and this has been shown to be very healthy for adults. And you don’t have to be a memory competitor to benefit. People like myself, Scott Gosnell and John Michael Greer all produce materials for adult learners to help teach themselves this “martial art of the mind.” 

With the evidence in tow, let me give you a few steps and some examples that will help you master using mnemonic images.

How to Use Visual Mnemonics to Remember Things

Keeping in mind that what we’re talking about is visualizing a wide range of sensations when assigning associations, here’s what to do and how to do it.

If you struggle to visualize, try these simple exercises. You can also learn to image stream or develop hyperphantasia.

Step One: Have the Target Information Prepared

I know this step sounds obvious, but it isn’t. Many people don’t spend any time at all thinking about what they want to memorize.

This causes issues later because mnemonic images are associations and they can blur into each other if they aren’t separated and arranged in optimal ways.

For example, when you’re memorizing a speech, you may want to memorize the quotes you use first. That’s how I approached my TEDx Talk.

When you’re memorizing foreign language vocabulary, you might want to organize the words by theme or even alphabetically.

Typically, you’ll want to follow the next step to avoid issues that emerge from poor information organization.

Step Two: Use a Memory Palace

You can definitely use mnemonic images without a Memory Palace. Some people prefer the story and link method.

However, here’s something to consider:

A Memory Palace is a mnemonic image. And it’s a powerful one because it allows you to use every other memory technique within it.

Any building you are basically familiar with can be used as a Memory Palace for storing your mnemonic imagery.

You also can use the Memory Palace to review your mnemonic images. Without this spatial memory foundation, it’s difficult to manage a bunch of associations floating around in the void of your mind.

Step Three: Select Your Mnemonic Images Skillfully

When learning, a lot of people make weak mnemonic images.

For example, if they are memorizing scripture, they might do something like this for “To answer before listening, that is folly and shame.”

They might use a mnemonic image of a tutu answering a bee-shaped telephone to get started.

That’s okay, but it’s also generic and vague.

To use the Magnetic Memory Method, you choose much more specific references. I would certainly stick with the tutu, but I would add Desmond Tutu.

Desmond Tutu wearing a tutu is a lot stronger than just the piece of clothing floating around on its own.

Then, with this image secured in a Memory Palace, I would add KAVE COGS. I would literally pretend to be Desmond Tutu and feel the tutu against my skin. I would hear him dancing around like a ballerina on his way to answer the bee-shaped phone.

And it would not be  just any bee-shaped phone. It would be the character from The Bee Movie, voiced by Jerry Seinfeld.

These specific references make it easy to pack in sounds, emotions, physical sensations and elements of size, smells and tastes. It’s so much more powerful than visual mnemonics on their own.

Step Four: Review Your Mnemonic Images Strategically

With a Memory Palace in play, you’re able to gather together dozens, if not hundreds of mnemonic images. My TEDx Talk involved over 300, to give you a simple example.

(Though, please keep in mind that it’s not a numbers game. And there are different ways to count how many images are involved depending on your exact approach).

In my experience, the best way to review the associations is to follow the Memory Palace journey using dedicated patterns:

Review them forwardsBackwardsFrom the middle of the Memory Palace to the endFrom the middle of the Memory Palace to the beginningOut of orderRandomly pop in

This approach gives equal doses of Primacy and Recency to each mnemonic image in the Memory Palace.

Step Five: Experiment

I mentioned above that there’s a way to integrate flash cards. You can also use digital flash cards using an app like Anki.

The same rules apply.

When you create your card, either on paper or on a digital screen, make sure to use KAVE COGS.

And practice memorizing many different types of information. The images you use to memorize words will ultimately be linked to what you use for words. But knowing how, when and why to shift your mnemonic strategy is the key to long term success across the learning landscape.

Step Six: Develop

As you continue learning using mnemonic images, develop other systems.

There are three key systems that give you literally dozens of images you can draw from on demand.

These are:

Major SystemPegwords00-99 PAO

Within 2-5 hours of developmental work, the piles of mnemonic images these systems give you will be ready to use in a flash.

For example, if I have to memorize an unfamiliar name like Gangador Dianand, I don’t have to create a mnemonic image from scratch. I just consult my pegword list for ideas.

If I have to memorize a number like 33924345, all I need is my 00-99 PAO, which has three images perfectly suited for those numbers. It’s ready to go, and all I had to do was develop it based on the Major System.

That’s all you’ll have to do too.

Beyond Mnemonic Pictures 

Without a doubt, mnemonic images are fun and easy to develop and use.

The trick is to not treat them like “pictures” or limit them to the visual mode.

The more you broaden them into the multi-sensory capacities of your mind, the great memory power they will have.

And you can apply the KAVE COGS formula to your Memory palaces too.

Remember: Every Memory Palace is also a mnemonic image.

And it’s the best kind of mnemonic image because it is the one that lets you store all the rest.

If you need help building your first Memory Palace and want an entire network of them, register for this free course now:

It will help you develop them in an optimal way to house all of your mnemonic images from here on in. That way, you’ll remember a lot more, a lot faster.

12 Brain Warm Up Exercises That Actually Work

Good brain warm up exercises are hard to find, but you’ve just discovered an in-depth list of the best.

What makes a mental warm up routine good?

For one thing, it has to challenge your mind.

In order to create an effect, each warm up routine needs to produce at least a bit of friction.

By taking on the quick and creative challenges I’ve gathered for you on this page, you’ll experience exactly that:

Positive friction that produces mental dexterity, new ideas and personal growth.

Sound good?

Great! Let’s dive in!

12 Brain Warm Up Exercises That Wake Your Brain Up

This list of warm ups for your brain is a cornucopia of ideas.

They’re all good, so don’t feel that the numbers are an indicator of value.

But if you want my personal opinion?

I saved the best and most scientifically-tested exercises to wake up your brain for the end of the list.

One: List 10 Alternative Uses For An Object

When I met with creativity and memory expert Tony Buzan, he challenged me to come up with ten uses for a pin lapel he was wearing.

I quickly laid out a bunch of ideas, everything from using it to make very quiet sounds on a drum, to using it like a coin in a magic trick. I even suggested that you could string enough of them together to create a ladder from here to the moon.

It’s a great exercise that creates rapid benefits, and it works with any object.

So grab an eraser, sock, book or any object you can find and jot down at least ten alternative ways it could be used.

