How to Learn More Effectively

Along with most things in life, the human mind remembers the things the opposite of how someone might think it would. Counter intuitively, the more frequently you see something, the weaker your mind reinforces the memory at each exposure.

This is why when you are stressed about a test and constantly study and come test day you struggle to recall what you studied. I take this one back to yet another evolutionary analogy.

Evolution of Memory

Lets say a caveman comes out of his cave and sees a bush with berries. He eats the berries and; bam, he has diarrhea. So this caveman comes out of his cave every day and sees this bush and is reminded that they gave him diarrhea, don't eat them. Since that's frequently reminded to him externally his brain internally sees no urgent priority to save this in his memory. So the memory is lightly reinforced each day.

So if this bush died and a year later he stumbled across another berry tree like that one. He might have forgotten, then eaten the berry again causing diarrhea. Now of course the caveman remembers the original berry tree in front of his cave. Now his brain knows that he is no longer frequently reminded of this berry externally, so his brain will heavily reinforce this memory and he will be very unlikely to forget in the future.

Best Practice

So if you want to effectively study for a test, do a quick overview, then the next day or a few days later overview it again and I personally guarantee you will see test score improvements as well as a lot more free time. Also eating chocolate or any scent while studying and then again during the test will cause improved recall and essentially better test scores.

There have been studies that show two weeks is the peak waiting time for memory reinforcement. So lightly studying two weeks ahead of schedule would be a very good way to improve your recall come test time.

The Shadow

The shadow is basically a hidden part of someone that is projected onto other people. Most of the time when someone dislikes something about someone else its a suppressed part of themselves.

For example if their parents yelled at them for doing something as a kid and all their life they grew up seeing kids do something they truly wanted to do, but judged them as doing something wrong. Then as an adult that part of them gets more and more suppressed as they justify what their parents taught them even though its a secret part of them.
Everyone does this and its not just the things their parents taught them its in our culture. What I'm trying to encourage is that instead of dwelling on disliking someone for doing something, dwell on why you dislike what someone is doing and figure out why it is that your not doing it. Maybe it isn't even a logical reason.

How to Lose Weight

I see a lot of diet programs out there all of them with the “newest breakthrough!” and I understand with all of these diet programs floating around its hard to know what actually works.

Well I obsessed over the answer for a few months actually not because I personally feel I'm over weight, but just because I cant stand not understanding something.

Heres what I came up with, Its so simple, yet so effective.

The key is frequency I have actually had trouble gaining weight because I'm a frequent snacker I actually rarely am full I just snack when I get hungry.

What this does is it tells my body “hey you get food all the time no need to conserve anything” and as a result my metabolism sky rockets.

So heres what you do eat some crackers every few hours or a bag of chips health nut or not this will drop some serious pounds very quick.

The reason this works, if you think back to what we have evolved from, we used to hunt for food. Some cultures still hunt for food on a daily basis. So we evolved from not knowing if we would eat that day or even that week.

So lets say a hunter doesnt find any pigs in the woods or whatever that day, well his body is going to slow its metabolism down in order to conserve food. Now if this hunter kills 3 pigs one day and eats a little off the pig constantly then his body will know this he is frequently eating and theres no need to conserve anything.

Everything from sleeping, eating, to going to the bathroom is all run on a biological patten called the circadian rhythm. So if you eat one huge meal a day for dinner then your circadian rhythm is going to naturally conserve your food until around that time the next day.

This is were healthy food comes into play the food now has so much fat and sugar in it that when your body conserves it, it over compensates and you end up packing a lot of extra baggage. Yet if you simply ate those sugary foods more frequently you wouldn't have that problem you could eat whatever you wanted and be completely healthy.

So when you see a diet with healthy food, or a diet that makes you less hungry all those do is make you suffer because you think you have to. When in reality snacking all the time and doing the opposite is the natural way to lose weight.

6 Human Needs

I watched a Tony Robbins seminar probably about a year or so ago and he basically said that every desire a human ever has is at its core to essentially fulfill 1 or more of 6 basic human needs.

These needs are:
-certainty
-uncertainty
-love and or connection with others
-significance

-growth
-contribution

Since then I have used these to categorize and farther understand why I want the things I want. And has made figuring out how to balance myself and be a happier person a lot easier.

So I'm going to kinda define these needs so that you can understand what they mean exactly.


Certainty – To be certain about things is essential whether this be a sense of security, or maybe know what and why your going to do that day.

Uncertainty – This is essential because if we are too certain about things in our lives we would be bored. So this can be obtained by wreck less and dangerous acts or maybe reading a mystery novel.

Love and connection – Without friends and family we would be very, very lonley.

Significance – We need to feel important. Some people achieve this feeling though work, some through competition, but everyone meets this need some how.

Ok now the next two needs are not always achieved by everyone for example someone addicted to drugs will get the first four needs met, but not the last two.

Growth – People need to grow in their ambitions. This is where passion comes from.

Contribution – Contributing your growth to others.

Everyone gets these needs met in a way based on their own beliefs Is most effective. Once you can get them all met residually then you will have ultimate balance.

Also seeing this in other people you will recognize that they are just trying to meet there needs no need in getting in their way. So judge not, everyone is human.