On Brain Overload

When you find yourself "zoning out" in the middle of a...........it is usually from mental fatigue!

For many people, the zoning out is just a symptom of something else in overload in our lives.  Once the trigger is identified, you can learn to prevent it.  Others of us are not as fortunate in being able to control the overload and can happen in quite a few areas of our daily lives. 

Here is an living example:  A mid thirties man has a job in a fast paced working environment.  There are job duties that require flexibility and others that depend on set procedures for quality. He is known as "Minute Max" by all the staff.  Some use descriptors such as "flighty, out there, unreliable, or inconsistent."  For a management team that requires great higher order thinking skills and consistency, this great guy is a nightmare to work with.  

Or, take a cheerful young learner who has difficulty learning to read.  By the time she has sounded out all of the five to seven short words in the sentence, she has forgotten the first few words.  Getting flustered, she starts all over again by sounding out all of the words until she gets so disoriented and embarrassed that she just gives up.  Teachers may say she is inconsistent with her abilities and just needs to try harder.

When this "zoning out" seems to become like a label for a lack of ability, the mental fatigue is the symptom of working memory overload.

By adopting the following strategies, it is possible to improve working memory!  Start by reducing the load on your working memory. 

1. Reduce the amount of material to be remembered by:

• finding patterns
• learn material in a variety of ways (hands on, auditory, visual presentations)
• rely on what is already stored in long term memory
• chunk, or group, information as it goes in using patterns and link it to previous knowledge in your long term memory
• prompt recall by rehearsing it and using memory aids

2. Increase the meaningfulness and familiarity of the material

• let automaticity take over for what it knows so your working memory is free to explore and become familiar with the specific content goal.
• use existing knowledge and structure 
• "KISS":  Keep It Simple, Stupid

3. Simplify mental processing

• Support the new with repetition, scaffolding, and memory aids
• modify information for comprehension

4. Restructure complex tasks

• Define simple steps in procedures
• Identify the familiar first
• monitor comprehension

Want to learn more about working memory?  These notes were expounded on from the book Working Memory and Learning by Susan E. Gathercole and Tracy Packiam Alloway published in 2008.

amazon.com

Here's a link to a free online publication by the authors:

Working memory and classroom learning

Some other great links:

Lumosity.com

The Older You Get, the Faster Time Goes By...Here's Why!

Child: “I’m bored.  We’ve been here for HOURS…”  or, “Are we there yet?”

Grandparent: “He’s getting so big!  Time is just flying by!”

( ( ( ( perception ) ) ) )

Just as your eyes visually “saw” movement due to the size of the brackets, your brain uses perception as one basis for allocating time.  

What is perception? 

(My definition) It is the act of paying attention to something that is happening through the senses.  I say "senses" because information is first processed through some aspect of the five senses.

A great book published in 1969 (an oldie but goodie) called Information-Processing Approaches to Visual Perception (Ralph Haber) talks about receiving an incoming sensation as a continuum of thought.  

• An incoming sensation leads to a perception, which then leads to a memory being made, which ultimately leads to a thought. 

He states that the boundaries for input into the brain are defined by attention (pg 168) and that 

“when attention must switch channels, an increment of TIME is added to the time required to process (the sensation)” (pg 168).

So what does this mean?  

Pay attention to create meaning in order to make a lasting memory!  When you are bored, you don't pay attention because nothing is interesting to you...

The above bracket illustration shows how your brain recognizes the specific sequence of changing bracket size and immediately attaches the idea of movement to that specific organized pattern; You've seen it done before.  Therefore,

Repetition is a developmental process for the appearance of the perception and increases clarity regardless of meaning (275)

Another explanation from Auditory Perception of Speech (1977) by Derek Sanders highlights another aspect of perception as it relates to our experiences.  He found that we "perceive the world" by how we individually process it, NOT as it actually is.  And, it is unique to each individual because it is processed, or perceived through that person's developed common system of information patterning (1).

Simply put, you have to find "it" interesting, or "stimulating," in order to be "stimulated" to pay attention!

Your brain recognized the brackets as a code for showing movement and then made a “prediction” of what I was getting at in the illustration.  This prediction then automatically enhanced your rate of perception (8).

As adults, you have more experience in recognizing patterns and generating predictions (8), so your working memory (conscious thinking) automatically decreases the attention given to the “incoming signal" therefore "making" time pass "quickly" due to the lack of attention needed in your daily life.  Seeing the grandkids in spaced, timed intervals is actually drawing your attention to noticeable changes in your patterned perceptions. 

We perceive things by how we have processed it (155).

If a child thinks something is boring, they will turn off their attention.  This "tuning out" is them not allocating attention which then attaches meaning to any activity.  As adults, our brains automatically recognize things/events as “been there, done that.”  The recognition of information then leads to less conscious attention given due to your mature ability to subconsciously draw on “more sophisticated predictions” (153).

When “time is flying by,” what should I do?

1. Change your perception… pay attention to the details!
1. Build a new awareness and notice how things are different in a situation
2. Be happy!  The feeling of happiness actually allows information into the brain regions for processing.  Processing makes memories.
2. De-routine, de-automate, experience!
1. Start with a good experiential stimulation, then add a happy emotional stimuli,  and get long term memory storage
2. Talk yourself through things, be aware of what and why you are doing something (metacognition)
3. Remember often!
1. Repetition actually increases the ability to recall it due to the strong brain connection "pathways"
2. Use visuals (you “scrapbookers” have the best idea, especially if you are a visual learner!)
3. Talk about it (great for you auditory learners who process things by discussing)

What I find fascinating, is that this information is not “new;” the Bible details the best way to learn, remember, and retrieve through specific Bible verses, the parables and even the format of the Psalms.

¹⁸ “ You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. ¹⁹  You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. ²⁰  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, ²¹ so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.

Deuteronomy 11: 18:21