All-or-Nothing Thinking

We engage in all-or-nothing thinking when we accept automatic thoughts which describe events in black-and-white categories, with no shades of gray. It is a more extreme form of magnification and minimization in which we minimize to the point that many positive aspects of life completely disappear from sight. Such automatic thoughts lead to a kind of perfectionism that defines everything short of 100% success as a failure. To a point, such perfectionism can lead us to try harder; but in the long run, inevitably, it tends to discourage us from trying at all. Since we encounter very little black or white in the real world, this kind of thinking squeezes much of the brightness out of our view of the world: all the shades of gray come to look as black as night.

A few years ago I was teaching a class in which several standardized tests were required. One semester, a woman took the class who got the highest total score on the standardized tests that I've ever recorded in that class. Out of a possible 200 points on the four tests, she missed five. But when this woman got her first essay back, she found several criticisms and suggestions for improvement. (The essay was not graded.) She seemed depressed and irritable in class for several days after getting the essay back. Finally, I persuaded her to come in and talk to me about it, and I asked her what she was so concerned about. 

"Well," she said hopelessly, "I guess I'm just going to get an 'F' in this class." From her point of view, her essay wasn't perfect, so it was worthless. Her automatic thoughts on receiving the essay back were probably something like this: "There are flaws in this essay, even after I worked hard on it, so I wasted my time. I produced nothing of value." That's all-or-nothing thinking.

This cognitive distortion can be devastating when you are trying to learn a new skill or improve your performance in an old one. A sculptor who thinks in terms of all-or-nothing will never finish a statue because the first stages of the work will always be rough. A writer who sees her rough draft as either finished or failed will never really finish an essay. You must accept your first draft as potentially good, but unfinished, in order to improve it. Many students fail to produce good essays not because they produce bad ones, but because they never finish the good ones they start.

Link: http://daphne.palomar.edu/jtagg/allor.htm

Different Kinds of Music That Affect Your Memory While Studying

“It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition,” said Albert Einstein, who did badly in school until his parents bought him a violin that he played to help him decipher various equations. Einstein believed that music was a key factor in helping him become a genius. Music can not only influence emotions and behavior, but it also can stimulate the memory. Researchers throughout the world have conducted various studies to prove that music can improve childhood development and stimulate memory while studying. An experiment in Los Angeles revealed that after schoolchildren received keyboard lessons their spatial-temporal reasoning test skills increased by as much as 34 percent.

1. Baroque Music

   • In experiments conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, Bulgarian psychologist Dr. George Lozanov found that incorporating classical music from the baroque period that uses a 60 beat per minute interval helped students learn new languages. His method helped students retain vocabulary information for half of a school year in just one day; students could learn foreign languages in less than a month at an 85 percent to 100 percent rate of efficiency. Students who took part in this study were able to recall information almost perfectly after four years without having to review what they had previously learned.
     

   The Mozart Effect

   • Named after a 1993 experiment by Professor Frances Rauscher and Dr. Gordon Shaw, the Mozart Effect said that listening to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart can induce relaxation and increase the IQ, study retention and testing-taking ability of listeners. The Mozart Effect often proves to temporarily help increase memorization so that students can receive better results on certain types of tests. Researchers think this type of music releases chemicals in the brain called neurons that help the body relax so that students can study and retain information with greater efficiency. Listen to any of Mozart’s music, including Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, before studying or taking a test so that you can relax and increase your ability to retain process and recall information.
     

   Background Music

   • A test performed by researchers at the University of Texas in 1982 demonstrated how background music can help students memorize vocabulary words. The researchers separated students into three groups. The first group imagined the study words while listening to George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music.” The second group read the study words while listening to the same music as group 1, and the third group used no music at all. Students in groups 1 and 2 both received better scores than those in group 3.
     

Source: Different Kinds of Music That Affect Your Memory While Studying | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_5965674_different-music-affect-memory-studying.html#ixzz27n8MaEQy

The Importance Of Reading

It is a well-known fact that when there were no televisions or computers, reading was a primary leisure activity. People would spend hours reading books and travel to lands far away-in their minds. The only tragedy is that, with time, people have lost their skill and passion to read. There are many other exciting and thrilling options available, aside from books. And that is a shame because reading offers a productive approach to improving vocabulary and word power. It is advisable to indulge in at least half an hour of reading a day to keep abreast of the various styles of writing and new vocabulary.

It is observed that children and teenagers who love reading have comparatively higher IQs. They are more creative and do better in school and college. It is recommended that parents to inculcate the importance of reading to their children in the early years. Reading is said to significantly help in developing vocabulary, and reading aloud helps to build a strong emotional bond between parents and children. The children who start reading from an early age are observed to have good language skills, and they grasp the variances in phonics much better.

Reading helps in mental development and is known to stimulate the muscles of the eyes. Reading is an activity that involves greater levels of concentration and adds to the conversational skills of the reader. It is an indulgence that enhances the knowledge acquired, consistently. The habit of reading also helps readers to decipher new words and phrases that they come across in everyday conversations. The habit can become a healthy addiction and adds to the information available on various topics. It helps us to stay in-touch with contemporary writers as well as those from the days of yore and makes us sensitive to global issues.

Reading provides detailed information on Reading, Home Reading, Reading Glasses, Reading Comprehension and more. Reading is affiliated with Educational Games.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Importance-Of-Reading&id=354498