If you can’t think of ten, don’t sweat it. But keep coming back to it throughout the day for some mini-creative exercise.

Two: Question Your Dreams

I don’t know about you, but I fantasize often.

But instead of letting them drift away, I use my dreams to engage in one of the strongest morning brain exercises I know.

Here are the steps:

Write down the dream or dream fragment you rememberAsk what it reminds you of (situation, person or place)Journal briefly on any emotions or concepts that arise

You can also do exercises throughout the day with your daydreams. This is an activity Robert Langs discusses in full in his excellent Daydream Workbook.

In brief, when you notice yourself daydreaming, make a note of the nature of the dream. And ask yourself similar questions about what memories come to mind surrounding it? What emotions, longings or fulfillments does the dray dream suggest?

There doesn’t have to be any particular outcome from this exercise. You’re just going for the brain warm up and using your dreams and day dreams to do it.

Three: Give Emotions to Colors

Take ROY G BIV, the acronym for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

Then list as quickly as you can the first emotion that comes to mind for each color. For example:

Red = angerOrange = shameYellow = happy

To take the exercise to the next level, find 3-5 alternative words for each emotion. In other words, mentally transform happiness into contentedness, comfort, mirth, cheer, elatedness, etc.

Try and do it on your own before reaching for a thesaurus.

Four: Play the Alphabet Game

Either in your mind or using paper and pen, think of a name for each letter.

For example:

A = AnthonyB = BonnieC = Connie etc.

Now, they don’t have to rhyme, as I’ve done, but that in itself provides interesting exercise that will stretch your mind even further.

You can also go through the alphabet and name only objects:

A = appleB = ballC = car etc.

If you want to take this to the next level, have a person you name interact with an object by the same letter. Have the action also start with the same letter, like this:

Al Pacino accepts an appleBatman bounces a ballCookie monster cooks a car, etc.

Sure, things might get weird, but that’s why this exercise works so well to wake up your brain.

You can take this exercise further with the pegword method or by building a PAO System.

Five: Encode Using Associations

Let’s say you’re doing the color/emotion exercise I shared above. You’ve discovered a word in the thesaurus and you want to remember to use it more often.

Take the word and think about an image that comes to mind that can help you remember it.

For elatedness, you could seize upon the el and think about someone named Elaine arriving late.

To take another example, for mirth, you could think about frankincense and myrrh, as mentioned in the Bible.

For best results and an additional exercise, place these associations in a Memory Palace.

Six: Reading Recall

Go back as far as you can in your life. For example, grade one or two.

Think of a book that you loved during that year. Or at least a book you can remember reading.

For me, I remember a book in kindergarten or grade one that involved teddy bears falling off of the book shelf they lived on. They fell onto a map spread on the floor and had to find their way back to the bookshelf from disparate lands.

The next book I distinctly remember is Where the Red Fern Grows. All I really remember about it is that there was a dog and quite a bit about hunting racoons.

Don’t worry if you have to skip entire grades or if you aren’t sure about accuracy. Just try your best to proceed on a year-by-year basis.

You can also just go year-by-year if you haven’t been in school for a very long time. The point of the warm up exercise is to stick with the yearly progression.

As an alternative, you can also use movies and try to match the year or grade you were in when you saw them.

Seven: The Movie Name Game

Take a movie that you know. Then, take the last letter in the name of the movie. Use it to name another movie.

For example, if you think of Aliens, then your next movie should start with S, such as Superman. Then you would think of one that starts with N.

This exercise can get challenging fast, but push through and see how far you get. Try to name at least 10 titles before you stop.

As an alternative, you can use book titles, names of people you know or celebrities.

Eight: Combine Products

Unlike the exercise where you name as many possible uses for an object as you can think of, here the goal is to think of mixing two objects together.

For example, imagine mixing cherry juice with mustard. Or attaching a chain saw to a car. How about an airplane that shoots spiderwebs?

See if you can get 10 combinations together.

You can also take this to the next level by getting actual objects together on a table and trying to combine them. For example, you can play around with combining:

ForkStringCoinsSalt shakerEtc. 

To take a simple example, you could tie the string around the coin and use it as a swinging mallet to make a dinner bell out of the salt shaker.

Nine: Combine Stories

Imagine Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

But instead of having a dog named Toto, imagine that her pet is Scooby Doo. Then imagine how Scooby Doo would fit into the basket on Dorothy’s bike. And think about how he would react when meeting the Wicked Witch for the first time?

To continue this creative warm up exercise, have a number of movie and story titles on slips of paper. Mix them around and mishmash a few together. Then think of scenarios and what they would be like with the character swaps in place.

For more examples, imagine: 

James Bond in a battle against Kermit the FrogRambo taking on the Death Star in Star WarsSherlock Holmes in The Firm instead of Tom Cruise

Keeping physical books in the area where you complete your morning brain exercises is a great way to do this. Just grab a few novels or comic books and think of mix-and-match ways to create new and unusual combinations.

Ten: Use a Memory Palace

One of the most ice-cold mental situations people face comes from problems like PTSD and depression.

Yet, as Nic Castle, a former police officer found, using a Memory Palace helped him reduce his symptoms.

It’s not just his anecdotal experience either. Dr. Gary Dalgleish and his co-researchers have found exactly these results in their clinical trials.

You don’t have to suffer in order to benefit from using this technique as a brain warm up, however.

All you have to do is:

Have at least one Memory Palace (here’s how to create your first)Use it to memorize something (like a simple mantra)Enter your Memory Palace first thing in the morningRecite the mantraExit the Memory Palace feeling warmed up

If you really get into this practice, you can also memorize playing cards as a quick warm up. I sometimes do this before applying memory techniques to language learning.

Eleven: Learn and Use a Speed Calculation System

Imagine being able to solve mathematical equations within seconds?

All you have to do is learn a simple system. I recommend the Trachtenberg method.

Although learning it might not itself serve as a brain warm up, using it certainly well.

It’s a lot of fun and you can learn to use it for addition, multiplication, division and even squaring and algebraic manipulation.

Twelve: Journal About Your Emotions

Researchers found that students who journaled for 10 minutes about their emotions scored better on their exams.

Imagine that:

Getting an A instead of a B+ just by writing about how you feel.

Researchers also found that if the participants focused on their breathing while journaling, they did even better.

The catch with this study is that it was useful for students with anxiety. Having dealt with anxiety myself and used journaling, I’ve found this approach excellent in my own life for getting my brain warmed up.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t help anyone, even if they don’t have anxiety themselves.

