Digital Scryer

The Method of Loci (plural of the Latin word “locus” meaning “place”) is one of, if not the oldest forms of mnemonic enhancement out there. It was used by ancient Greek scholars to memorize 10,000 word poems and narratives and such.

The Method Of Loci, picture credit in top right of image.

Basically it works like this; You imagine as vividly as you can, a place or route to a place that you’re very familiar with. The hallway of your house, or the road to school or something else that’s very familiar to you. While mentally visiting this place or route, you identify a series of landmarks.

If your target is your bedroom, landmarks you might identify are your computer, your bed, your pillows, your dresser, or your mirror etc.

Then you can come up with a vivid and concrete list of things you want to remember. Names of world leaders for example, or a grocery list. Once you’ve completed this, you then associate each item on the list with a landmark in your place.

For example if you wanted to remember to buy coffee from the store, you might see the image of your brand of coffee reflected in your bedroom mirror. Or your pillows stuffed with coffee if that’s the way you wanted to go. These extremely vivid associations serve to greatly enhance your memory regarding these things.

To practice this skill, and learn to do it quickly, build your mental loci map and then have a friend read you a short (10 or so) list of random words. As quickly as you can, associate each word to a landmark in your mental map. Then check and see how you did. Practicing in this way can allow you to become very quick at memorizing large amounts of information.

Cicero.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of the greatest minds Rome ever produced, claimed that the Method of Loci was developed by accident by a poet called Simonides of Ceos. Simonides was the sole survivor of the collapse of a dining hall where he was attending dinner. Everyone there who died had been horrible mangled, crushed beyond recognition. This method allowed Simonides to remember everyone who was attending and where they were seated so that their grateful families could properly lay them to rest.

I couldn’t find any images of Simonides, so here’s The Hulk instead.

His ability to do this led him to realize that anything could be remembered in a similar fashion. From that point on, the Method of Loci was used by many Greek and Roman orators to give long speeches or recite long verses of poetry without having to read from notes. This method dates back to circa 500 b.c. and was the most popular memory system until circa 1650 when other mnemonic systems, such as the peg system, came into popular use.

So to conclude, the Method of Loci is EXCEEDINGLY powerful, but takes practice, practice, practice! Also remember to make all of your visualizations as completely ridiculous as you can so you have an easier time remembering them.

For a good book on increasing your memory and mental power, and even preventing cognitive declines like Alzheimer’s, check out the Mighty Memory System today! It’s a downloadable book that allows immediate access.

UNLEASH IT!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Technorati Tags: Ancient Greek Scholars, Bedroom Mirror, Ceos, Dining Hall, Grocery List, Hallway, Landmark, Landmarks, Latin Word, Locus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Method Of Loci, Narratives, Random Words, Sole Survivor, Word Poems, World Leaders

So I was stumbling through the net today when I came upon this old article about defending oneself against an armed or unarmed opponent using only a walking stick or umbrella.

It’s a pretty lengthy and detailed guide about kicking butt and taking names old school style. “Macguyver” fencing with what you have handy is a fairly effective practice to use when people challenge you to fisticuffs.

They’re fighting, really.

All in all this basic lesson is great for the elderly or the Penguin, or any of us captains of industry who still carry canes about anymore. I really like it.

WARK!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: Ancient Greek Scholars, Bedroom Mirror, Ceos, Dining Hall, Grocery List, Hallway, Landmark, Landmarks, Latin Word, Locus, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Method Of Loci, Narratives, Random Words, Sole Survivor, Word Poems, World Leaders

The journal Cell Metabolism posted this week about a drug called SRT1720 which activates the SRT1 gene. This gene is believed to be heavily tied to the aging process, and the extension of life caused by calorie restricted diets in many animal studies.

When this drug was used on mice, it caused them to become virtually immune to weight gain even on a horrible high fat diet. It also effectively doubled their stamina when distance running. This is an amazing development with massive (pardon the pun) weight-loss potential.

Imagine being virtually tireless while running your tubby self on the treadmill and losing fat like some kind of…fat losing…machine…thing. All the while gorging yourself on whatever fast food junk you wanted. Sounds like the American dream to me!

