An example would be that Ive heard that studying for something right before you sleep is the best time, because that's when the most, uh...long-term brain storing memorization occurs.

Is there anything else? Certain foods or music perhaps?

Hi Rakushun,

There is a lot of information out there on this topic. A little research should go a long way. Anyway, here's what I consider to be important:

For foods, eat healthy! Particularly good for the brain are avocados, walnuts, and flax seed oil for the omega-3 fatty acid. Avoid greasy and sugary foods or drinks. Tea or Coffee in moderation are very helpful. As for music, classical or relaxing ambient/new age music has been widely touted as a study aid, but honestly I think it's a personal preference. I seem to perform equally well if I'm listening to classical, noise, heavy metal, electronic, silence, rap, anything!, so long as I enjoy it. One important point is that the music shouldn't take too much of your attention. Don't listening to anything you find yourself listening along to.

I personally like the idea of studying before sleep so much that I take a 20 minute nap every 4 hours and do an RTK session right before. It's working great; I wake up and am ready to absorb more kanji. Don't nap longer than 30 minutes or you'll likely have severe sleep inertia.

Last but not least, exercise! There are some really good recent web articles you can dig up on this. Basically, any sort of regular cardiovascular exercise is great for the brain. Exercise stimulates the production of new brain cells.

<plug>I've just finished reading the book "Making a good brain great" by Daniel Amen, and I think you would be very interested in it.</plug>

Rakushun Wrote:Ive heard that studying for something right before you sleep is the best time, because that's when the most, uh...long-term brain storing memorization occurs.

What a coincidence... yesterday I was just re-reading this: Good sleep, good learning, good life

Yeah, I was about to link over to Supermemo: I can't speak for their product, but they got tons of great articles on memory.

Did you mean any physiological ways to help memorization?

One trick I remember from law school-- you tend to remember the first and last things you see in a list of items, so compress firsts and lasts by breaking your sessions into smaller time units. When I was in law school, I would break study into 15-20 minute sessions, with 3-5 minute breaks inbetween. Not quite sure how to make that work for this... what I usually do is review in small stacks of cards to compress firsts and lasts. The less in the middle, the better. (Yeah, my primary learning/review tool is index cards. It works for me. It's not my only way of reviewing, though.)

The other thing I remember from law school-- there's a limit to what you can learn in a day. If I remember correctly, it was 4 solid hours of studying new information. Supposedly if you try to push past the limit, it will actually start to work against you.

Lastly, I remember hearing something about blueberries supposedly improving memory and general brain function as well... can't remember where, though.

And yeah, I do the review thing before bed every night, and I find I remember those kanji better than I thought I would. Pretty neat stuff.

I can speak for the first and alst are rememebr most bit.
Done about 40 kanji last night and some of the primitives of the oens in the middle were mixed up

Don't know about memorization, but my recall rate is significantly better at morning, (and/or) when I'm not weary.

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rich_f Wrote:One trick I remember from law school-- you tend to remember the first and last things you see in a list of items

I read this as well while peeking into a book by Tony Buzan (the "mind maps" mastermind) at the local Waterstones. He drew a line with a sequence of downwards bumps to represent how attention/memory fluctuates and is best at the ends (where the bumps meet).

I`ve been using brainwave software, which can induce a mental state ideal to learning and many other states. I`ve found it especially usable for relieving any kind of pre-exam stress. It actually improved my grades!

Some links to recommended software & websites:

1. Brainwave generator (BWGEN) for the PC. This to my knowledge is the most widely used brainwave software and has a large user base. Loads of user created presets exist for learning aid purposes. Website: http://www.bwgen.com

2. Portable Meditation Engine for liberated PSP`s. Also contains a learning aid preset. Link: http://dl.qj.net/Portable-Meditation-Eng.../catid/151

3. SBAGEN, multiplatform. Great free software, but harder to use. GUI is available. Website: http://uazu.net/sbagen/

Background information on brainwave entrainment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats (also contains links to other brainwave software)
http://www.monroeinstitute.com
http://www.centerpointe.com

Whoa, brainwave audio stuff? Never ever heard of that: very trippy. Very trippy indeed. I'll look into BWGEN. $40 seems to be pretty damn high, but I'll try out the demo.

This will either be the start of a new beginning or a very optimistic waste of time.

Before any study, sit back and listen to some baroque music that is in the largo speed. Then when you are studying, keep the music on, folloowed by a bit more music at the end. This speed is perfect for relaxing the brain to let new information settle in nicely. Very simple and effective.

