The Brain Borers That Ate Your Memory (2)

As promised, a new episode. Speculation. Feeling bored, I suggest, is just your brain’s way of telling you that what you are doing is not important. And therefore, not worth remembering.

Remarkably, there are people who study material they find boring. Ask someone about studying such material and they (or at least the verbal system) will probably tell you that this material is important, even though it is boring. They will cite long-term consequences to show the importance.

Commendable self-discipline. But maybe not good strategy if the rest of the brain has not bought into that story. Most of the brain is probably built to work in the present. So “Be here now” comes in ahead of “Be there then.”

My speculation is that when your brain says it is bored, it means something like this:
Established ROUTINE maintenance state.
Processing priorities: LOW
Main memory systems: OFFLINE
Alert systems: MINIMIZED

Can the Head Nazis upgrade that state? Maybe. But then you wouldn’t feel bored. So people who try the Head Nazis and still feel bored may want to look for a strategy to get better service out of their brains.

One strategy I cited before was the use of acupressure points. If it is really effective, of course, it should sweep the educational world. Since a number of students learned to use this method, the obvious next study is to follow up on these people a year later and see if:

they are still using it,
no longer need it, or
did not find continuing benefits.

Meanwhile, back at the Thinkerer, we have several pages that suggest alternative strategies;

Quest Questions
http://www.thinkerer.org/Studying/StudyQuestQuest.htm

The Study Skills Ratem page
Energizers
Mechanizers
http://www.thinkerer.org/Studying/StudySkillsRatem.htm
.
Focus form
http://www.thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsFocusForm.htm

The general strategy here is to make connections between those future goals of the Vulcan and the brain’s need to process in the present. Come to think of it, I don’t think we have done all we can do on that. So we will need to connect that future goal to our present mental processes. If we have a strategy to do that.