Give it a try!

Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain

As you can see, there are many routines you can follow.

In fact, we’re just scratching the surface.

If you find that you like these brain warm up routines, there are so many more things you can do.

And if you found the Memory Palace technique intriguing, why not learn the skill in earnest?

I’ve got a whole FREE course you can register for right now:

It will take your through how to develop this simple tool so you can use it throughout the day to keep your brain sharp.

The best part?

It will help you remember the different brain warm up routines we discussed today.

So give it a try and just shout out if you have any questions along the way. I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.

Memory and Intelligence: Are They Connected?

Are memory and intelligence connected?

Of course they are.

After all, how could you ever display your intelligence without using your memory to speak?

But let’s dig deeper.

Working memory and intelligence are connected in some interesting ways.

And when you understand these, you can use your natural memory to boost your own intelligence quickly.

Even better:

You can help others do the same.

Ready?

Let’s get started!

The Link Between Memory and Intelligence Explained

Intelligence comes down to drawing upon remembered experiences to plan and make decisions.

Indeed, it is a sign of high intelligence when individuals take time to plan before making snap decisions.

Of course, as neuroscientist David Eagleman points out in The Brain: The Story of You, we don’t always have time to plan out our decisions. 

To help us see how the intelligence centers of the brain light up when faced with logical problems that need to be decided quickly, neuroscientists study people’s brains as they consider the trolley problem. 

But here’s something interesting:

In these scenarios, it is typically not intelligence, but emotions that guide how people make decisions.

Emotional Intelligence and Memory

According to researchers, emotional memory always involves physiological responses. These can range from happiness to anger whenever our episodic memory brings up something from the past.

But the idea that emotions are not part of our intelligence is suspect at best. Of course we draw upon past emotional experiences to help us make decisions.

Not only that, but there are many subconscious mind exercises that seek to extract past emotions so that intelligent decisions can be made. Without using your emotional memory, it’s hard to elicit positive emotions required for motivation.

Music also involves both emotional intelligence and memory. To be able to memorize song lyrics and perform with gusto draws upon both.

 

Plus, actors often draw upon emotions and memory that utilize many aspects of intelligence. They do this to memorize their lines and perform them.

Can You Have a High IQ and be Forgetful?

You can have a high IQ and suffer from low working memory. Or, you can experience the reverse.

This is because many things can cause working memory issues. You might be tired, distracted or simply not paying attention.

The truth is that everyone forgets, even if an individual has done a lot of work to improve their IQ. No matter how smart you might be on an average day, things can get in the way of both your memory and your intelligence.

Keep in mind too that IQ typically involves tests that rely upon abstract thinking and reasoning in response to symbols.

My Best Memory Resources

If you really want to experience better intelligence, it’s pretty simple. Set specific learning goals and use memory techniques to boost your understanding and recall.

Here’s a list of my best resources for learning these skills quickly:

Memory PalaceMajor SystemPAO SystemPegword MethodRead FasterCritical thinking exercises

By combining memory and reading techniques with critical thinking, you’ll automatically boost both your recall abilities and intelligence.

The reason this mix works is because we often cannot understand certain things until we get them into memory.

Yet, so many people persist in putting things aside and giving up. That’s simply not necessary. If you would just spend a bit of time committing things to memory, soon you’ll start to understand.

It’s like this in language learning as well. Many polyglots agree that you’re better off committing vocabulary and phrases to memory so that you can understand grammar more quickly. It seems like studying grammar is the thing to do, but it’s far from the smartest path.

Memory Vs Intelligence

At the end of the day, we need multiple levels of memory in order for our intelligence to work.

These levels go beyond the episodic memory we talked about above. We also can include:

Procedural memoryAutobiographical memoryLong-term memoryContext-dependent memoryVisual memory

And of course, there are even more categories to explore.

The more you know about memory, the more intelligent you can be about setting goals to improve it, write about it or simply enjoy thinking about it.

So what do you say?

If you’d like the ultimate guide to memory improvement, grab this FREE Memory Improvement Kit:

It will help you rapidly learn the best techniques I know for improving your intelligence so that you have wonderful things worth remembering.

How to Create A Memory Palace: A Proven Memory Palace Technique Approach

In the modern world of omnipresent information access, memorization using a Memory Palace is almost a thing of the past.

And this shift has occurred very quickly.

Little more than a decade ago, it wasn’t uncommon that a person had to memorize a sizable list of phone numbers belonging to partners, siblings, parents and close friends.

Now Many Of Us Forget Our Own Cell Phone Numbers!

 

Despite this fact, there are situations in the modern day that still require memorization.

Perhaps phone numbers and historical facts are better left to Google. But in reality, not everything can and should be searched via a computer.

A notable example which is becoming conversant is “language” – which requires that you memorize a huge amount of vocabulary and grammar.  Until now, there isn’t a technology effective enough to replace human ability to learn and master a language.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-Yr...

In the past, having to memorize information was not optional because information wasn’t easily accessible. Up until the 19th century, paper was expensive, especially for quantities required to make a book.  To add to it was that not many people could read and write so the ability and need to memorize and recall information was critical.

Yours Free: A Private Course With Cheat Sheets For Becoming A Memory Master, Starting From Scratch.

>>> Click Here For This Special Free Offer.

 

Why The Greeks Adored the Memory Palace Technique

 

That’s why a powerful memorization method was adored by the ancient Greeks. This technique is used today by memory experts to commit huge amounts of information to mind.

The only problem is this:

An abundance of terminology has emerged that all means essentially the same thing. For example, you’ll here some memory experts call the Memory Palace technique the Mind Palace. This term appears to come from the world of Sherlock Holmes, and it’s not really accurate.

After all, this detective is a fictional character, and we’re here to optimize our memory based on what is really scientifically possible, not fantastically described. Personally, I also dislike the idea of associating these techniques with crime, and Sherlock Holmes is a drug addict. Finally, the whole notion that the information is in our ‘mind’ is obvious, but also a deviation from the fact that this technique uses what is already in our memory to help us remember more.

You might also hear this called the Journey Method, the Roman Room or a related term like the Pegword Method. All of these have one thing in common: They are using space itself as a mnemonic.