If you`re not into using software to make your own music you can of course also buy some premade CD`s. The link below points to the brainwave section of the well respected Monroe Institute. If you do a search for "study" you`ll get a page about CD`s specially intended to improve concentration and study performance. Baroque music is scientifically proven to have a positive balancing effect on the brain. No wonder the same page contains CD`s with baroque music mixed with brainwave music too!

http://www.hemi-sync.com/store/home.php

Awesome kanjapan, I've been searching for something like that to induce alpha-brainwaves (Look them up~) ever since I heard of I-doser (Look that up too~!)!

Thanks for the brain music stuff, Ill check it out later. Personally I think things like this are just a placebo effect, which doesnt work well if youre aware of it, but I hope it does.

I sometimes forget kanji that I would bet a million dollars I know by heart like I know English...thats always a little disheartening. I had great images in my head for kanji like recess, melt, and green and Ive seen the kanji 買 a million times, but I recently got them wrong in a review. Pah.

Rakushun Wrote:Thanks for the brain music stuff, Ill check it out later. Personally I think things like this are just a placebo effect, which doesnt work well if youre aware of it, but I hope it does.

Even unintended associations get memorized and can be used as cues for recall. In particular, if you're listening to some kind of music while memorizing, you will recall easier if you listen that same kind of music. This effect has no value for memorization in itself, as you'll have to develop remembering without that music anyway, but it provides correlation between presence of music and recall.

Rakushun Wrote:I sometimes forget kanji that I would bet a million dollars I know by heart like I know English...thats always a little disheartening. I had great images in my head for kanji like recess, melt, and green and Ive seen the kanji 買 a million times, but I recently got them wrong in a review. Pah.

I sometimes forget words in my native language... Luckily, there's a En<->Ru dictionary, and it's usually possible to recall the word in at least one language!

Hm, brainwave generator is confusing, Im not sure if Im doing it right. Im using the Studying Aid preset and it says the 6hz thing increases memory stuff, but all the 'voices' in the preset are 12-22hz. How does that work?

Are you using the brainwave generator preset called "BUILTIN: Learning aid 1 (for subliminal)"?

A voice is a binaural beat pattern. Several patterns are used at the same time in this preset.

You can examine the binaral beat pattern of each voice this way:

Select "wave" -> "preset options", then click on the voice you want to examine. To see the binaural beat frequency of the voice click on the "sound" tab.

In the sound tab you can see that voice 1 has a frequency of 6 hz, voice 2 is 12 hz and voice 3 shifts between 15 and 17 hz. Every one of these beat patterns has a different function.

People who don`t want to fuss around with software and want easy proof that brainwave music really works (thoroughly scientifically proven btw by using EEG equipment) can order a demo brainwave CD for free at this page:

https://www.centerpointe.com/demo/?x=top_main

Homepage of this site for more information:

https://www.centerpointe.com/

After listening to this CD you`ll feel really relaxed and balanced. The more you are able to focus on the music the better the results.

Hope this helps.

This may or may not be a coincidence, but while listening to an alpha-10Hz binaural beat sequence I just "learned" 40 kanji in about 10 minutes. It was also very relaxing

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Rakushun Wrote:(...) and it says the 6hz thing increases memory stuff, but all the 'voices' in the preset are 12-22hz. How does that work?

Also in BWGEN I noticed that it doesn't immediately go to the 6hz frequencies because you normal waking state is more like 12-15hz. So it begins at 12-15hz and gets to 6hz in 5-10 minutes, you can see the numbers changing in BWGEN's window.

Nah, I got my brainwave thing registered so Im using the Studying Aid preset, and followed a tip and added a 6.3hz voice and pink noise.


It doesnt really make me feel any different....Im not sure if its volume or not. I can hear it fine, but I dont wanna damage my ears with this noise.

Personally I think Im immune to stuff like this, or at least resistant.

Rakushun, did you try listening to the audio with headphones? It will not work hardly as well without them. Also, the volume of the brainwaves can be set to as little as 2% of the total without any loss of effectivity. It might even work better that way. Therefore there is no need to listen to any loud noises. Let me know if you keep having problems. Brainwave music is too powerful of a tool to be left unused.

Yeah, Im using headphones.
I think it works a little bit...I just dont feel any different.

This is a good watch about the connection between sleep & memory: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3410/01.html

From what Ive gathered, binaural beat frequencies is along the same line as hypnosis: It works on some people and does nothing for others.

Ive noticed a slight overall increase in my pass/fail rate, but thats it. I dont think it works on me.

Also its kinda of unnerving how every study preset Ive tried is completely different sounding...Im not sure which ones to trust.

in a recent study it was found that mice who ate raw honey for 10% of their diet greatly increased their spatial memory and were much more calm; I heard this on the radio. So eat lots of raw honey, helps with allergies too