The Power of Your In-Tent

The first Chinese doctor who used acupuncture lived in a cave
over 5,000 years ago. Without needles their tools of choice were pointy stones
and maps of where to place them. Both have been found. The use of needles to alleviate pain began about 200 BCE.

Three forms of proofs make me jittery: tradition, authority and revelation.
Quacks are masters of all three but so are medical school professors. Tread carefully says I when people are in pain. They will try anything and pay dearly for a sliver of hope.

Since Nixon's presidency acupressure and acupuncture have gained a foothold among patients in the U.S. The proof is as light as a feather yet they flourish
because hope knows no bounds when driven by pain. The Placebo Effect and
a desire to not waste money paid leads to seemingly miraculous cures.

Two Acupressure Samples

If it is non-invasive and has no side effects - it probably will not kill you.
It is free and you can decide whether to continue the experiment.

Feedback from 750 students who complained of annoying headaches including migraines volunteered to be their own guinea pigs. 82% expressed satisfaction.

One

Search with both hands and find your right eyebrow. The acupressure point is
above your right eyebrow within 1.5 inches. Is it dead-center, left-of-center or
right-of-center? Search. It varies with your sensory-motor system. Acupuncturists call the hot-spot a meridian line. It is said to release endorphins and inhibit pain.

Your job is to stimulate above your right eyebrow for 60 seconds in one of two ways:
kneed the 1.5 inch area by massaging the flesh between your thumb and index finger.
A second strategy is to use the nails of your thumb and middle finger to pinch
the 1.5 inch area for about one-minute.

Two

Another acupressure strategy involves the V area between your thumb and forefinger of both hands. The Hot-Spot is ¾ of an inch (one phalange wide)
from your V area web.

Example: Place your right thumbnail into the flesh of the upper (face) of your left hand and your index finger nail onto the flesh of the back of your left hand. Spread the V web wide and pulsate using your nails as points for 60 seconds on each hand.

Does it Really Work? Your decision makes you the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It works for me.

Better Science

Professor Scott Frey of the University of Oregon submits evidence that your intention in watching another with a desire to learn creates changes in the structure and function of your brain. Say the magic word - In-tention.

Once again. When we watch with Intent to Repeat, structures of our brain
are excited, triggered and activated to repeat the new behavior.

The evidence (not tradition-authority-revelation) submitted by fMRI (functional
magnetic resonance imagery) indicates our brain structure called the Intraparietal Sulcus lights up like a Christmas tree by our intention to imitate.

Motor Area

Intention to learn and repeat a motor skill you see - shakes awake our own brain.
We are actually mentally repeating (doing the same behaviors) we watch. Our brain
watches as if it were a partner in the performance of the behaviors.

What causes our motor cortex to get into the act? Our intention to learn.

The brain cells involved are called Mirror Neurons, and this report appeared in Neuroscience on December 29, 2006.

The question for Dr. Frey is how does our brain take what it sees and turn it into
a motor program (neural network) for using the new skill?

RasterMaster

We teach the use of a RasterMaster (handheld laser pacer) for speed reading.
There are three ways homo sapiens learn - trial-and-error, observation and listening to an explanation.

Dr. Paul MacLean, divides our brain into a Triune system: Reptilian Complex (instincts), Limbic System (emotions), and NeoCortex (thinking). All three are
cognitive programs working 100% of the time.

We divide our mind into two areas: consciousness (assembling data and analysis), and sub or nonconsciousness - reacting with our ancient instincts and emotions.
Homo sapiens do not use their neocortex in isolation to make decisions; judgments and decision-making are highly influenced and persuaded by our feelings
and instincts. We are not a robot, but a cyborg using all three layers of our brain and all available tools in a collaborative system.

Learning

How do we show students how to use the RM and get them to translate the strategies
into a new motor program?

First they listen to our explanation of Vestibulo-Ocular-Reflex, the 14 muscles of
the eyes, and using peripheral-vision to enlarge our field-of-vision.

Second, they watch the instructor using the RM. They concentrate on what they see with a burning desire to imitate how to 3x their reading speed and 2x their memory.
They trigger their brain to pay attention and learn through the power of human intention.

Third, they use their own RM as a pacer to underline the sentences of the text.
They begin in a random way and transcend into specific strategies of expertise.
Learning the strategies (chunking) is by trial-and-error, stimulus/response and
cause-and-effect.

When we watch with an intention to learn - specific structures of our brain create
engrams (memory trances) of knowledge 90% similar to those producing the motor
skill by live practice.

Does the best learning program combines all three systems: listening, watching and trial-and-error?

Endwords

Professor Frey concludes: it is the intention of the learner not the visual stimulus they view that is the killer application.

For scholars: it is our parietal-frontal mirror neurons, which encode what they see into brain cells of our primary motor cortex.

The evidence is scientific and persuasive yet we prefer the tri-pronged approach
of seeing, hearing and doing. You decide.

See ya,

copyright © 2009
H. Bernard Wechsler