The fact that all of these techniques draw upon your spatial memory explains why “Memory Palace” is in fact the better term: No matter what you call the technique, it’s a lot easier to use if you are basing it on space that is already remembered and easily recalled. This feature was noted by Thales of Miletus who lived during the pre-Socratic Era. He pointed out that “space is ultimate because it contains all things.”

And thanks to Thales and a long line of people who have used these techniques, we have an abundance of Ancient Greek facts and instructions that have been handed down, anyone can learn to use a Mind Palace at any time.

One such contemporary memory expert, used it to memorize Pi to over 100,000 digits. Our own MMM student Marno Hermann has used a Memory Palace to memorize 1200 digits of Pi.

This memorization technique is called the Method of Loci, or more commonly the “Memory Palace”. It is a memorization method that not only has held the test of time, but has been shown to be effective through modern-day studies.

You may even have heard of the Memory Palace without realizing it because it has been featured in multiple books and media.

 

The Silence Of The Memory Palace
In Fiction And Movies

 

For example, the technique was employed by the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the novel series Hannibal written by an American author Thomas Harris.

In several passages of the novel, Lecter was described as mentally walking through an elaborate Mind Palace to remember facts. That’s the basics of the Memory Palace.

Although relatively unknown, this method can be a game-changing technique for people who want to improve their ability to retain large amounts of information.

You might be a student trying to master information for an exam, or an aspiring polyglot trying to learn Italian. You might be aging and finding it more difficult to recall routine information.

Whatever memorization challenge you face, the Memory Palace is a proficient way to finally help you achieve your goals.

 

How the Memory Palace Evolved

 

The origin of the Memory Palace was traced to ancient Greece. As mentioned earlier, in the olden days, people had higher incentives to create effective methods of retaining information. Writing and writing materials were difficult to access.

The Memory Palace was introduced to the ancient Romans and the world via Greek rhetorical treatises.

The Roman Cicero described the Memory Palace in his writings on rhetoric, called De Oratore.

In De Oratore, Circero claims that his Mind Palace method originated from the Greek poet Simonides. Simonides was commissioned to recite a poem praising a group of nobles at a banquet. After the recitation, Simonides left the hall and shortly after the edifice collapsed and killed all the people in the banquet.

The bodies were so badly mangled that not even close relatives could identify the corpses of their own people. However, Simonides was able to identify each of the corpses by name based on their location. Based on this experience, Simonides devised the Memory Palace (Bower 1970).

Whether this story is reality or myth, it illustrates the basic idea behind the Memory Palace. Luckily, you don’t have to attend a tragic banquet to master the technique and start using it to improve your information retention.

For a true story that will rivet you from beginning to end, check out The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.

 

How to Create a Memory Palace

 

The basic idea behind the Memory Palace is to associate pieces of information with a location that you are very familiar with. A prime example would be of your home.

If you’d like some free Memory Palace worksheets and a concise memory improvement video course, do this now:

 

If you close your eyes right now, you can probably picture your home with a high degree of detail. You know where the furniture is found, what colors the walls are, and even where small objects are placed.

The Memory Palace has to do with associating information with specific areas of that familiar location.

As you walk through that location, you place pieces of information that you wish to memorize in specific areas. When you want to recall the information, you go through that mental route, and the information will be easily accessible.

The technique is made more effective when you add surprising or out-of-the normal features to the information.

For example, assuming you would like to memorize this sequence of words:

herodrillspacecraftmusic

You could imagine yourself at your front door, with a hero standing next to you. Here you’ve made an association between your door and a hero.

You can increase your ability to memorize and retain this by making the memory more distinctive or unusual. For example, you could imagine the hero opening the door for you, or banging on it before you enter.

You then walk down your hall, and before your feet is a drill. To increase the power of this imagery, imagine that it is turned on and you have to leap to avoid being hurt.

You then turn the corner and see a spacecraft flying out of the window leaving behind itself a trail of glitter.

Finally, you sat down on the couch, and as your bottom touches the cushion, your favorite song starts playing. You might even imagine the word “music” written on the cushion before you sit.

[image error]

Quick Memory Palace Drawing by Anthony Metivier (Berlin apartment)

To get started creating a Mind Palace, do this now:

Draw a floor plan of a familiar location.Create a journey that does not lead you into a dead end.Make sure that your journey is linear so that you don’t create confusion by crossing your own path.Don’t over clutter your first Memory Palace.Number each station and create a top-down list to help you mind remember the journey better. Optional: Use a Magnetic 00-99 P.O.A. to assign an image to each Magnetic StationUse the Memory Palace as quickly as possible with information that will improve your life.Use the Memory Palace to invoke the Primacy Effect and Recency effect for each Magnetic Station by using the Serial-Positioning Effect.Create more Memory Palaces and repeat the process, always taking care to memorize information that makes your life better professionally and personally.The Definitive Guide To Reusing A Memory Palace

A lot of people ask me about using their Mind Palace a second or third time.

It is possible, but it can be a bit finicky. To explain, please check out this thorough guide on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umt-i...

As you can see, not even the most skilled memory experts reuse Memory Palaces. If you set yourself up correctly, it’s not really necessary.

That said, doubling up does make for great brain exercise, and that’s usually the way I treat the practice. I think it might have helped me experience a breakthrough with aphantasia, actually.

But what this question has taught me the most over the years is that many students of memory improvement put the cart before the horse. They worry about advanced skills before they’ve mastered the fundamentals – advanced skills that the pros have already determined might be great, but aren’t really worth using.

Likewise, people sometimes worry about what will happen if the furniture in their Memory Palace moves around.

I understand why they are concerned, but it’s the kind of question that just doesn’t arise when you have the fundamentals mastered. Please make sure that you devote yourself to the loci method thoroughly and completely. It will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Yours Free: A Private Course With Cheat Sheets For Becoming A Memory Master, Starting From Scratch.

>>> Click Here For This Special Free Offer.This Memory Palace Technique Is Not Necessarily Visual

 

As you can see, the technique seems to require a vivid visual imagination. A lot of people get this wrong, confusing iconic memory with the fantasy of photographic memory.

However, when done correctly using all of the Magnetic Modes, you can memorize a very large amount of information relatively quickly without necessarily seeing the Memory Palace in your mind.

Here’s an infographic to teach you all about the different ways that your brain perceives information:

Keeping the full range of your Magnetic Modes in mind, you can use any home or location with which you are familiar.

You can even use small areas, such as the inside of a broom closet. You can even use your own body, attaching information to different limbs.

