How to Benefit Your Learning Speed Just by Getting Calmer

I remember my first contact with Chemistry in primary school and what I can say now is that I had truly bad attitude towards it. Just looking at the book was making me pretty stressed. Getting nervous or bored before learning is not the best idea so here is what You can do to make your learning experience better and more fruitful.

First of all if instead of getting nervous I would give myself a few moments to relax I could actually get interested in chemistry and spare myself some problems with it in following years. So how to put ourselves in a resourceful state so we can learn faster and remember better?

Relaxation Practice

1. Lay down or sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes.

2. Remind yourself a beautiful place, a great oak on mountain hill with rising sun, a garden full of flowers or sunset on the beach. Choose a place in which you feel really good.

3. See it from as you would be in there (from first person perspective) and experience it as fully as possible. If you're relaxing place is on the beach then watch the sun rising, hear the sound of waves and feel the sand with your bare feet.

4. Breath slowly and enjoy while repeating to yourself how relaxed you are. After 5-10 minutes perform breathing technique - that will make you even more relaxed.

Breathing Technique

1. Take a deep breath through nose and imagine inhaling refreshing energy that come with it and circulate in your body.

2. Hold it for a second a second or two.

3. Breathe out with your mouth opened and while you do see used up energy going out and disappearing in distance.

4. Repeat it three times, breathe normally and enjoy state of deep relaxation! Now it is the time to put your mind in a proper state for learning!

Recalling resourceful state

OK, now you are calmed down and relaxed. If you would go out from this state, your mind would already be in a state of heightened reception, but as our goal is tosky-rocket your concentration we need to do something more!

1. Start out by reminding yourself all the moments when you got high score, felt great, remembered something very fast and you were proud of it. A moment in which you felt strong and great at learning!

2. Take time to find two or three such moments and once you got them bring up the image of first one in your mind.

3. Work on it:
- If there's no sound add a choir or music that "rocks you" and gives energy.
- Make the image/movie scene you see bigger and brighter. If it's black and white add all the colors.

4. Add this point you MAY feel that just watching this image gives you a tingling sensation or energy flowing in your body.

5. Repeat points 3 and 4 with all the other moments and once all of them are ready start simply watching enhanced images/movies you created. Watch one after another or see them as in cinema with huge screen. You can also see them as a kind of tornado whirling around you.

6. If you do not feel energy/tingling sensation there's no need to worry - it will show up the next time you perform this exercise. Anyway now your mind is in much more receptive state, your concentration's great and you are perfectly prepared to start learning.

7. Say in your mind: "Now I will count from one to ten, open my eyes and learn [lesson/book's title/what you want to learn]. I also know that I am able to recall it any time I want to!". Count from one to ten and start learning.

Sounds good? Your first time might not be impressive but the more you use this technique the better you learn and remember. By repeating it you can learn to put your mind in a state of heightened reception whenever you want it!

Another quite important thing to remember is to give yourself a two to five minutes break after each thirty minutes of learning. While you're having a break you can do some exercises or oxygenate your brain - open that window!