How can I learn how my brain works (learning, memory)?

[Anonymous]

Someone posted this on another forum: “You have a lot to learn about how to work with the way your brain works”

I’m having trouble learning how I learn, how my brain works. I’ve taken it for granted for years. Without going through assessments, is there a way to discover this?

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[Bibliophile]

If you want to learn about how human brains and memory are inexact and fallible from a psychological perspective, I recommend the blog/book http://youarenotsosmart.com/. It is interesting to see how people come to decision, rationalize decisions, and deal with impatience. It doesn’t deal with ADHD specifically, but you can see how ADHD would amplify some effects.

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[Anonymous]

Interesting. thanks bibliophile. I like that the posts are short (on the main page) so that if I’m interested, I can read a bit more.

What I’m looking for is how do I learn, I’m trying to learn how to visualize for a particular practice that I’m supposed to be doing (which also gets more complex and lengthy), but I am finding that not only do I lack the attention span to stay with it, I am not at all good at visualizing. That lead me to question how it is that I learn, which became very confusing.

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[nellie]

no_dopamine

Have you considered psycho-educational type testing? Expensive on the one hand but priceless on the other. One of my kids is now going through it while the other went through it for ADD assessment initially. Although it turned out she had a learning disability of another kind. Seems like your are seriously searching for the key to your functioning so to speak so it might be worth the cost.

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[Anonymous]

It is an interesting question. I cook, I have noticed that I can not retain the memory of recipes

that I have made countless times .. I still have to look up how much of what goes in etc.

One memorable day on line I could not remember what was in a Club sandwich .. very bad day.

But I can do the movements, whipping, chopping, blending etc, at a guess it is muscle memory.

No idea why. My anxiety seems to blank out my thoughts and memories … stunned rabbit I guess.

Good luck on the search, I tried looking up working memory and .. tbh .. it sounds rather like the

field of brain chemistry .. mostly unknown.

Thankyou for the blog site .. it looks interesting.

cheers

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[kc5jck]

The teaching co has a set of lectures on “How we Learn”

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1691

I have not viewed them, but have enjoyed many (about 60+) of their other videos and find them really informative. You don’t have to read and if you get lost or zone out, you can back up the dvd, cd, or tape. If you don’t like it, send it back for a refund. I have found their customer service second to none.

Wikipedia has an article on Learning theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_theory_(education) which looked interesting.

I think Learning Theory is interesting and a knowledge of how a particular person as an individual learns will decrease the time that person will take to learn something. Some do better watching (visual learners), some hearing instructions (audio learners), and some by doing (ADHD?). Or a combo.

Good luck and let us know of any good resources you find.

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[Anonymous]

Bibliophile,,, thanks again for the link .. the section on learned helplessness was timely ..

Gives me a direction, and that is better than sitting stewing.

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[Anonymous]

Well, my husband and I discussed it last night and he thinks that since my auditory senses are so strong, that I should try to develop my sense of visual image (mentally) by listening to some audiobooks. He suggests “Zorro” by Allende, which is a prequel, and which he already has. The reason is that it’s full of descriptiveness (is that a word?) and also it forces me to SLOW DOWN when reading (I am a skimmer and speed reader). So I am going to try that.

Thanks for the other links too, everyone! I’m not trying to learn faster, I’m trying to understand how I learn best, and how I might compensate for any deficits/differences, especially since things have gotten worse lately.

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[Anonymous]

I have just heard about executive function disorder, apparently it overlaps with ADHD. Is anyone familiar with this? Barkley has an online course that describes 6 types of exec functions and one of them is definitely the ability to visualize mentally. WOuld like to know more.

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