Just keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to see the Memory Palace. You can feel it, hear it, taste it, smell it and even just think about it.

If any of this seems odd, continue reading to be convinced of how seriously well this technique works. You might want to see just how well the Memory Palace can work in combination with Mind Mapping too.

 

The Science behind the Memory Palace

 

Many studies have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of the Memory Palace. It’s all based on the scientific fact that your brain and spatial memory perceive space as a kind of image.

Check out this lecture with memory expert Stephen Kosslyn for more information about how that works:

https://youtu.be/FkhU7i8hRK4

Cool, right?

The answer is a resounding “yes!”

Yours Free: A Private Course With Cheat Sheets For Becoming A Memory Master, Starting From Scratch.

>>> Click Here For This Special Free Offer.Incredible Experiments with Memory Palaces and Students

Even better:

In a study conducted by J. Ross and K. A. Lawrence in 1968, the Memory Palace was tested on a group of 40 students.

The students were asked to memorize a list of 40 items. They were given only a few minutes to do so, yet were able to recall an average of 38 out of 40 items upon immediate recall.

The next day, the average recall rate dropped to 34 out of 40 items – still very impressive!

Nature Magazine did an investigation of so-called superior memorizers (SM) in a 2002 paper (Maguire et al). They studied a group of 10 champions who had competed in the World Memory Championships.

The researchers first wanted to know if these SMs had some special natural advantages that other people do not have, such as a higher IQ.

They first found out that SMs did not have exceptional cognitive abilities. In fact, they did not even show superior performance on visual memory tasks (for example, the recall of faces).

The paper further investigated the brain structure of these SMs, and found out that their brains were not significantly different from average brains (Maguire et al 2002).

The scientists also performed functional MRI scans to see if the SMs brains were activated differently when actively memorizing.

Here the SMs brains differed from normal brains – SM’s brains activated particularly when memorizing (Maguire et al 2002).

Significantly, scientists found out that SMs all used mnemonic techniques to aid in their memorization. Nine out of ten of these subjects were specifically using the Memory Palace (Maguire et al 2002).

Note: Some of people call it the Mind Palace method, but the basics are the same.

Plus, the different activation patterns observed were associated to the fact that SMs used mnemonic techniques, namely the Memory Palace, to memorize information (Maguire et al 2002).

 

No Need For A Huge IQ To Use A Memory Palace!

 

It’s not that SMs are smarter or have bigger brains than the rest of us. It’s that they use mnemonics, and specifically the Memory Palace to memorize semantic information.

That is the secret behind their impressive abilities. And because these SMs had been practicing the technique for a little over 11 years on average, they were really good (Maguire et al 2002).

This suggests that anyone with average abilities can use this technique to improve his/her memory.

And once you know the drill, it’s really just a matter of spending some time with a few solid Memory Palace training exercises. Like these:

https://youtu.be/px1O-j3BIHo

Even if you are not seeking to learn large amounts of information, the Memory Palace still has something to offer. There is even evidence that the Memory Palace can help maintain a healthy brain during old age.

As MMM student Sunil Khatri has explained, the Memory Palace is also great for language learning, including the difficulties of Japanese.

 

Benefits of the Memory Palace
Technique for the Aging Brain

 

As we age, our memories become weaker. In elderly people, this might lead to a frustrating situation where they are struggling to recall routine information.

There has been much study on age-related memory loss, but so far not many effective solutions to this problem.

Happily, the Memory Palace holds promise in aiding the enhancement of memory in the aging brain.

One study conducted in Norway in 2010 employed expert instructors, who taught the Memory Palace to 23 volunteers. The average age of these volunteers was 61 (Engvig et al 2010).

After training, these volunteers were able to memorize a list of 30 words in sequential order in under 10 minutes – impressive!

A control group, a set of volunteers of the same average age, sex and education was included in the study. They were not trained in the Memory Palace technique, and were instructed to memorize the list as well (Engvig et al 2010).

Afterwards, both groups were released into the world to live normally for eight weeks.

When they returned to the study, researchers challenged both groups to a recall task.

The Results

They first flashed a list of 15 unrelated words, each for only a second. The volunteers were then instructed to recall the words in order.

Researchers then showed them a list of 30 words. Half of these words had been displayed in the initial 15 word list while the other half was completely new.

The volunteers were asked to pick out words that had previously appeared and also identify their correct position in the first list (Engvig et al 2010).

Volunteers trained in the Memory Palace outperformed the non-trained volunteers for recognizing the position of the words (Engvig et al 2010).

The study also measured the amount of brain thinning that occurred in the trained versus untrained groups of volunteers. Normal age causes the brain to shrink.

The brain of the individuals showed thickening in areas of the brain which were key for visual abstract memory (Engvig et al 2010).

What should we conclude from these findings? It’s clear that using a Memory Palace makes for great brain exercise.

Yours Free: A Private Course With Cheat Sheets For Becoming A Memory Master, Starting From Scratch.

>>> Click Here For This Special Free Offer.

 

Why The Memory Palace Technique Is Not Snake Oil

 

This research and others like it have shown that the Memory Palace is not snake oil.

Sadly, most adults in the modern world are not encouraged to use their imagination. It might therefore be slightly challenging for someone newly using the technique to really get into it, especially if they don’t have the kind of Memory Palace example you can get when you take my free memory improvement course.

However, after practice, many find out that this memory technique is not only effective in memorization, but is also very engaging. Certainly more engaging than the traditional rote memorization technique, especially when you use Magnetic Note Taking as part of the process.

With some practice, you’ll be impressing all of your friends and family with how good your memorization has gotten in no time. And if it’s still not clear how and why this incredible tool works so well, here are 5 Memory Palace Examples that make everything clear.

 

Memory Palace References & Further Resources

 

Bower, G. H., “Analysis of a Mnemonic Device: Modern psychology uncovers the powerful components of an ancient system for improving memory” American Scientist, Vol. 58, No. 5, pp. 496-510, September–October 1970 Web. 21 Jan. 2016..

Engvig, Andreas, Anders M. Fjell, Lars T. Westlye, Torgeir Moberget, Øyvind Sundseth, Vivi Agnete Larsen, and Kristine B. Walhovd. “Effects of Memory Training on Cortical Thickness in the Elderly.” NeuroImage 52.4 (2010): 1667-676. 1 Oct. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Fan, Shelley. “Can a Mnemonic Slow Memory Loss with Age?” Scientific American Blog Network. 20 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Maguire, Eleanor A., Elizabeth R. Valentine, John M. Wilding, and Narinder Kapur. “Routes to Remembering: The Brains behind Superior Memory.” Nature Neuroscience Nat Neurosci 6.1 (2002): 90-95. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.

