We’re back with the episode 32 of Brain Software with Mike Mandel. Welcome to the very umbilicus of Global Hypnosis!
Here are the show notes
- This episode is all about how to get smarter. Mike constantly amazes people with his encyclopedic knowledge in so many areas. What people don’t necessarily realize is that Mike has spent most of his life learning new things. His lifestyle allows him plenty of time to do this. But the most important question he asks himself every day is “How can I get even smarter today than I was yesterday and have an absolute blast doing it?”
- You must build your schema. Learning a wide variety of topics builds your “bulk schema” and your brain will recognize patterns because your brain is a pattern recognizing machine. If you do what you always have done all the time, you’ll get atrophy. You’ll get stupider. TV does this to you (watching the same shows, or sports).
- Language is a remarkable tool to get smarter. Mike recommends people buy a really good dictionary. Get one of those big hardcover Oxford type dictionaries. Keep it handy when you read. If you run into a word you don’t know when reading, stop and look it up. This is how you’ll acquire new words all the time.
- Learn new languages! Get you brain full of new stuff, and learning to be even moderately conversational in new languages is very important. Besides, language (as a skill) is necessary to understand and communicate logic.
- Avoid the TV. Documentaries and other educational forms of TV have a purpose. But watching endless fictional series and reality TV shows are not going to make your life any better. Reading is far better. Reading is active while TV is passive. TV is a trance inducer that causes people to slump deeper in their chair, slow their breathing, etc.
- Omega 3 fatty acids are something that Mike takes every day (through fish oil). He’s not suggesting that you take this, only that he finds it important for himself. Most people’s diets are way too high in Omega 6 and enough Omega 9, but not enough of the Omega 3. The brain requires these essential fatty acids to function properly. Most of the brain is lipid (i.e. fat). Avoid exciotoxins such as MSG and Aspartame that damage neural pathways.
- Read biographies, or listen to audio book biographies. The brain can’t tell the difference between something that was vividly imagined versus something that actually happened. This is why stories are so amazing! When you read a great biography your brain takes in someone else’s life experience into your schema. Your unconscious absorbs important elements.
- Learn through great courses. Mike is a huge fan of a company that sells The Great Courses. These courses are taught by the best professors around and they make anything sound fascinating. The courses all seem to go on sale at least once per year at significant discounts. We’re not affiliate with them in any way. Mike is just a customer, and recommends them.
- Listen to great podcasts (like this one) which are totally free. Check out iTunes University where you can take courses for free.
- Get enough sleep. It’s essential to your brain. You need REM sleep cycles to integrate things that have come into your life during the prior day. Good quality sleep makes you smarter. Mike suggests people should NOT wake up to an alarm. Chris asks what people can do if they have to wake up for a day job. Mike says “go to bed early enough to get a good night’s sleep”. Simple. Or learn to power nap as discussed in Podcast 31.
- Our April hypnosis training is now full. But we opened a new class set Monday to Friday July 8-12 here in Toronto. You can get all the information on the next hypnosis class here.
- Online training: We’ve now completed 5 lessons of our upcoming online hypnosis training. We originally wanted to launch it in April. We may make that timeline, but it’s probably going to slip into May simply because we have high quality standards!
- Empowering question for this podcast: What is beneath your problem. What is it that’s holding that problem up and how can you remove that supportive structure?
Closing metaphor: The banging has started …
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[audio: http://traffic.libsyn.com/brainsoftware/MMH_Podcast_32.mp3 ]
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