Now this doesn’t mean you’d be healthy, filling your face with a limitless amount of chemically laden garbage and fried food, but you would be better off. A physically fit body can deal with the stress of a horrible diet far better than a roly poly one.

Here’s my question/theory; With all the “Mind Over DNA” research that’s come out of India in recent years, and is now taking place more in North America as well, the mind body connection is bigger than ever before. Manchester U proved that the mind can trick the body into thinking it’s exercised, and numerous studies point out that exercising activates different gene pathways so that connection is perfectly plausible.

What’s to stop an enterprising hypnotherapist or psychiatrist or EFT practitioner or whatever, from developing a course/program/mp3 downloads to trigger this SRT1 activation without the need for any drugs? I’m not talking about the “DNA Activation” BS that many people try to hawk, I’m talking about actual, science-backed, mind over body type stuff.

Of course some trials would have to be done to prove any of it actually worked, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t and it’d mean a cheap, drug-free way of having this advantage without having horrible side effects, or having to restock your supply.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Technorati Tags: Cell Metabolism, Diet, DNA, DNA Activation, Drug-Free, EFT, Fast Food, Gene, Genetics, High Fat, Hypnotherapist, Journal, Junk Food, Manchester University, Mice, Mind Over DNA, Psychiatry, SRT-1, SRT-1720, SRT1, SRT1720, Stamina, Weight gain, Weightloss

At the Howard Hughes Medical Institute last month, researchers released these interesting findings about sleep:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/sehgal20080717.html

It seems there’s a gene responsible for sleep regulation and having it knocked out makes fruit flies sleep eighty percent less if at all. The downside? It shortens their lives by a lot. The researches have dubbed the gene SLEEPLESS and are hoping to find a similar one in humans as well as more info about how sleep regulation works in all animals.

As a sometimes insomniac, this information really hits home. It could lead to real treatments for a lack of sleep instead of just the “maybe” treatments like the over the counter aids on the market today.

It could also be used to help treat Fatal Familial Insomnia, a very rare (28 families have it world wide) and inherited prion disease that causes gradually worsening insomnia, eventually leading to dementia and death. This recent research into FFI makes me think twice about the people in my article People Who Don’t Need Sleep.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: Animals, Fatal Familial Insomnia, Fruit Flies, Gene, Genetics, HHMI, Insomnia, Insomniac, Sleep, SLEEPLESS

The following abstract excerpt basically says that taking a green tea extract and caffeine is more effective than caffeine alone or a placebo for increasing energy. The latter two pretty much do nothing, whereas the green tea, caffeine combo boosts energy output by 4% and helps promote thermogenesis and fat oxidation.

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Results: Relative to placebo, treatment with the green tea extract resulted in a significant increase in 24-h EE (4%; P < 0.01) and a significant decrease in 24-h RQ (from 0.88 to 0.85; P < 0.001) without any change in urinary nitrogen. Twenty-four–hour urinary norepinephrine excretion was higher during treatment with the green tea extract than with the placebo (40%, P < 0.05). Treatment with caffeine in amounts equivalent to those found in the green tea extract had no effect on EE and RQ nor on urinary nitrogen or catecholamines.

Conclusions: Green tea has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation beyond that explained by its caffeine content per se. The green tea extract may play a role in the control of body composition via sympathetic activation of thermogenesis, fat oxidation, or both.

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This is interesting; Green Tea has hundreds of years of testing in traditional Chinese medicines for its myriad of health benefits. In addition to it’s thermogenic properties, it’s got powerful antioxidants, and has been proven to help against various forms of cancers and other syndromes such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Green Teas can also help to control bad (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides while promoting the production of good (HDL) cholesterol. Not to mention that it can remove cellular garbage and combined with its antioxidant nature helps retard the aging process slightly.

There is a potential dark side to it however, some studies link green tea to promoting bladder cancer. Plus it’s not a magic solution to weight problems, maybe in some kind of a formula it could help, and it’s better than truckloads of caffeine or guarana, let alone ephedra, but it’s not something to rely solely on. Proper diet and exercise is the way to go if you wanna shed inches and build muscle and health, this could just give you a little nudge in the right direction.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: Caffeine, Energy Booster, Fat Oxidation, Green Tea, Health, Thermogensis, Weightloss