Want to Become a Mnemonics Dictionary? 5 Powerful Secrets Revealed!

7 More Mental Exercises From Around the World

14 Of The Best Critical Thinking Books That Come Packed With Examples

Critical thinking books are a dime a dozen.

However, few of them come packed with examples.

Even fewer come with exercises. 

Examples and exercises are important because critical thinking is not just something you learn. 

It’s something you develop through practical application. 

Here’s another problem that might be frustrating you if you’re looking for the best critical thinking books:

A lot of them are either irrelevant, “dumbed-down” for the mass market, or already abandoned by their authors.

For example, the famous Thinking, Fast and Slow on just about every list has big problems. 

Its author, Daniel Khaneman has agreed that several entire chapters need to be removed in a future edition. 

Why?

The reproducibility problem. Many of the studies he refers to weren’t scientifically valid. 

But critical thinking is based on reproducible models.

So on this page, let’s dig into a comprehensive list of critical thinking books that won’t go out of date.

The 14 Best Critical Thinking Books Packed With Examples For Improving Your Mind

As you go through these examples, consider your specific goals.

As you’ll see, each of these examples are related, but each has different strengths. 

You’ll want to beef up on each of these areas, but as you gather your collection, I suggest you start with where you currently feel you need the most help. 

One: Scientific Critical Thinking

In Critical Thinking for Better Learning: New Insights from Cognitive Science, Carole Hamilton helps you understand how the brain creates categories in the mind. 

Knowledge of how your mind works helps you tap into how your memory deals with examples and analogies that can improve your thinking skills.

Some of the best parts of this book teach you:

How to study topics thoroughly so that you can think critically about them.How to develop creative analogies so you can see the “shape” and dynamics of larger topics. Threshold concepts, which are “the central, defining truths in a given discipline, the ideas that open a gateway to deeper understanding.”Why some ideas are obvious to certain people but take others a long time to learn.

As an example of how this book helped me, when I was working on my Art of Memory project, it reminded me to read both the historical summary and also the specific books about memory during that period. This is what Hamilton means by knowing the “shape” of a topic.

Other great aspects of this book include its points on:

How beliefs can distort factsWho really benefits and who suffered from environmental damage in the worldThe concept of opportunity costHow to assess critical thinking

It gives examples of each and concludes strong with its best tip: 

Study real problems and how they were solved, and then recall these frequently to test your memory for accuracy about the details. 

Two: A Jargon Free Toolkit

Critical thinking often involves a lot of complex terminology. You have to learn about antecedents in logic and the concept of paraconsistencies.

But if you’re just beginning and don’t have a Memory Palace, such terms can be hard to learn and remember. 

Enter The Critical Thinking Toolkit.

This book provides a wonderful introduction with examples from:

RhetoricPsychologySociologyPolitical scienceThree: How To Think About Arguments

We all get into arguments.

That’s not a problem, but the ways we use language while arguing often causes more problems than necessary. 

Enter The Uses of Argument by Stephen E. Toulmin.

There are many reasons many of us fail to be persuasive. Worse, we are unaware of the reasons we are so easily persuaded.

But in this excellent book, Toulmin shows you:

What it means to make a valid argumentHow to lay out valid argumentsThe difference between working logic and idealised logicHow that validity must be intra-field, not inter-field (so that you approach critical thinking comparatively)

It boils down to this:

Arguments have patterns and we can learn to perceive those patterns. 

One pro tip in this book is to find ways to see logic and critical thinking as historical. 

When you know how logic has changed over time, you’re able to note the patterns that shape how we communicate and use them better. 

That’s just one benefit. Here are 11 more benefits of critical thinking you can expect after reading the books on this page.

Four: Validity In Your Thinking

I’ll never forget hearing The Amazing Kreskin discuss hypnosis. He said:

“Hypnosis is nothing more than the acceptance of a suggestion.”

In other words, it’s just persuasion. And since we’re persuaded all the time, there’s a strong suggestion that our behavior is being shaped outside of our awareness more often than we think.

If you don’t have much time to learn how this is happening to you, I suggest Critical Thinking : A Concise Guide by Tracy Bowell and Gary Kemp.

This book’s strength is how it helps you determine whether an argument is valid. 

To do so, the authors teach you the connection between critical thinking and symbolic logic, informal logic and formal logic.

You also learn how to determine which parts of an argument are relevant. You get real world examples with detailed commentary on each.

A v Hoare is one of my favorite examples. In it, you learn about how the amount of detail shapes our perceptions. You also learn how to determine what information is valuable to properly assess the context and shape of an argument.

Five: How To Stop Thinking Against Yourself

I used to think very darkly. 

Little did I know that I was using my thoughts against myself, practically making it impossible to see opportunities.

Then I discovered The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman.

This book not only goes through numerous examples of how people use cynical thinking against themselves. It also gives powerful exercises that help your critical thinking skills see opportunities your own thinking patterns might be hiding from you.

Six: Understanding Your Personality

Few books in this field approach the topic with personality types in mind. 

That’s why I recommend Stuart Hanscomb’s Critical Thinking: The Basics.

Looking at your personal dispositions can help you avoid many of the problems created by emotions and cognitive biases. 

You may even want to go further by looking into the OCEAN model to help better understand how your personality might help or hinder your thinking abilities.

Either way, Hanscomb’s book is great. Pay extra attention to the final chapter. It’s pack with additional examples of fallacies you’ll want to avoid. 

Seven: Simple, But Not “Dumbed Down”

Critical Thinking Skills For Dummies, like many books in the “dummies” series is actually quite valuable.

Its biggest strengths are: 

Strong examples of false dichotomiesHow to avoid logical pitfallsExamples of key arguments

Pay special attention to the final chapter and its list of “arguments that changed the world.” These are interesting and useful case studies. 

Eight: Thinking On Autopilot

One of the most challenging critical thinking examples to work through involves the topic of free will.

My favorite book on the topic is also one of the most hotly contested. 

But it’s the examples in Free Will by Sam Harris that really bring it all together.

And although Daniel Dennet strongly disagrees with its thesis, going through the for and against will give your thinking abilities a stretch.

Without a doubt, contending with the issue of free will is one of the best ways you can practice critical thinking. It will also give you a better understanding of human consciousness too. 

Nine: The Humpty Dumpty Of Thought

[image error]Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton is a fantastic encyclopedia of terms and concepts you’ll want to be familiar with.

As the cohost of Philosophy Bites, a fantastic philosophy podcast, Warburton has packed this book with excellent critical thinking tools to up your game.

Some of my favorites include:

Weasel Words

“Advertisers who declare the food they are selling to be a ‘healthier alternative’ need to specify precisely what the food is healthier than and why. If they cannot do this, then the weasel words ‘healthier alternative’ are meaningless – mere rhetoric”

Humptydumptying

Giving private meanings to words in common use

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty answers, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

Ten: The Power of Analysis

Check out Critical Thinking Skills: Effective Analysis, Argument and Reflection by Stella Cottrell.

This book proves a number of self assessment activities, including several sub-skills, such as identifying similarities and differences.

It also includes material on:

Note taking in a critical mannerCritical writingReflective thinking tips as a mental disciplineMultiple models of reflective thinkingBonus practice activities

If you do any kind of reading and writing, this book is a must. 

Eleven: Improve Your Research Skills

If you do anything involved in research, you know just how difficult interpreting data accurately can be. 

This is where Critical Thinking About Research: Psychology and Related Fields by Julian Meltzoff and Harris Cooper will help you up your game.

In this book, you’ll learn all about:

How to seek trustworthy knowledgeHow to understand the role of hypothetical questionsHow samples are chosen and validatedAspects that threaten the validity of a research projectThe role of ethics in researchExamples of multiple studies in different fields of interest

There are a large number of practice articles too. These will help you better engage with scientific reporting you encounter in the media. 

Twelve: Avoiding Errors

If you’re like me, you probably prefer to avoid mistakes whenever possible. 

Let me suggest Critical Thinking: Learning from Mistakes and How to Prevent Them by Gerald J. Watson and Jesse J. Derouin.

This book exposes the many poor thinking habits we have. Here are just a few the book covers and then repairs:

Being in a hurryMissing a deadlineFaulty cost analysesFailing to ask for help

I’ve personally found this book helpful, especially when dealing with customers and personal coaching clients. It’s great to be able to ascertain what errors people are making and help guide them to more logical conclusions.

Anyone can do this for themselves too. Read this book. 

Thirteen: Know Your Science

The lack of scientific literacy in society is a huge problem. 

That’s why I recommend Science, Pseudo-science, Non-sense, and Critical Thinking: Why the Differences Matter.

In this book by Marianna Barr and Gershon Ben-Shakhar, you get detailed chapters that use critical thinking to debunk:

Cold readingAstrologyGraphologyMysticism

Another thing that makes this critical thinking book unique is that it includes:

Correspondence with HoudiniGood movie and literature examplesExcellent lists of books to follow-up on with for further information about each pseudoscientific topic

I also like how the book discusses the reasons why people need to believe – or at least think they do.

Fourteen: An Ancient Critical Thinking Book

Of all the schools of philosophy, I personally find Advaita Vedanta the most interesting. 

Basically, this term translates to a statement like: “the culmination of the Vedas is ‘not two’”.

In other words, the philosophy works to demonstrate a “oneness” in human consciousness. 

One of the most interesting books uses critical thinking to demonstrate this principle. It is called Panchadasi.

My favorite commentary on this text, which includes a translation, is Inquiry Into Existence, by James Swartz.

This philosophy will probably stretch your mind.

The trick is not to mistake its conclusions for solipsism, which is arguably nonsense. It’s really just a way of thinking through the situation we all find ourselves in as the bearers of consciousness. 

Crafting A Library Of Critical Thinking Books

I hope you enjoyed checking out this list of books on critical thinking. Please let me know which ones you check out and how you helpful you found them. 

There are many more out there, and keep in mind that you can find texts that will help you improve many types of thinking. 

The important thing is to have a library that you continually build and read thoroughly. 

And to get it all in, I recommend that you check out how to read faster next.

Need help with remembering what you read from these books? Check out my free memory improvement course:

How to Learn New Skills Quickly (And Keep Them Forever)

If you want to learn new skills, the process doesn’t have to be difficult.

What might challenge you, however, is first learning the most effective process for rapidly acquiring expertise. 

Then you have all the gurus telling you what to do and how to do it based on their journeys.

Sure, sometimes you can follow their tips.

But let’s get one huge problem out of the way from the get go:

You should not try to reproduce anyone else’s journey.

To really learn new skills, you ultimately have to enter the territory so that your mind can map it.

And no amount of “tips” will prepare you better than your own experience as you map your way through the jungle of what you currently do not know.

With that in mind, on this page, I’ll be covering what I’ve learned about how to develop skills over my years of learning.

Why should you take me seriously – apart from the fact that I just gave you the most powerful advice upfront?

I have:

Written multiple bestselling booksAccomplished goals in multiple languagesDelivered a TEDx Talk with over 2 million viewsBuilt the world’s leading memory improvement websiteCompleted a PhD, two MAs and multiple certificatesToured as a musician in multiple bands… and much, much more

Despite all those experiences, I’ll be the first to tell you that I still have a lot to learn. And that’s the next best tip I can give you upfront:

Keep humble. It helps you learn faster no matter how good you get.

So are you ready for the best nitty-gritty learning tactics I know?

Let’s get started.

How to Learn and Master New Skills Quickly

The first thing I would point out is that technically there’s no such thing as a “new skill.”

Now, this might be getting a bit philosophical, but I think the point is important.

Just because it’s “new to you,” doesn’t make it new. In fact, it wouldn’t even be called a “skill” if someone else hadn’t learned it first.

That’s why this first tip is so important.

One: Get Clarity On How The Skill Is Defined

Often, the people who have mastered skills completely define them very differently than those who want to learn it.

For example, if you read a book by Bruce Lee, you’re not going to get a lot of technical verbiage about the physics of movement. You will get something more akin to philosophy, which is very important.

Plus, you have a lot of publishing companies out there who hire people to write books about skills they don’t actually possess.

So rather than look at just how the mass media or publishers define the skill, make sure you also go to the source.

Two: Seek Experiences Wherever Possible

As part of going to the source, try to find ways to learn the skills through experience.

This doesn’t mean not reading books or taking video courses. You definitely want to do that, and make sure you read in a way that makes the information memorable.

I’m talking about supplementing the skill you want to learn with:

WorkshopsSeminarsApprenticeshipsField tripsLong term coachingWorking with a mentor

Even skills that are solitary, like reading and writing, benefit from working in groups. You can take breaks and talk with others, rapidly accelerating how you learn.

Three: Remove Limiting Beliefs

A lot of people think they have a particular learning style.

Whereas you might respond better to different kinds of visualization related to reading, there’s no reason to believe that anything holds you back.

As Tesia Marshik has shown in her research, learning outcomes don’t budge at all when educational material is presented in ways that cater to different learning styles. Check out her TEDx Talk for a quick overview of her work in this area.

Four: Make Your Own Metaphor

One of the reasons people blame “learning styles” for their failure to master skills is having a low-self image.

Fortunately, it’s fun and easy to use positive visualization to correct this issue.

You can also craft a personal metaphor. As Nir Eyal has shown in his research, many addicts have recovered thoroughly and completely after adopting a new persona.

The science behind this strategy is solid, but it’s also not new. Many philosophers, ranging from Plato to Nietzsche and beyond have suggested this strategy.

In my own case, I have often adopted personal metaphors like:

My memory flourishes like a gardenI am a Discipline EngineMy life is floating along with calm and enjoyable cruising altitude

Practice creating and using your own metaphors and I’m confident you’ll find yourself learning new skills much faster.

Five: Embrace Mistakes

Fear of failure spreads like a disease.

It’s a particularly savage blight on the learning community because few things can be learned without making mistakes.

Many times when I want to learn a new skill, I know in advance that I’ll be making tons of mistakes.

When you accept and embrace this fact, you’ll enjoy more fulfilling success.

The trick is to employ the next step.

Six: Journal and Analyze

I always counsel my students in the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass to use a Memory Journal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BracG...

It’s an essential tool because it helps you keep track of your progress.

And when failure happens – as it inevitably will – keeping a journal helps you reflect on the exact nature of what went wrong.

Without analysis, it’s difficult to make corrections.

It also makes deliberate practice nearly impossible.

Seven: Break Things Down

It’s important to eat the elephant one bite at a time.

I’m not necessarily talking about microlearning, but rather seeing the component parts and seeing how they can be divided into small components.

For example, when I learned the very difficult skill of writing books, I didn’t just dive into 100,000 word tomes.

I started with small articles.

Even to this day, I write books one chapter at a time. And these are written one page at a time.

Likewise, when learning to market my books, I didn’t try to advertise on dozens of platforms all at once. I picked just one, learned its ropes and grew from there.

If you struggle with breaking things down, this is where adopting a personal metaphor can help. You can say, for example, “I am a master at breaking skills down.”

Eight: Balance the Challenge-Frustration Curve

Largely due to fear of failure, many people avoid challenges.

The problem is, if you don’t take on challenges, you cannot grow.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, many people rush into things so quickly that they wind up frustrated. That leads them to give up prematurely.

With this in mind, the best thing to do is balance what I think of as the Challenge-Frustration Curve.

There’s no chart or diagram that will show you how to do this. You simply have to maintain an awareness that you cannot grow without taking on challenges. And if things get too tough, you need to explore ways to reduce the frustration that will inevitably occur when you’re not skilled enough to continue – yet.

Nine: Avoid Unanswerable Questions

How long does it take to learn a new skill?

Well, let me ask you this:

If you really want the skill, does it really matter how long it takes?

Personally, I focus on acquiring new skills that I want to enjoy maintaining for life. I don’t want my mind cluttered with worrying about when I’ll finally master a skill.

Instead, I want to enjoy each and every step of the way.

In other words, mastery is ongoing practice. And the best way to pick up new skills is to act as if you will be learning them forever. This is another kind of mental metaphor that helps keep your focus where it belongs.

Ten: Take Breaks Strategically

Did you know that there’s a highly scientific way to take breaks?

It’s called interleaving. You literally focus on learning one skill for 15-20 minutes, then switch to something else.

The best part about it is that you can pick up multiple skills at the same time while accelerating your progress.

My fellow memory expert Dave Farrow has talked about how it helped him learn robotics quickly.

I find interleaving especially useful when reading, especially dense and technical books about philosophy.

Eleven: Be a Completionist

In the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass, I pass on a few notes my best students have urged me to show new students.

To take one example, from Adolfo Artigas you get the stern warning not to skip around the program or “cherrypick.”

I find this important in every course I take myself.

And the only reason I can see why more and more people are missing out on crucial details is that digital amnesia is ruining their ability to focus for more than a few moments at a time.

The reason completing books and programs from beginning to end is so important has to do with your brain chemistry is that thorough learning requires tonic dopamine. In other words, you need a stable level of the brain chemical across time.

But when you flip between screens and tabs on your computer, you’re blasting yourself with phasic dopamine. It ruins your attention span.

Now, there are ways to skim and scan through books that doesn’t wreck your focus, but they’re not a replacement for being a completionist most of the time.

Twelve: Get Help If You Need It

Many people are too proud to get a coach or mentor.

That’s a shame because often times, personal guidance is the only thing that will help them move forward.

I’ve had many coaches and mentors and the only downside is that you sometimes have to experiment with a couple of them until you find a fit.

But that’s the same thing with trying on shoes, so it shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

If you’re journaling as I suggested above, you should be able to find the right fit for you a lot sooner.

And when you’re practicing the mental metaphor technique I shared with you today, you’ll soon be able to add your mentor’s style to your mind.

You can literally save yourself a coaching hour by asking yourself, “What would my coach tell me to do about learning this skill?”

Learning New Skills Could Not Be Easier

Now that you’re equipped with some of my best tips, I hope you agree that learning any new skill is a lot easier than it seems.

The trick is to adapt a policy of complete and “radical” honesty.

Don’t let yourself or anyone else pull the wool over your eyes. There’s nothing to be gained from self-deception.

And one of the best skills of all to learn involves amping up your memory. That way, you won’t forget the tips you learned today.

If you’re interested, grab my FREE Memory Improvement Kit:

In it, you’ll learn to use a Memory Palace. This is a skill that gives you a mental toolbox for storing lessons like the ones you learned today.

And if you have any questions, just pop them in the comments.

So what do you say?

Are you ready to get out there and learn something new?