Speed Mudras for learning
By Hal Wechsler
Listen
now to an interview with Speedlearning 100 president, Jackie Alan Giuliano,
Ph.D. about StressBusting
Do you ever freeze up at an exam and forget everything you spent months
learning? How about losing your train of thought at a meeting and sounding
like a babbling idiot? Ever have a mini ‘panic attack’ before your presentation
and forget the details, names and numbers?
The purpose of our stressbusting strategies and techniques is to create
deep relaxation in the face of anxiety, fear and distress. We call it
balancing our three (3) energy systems:
a) cranial brain (skull and spinal cord)
b) enteric nervous system (intestines)
c) cardio nervous system (heart)
We do our best work when these energy systems
are integrated and balanced, not operating in extremes. Students who sit
for exams, executives and professionals who make presentations or interview
for a position or promotion often experience a racing heart, high blood
pressure, dizziness and even nausea. Scientists call it the Fight or Flight
Syndrome, and it feels like we are under attack.
Here’s What Happens
Raging hormones cause us to forfeit up to 25% of our ordinary concentration,
reduce our comprehension by as much as 40%, and lose 50% of our working
memory. Many students and executives forget how to reason logically, or
remember what they have crammed. Students freeze up, executives forget
their key talking points, and even professionals stumble and bumble. Is
it hard to believe that stress and tension can turn your mind and body
into Jello, and cause failure and embarrassment?
The Homunculus
Here’s what is worth knowing about the homunculus (Latin: little man),
it is a mental representation of how much brain space each part of our
body occupies. There are two: a Motor and a Sensory homunculus, and they
are located in the somatosensory cortex and act like a switchboard to
organize our body parts and the areas of the brain they own.
There is no equality here – the fingertips, palm, lips, tongue, face and
feet are the heavy hitters. The rest are also rans in the game of brain
space allocation. The Most Valuable Player of the homunculus is the ‘fingertips’.
It has 2,500 receptors per square centimeter – more than any other body
part.
Your Fingertips Guide Your Learning
Skills
Twenty five hundred years ago (Buddha – 536? – 483 B.C.), started training
priests and followers in the science of balancing their energy – life
force.
They have had a long time to perfect the use of the fingertips to improve
concentration, comprehension and long term memory. The work is called
‘mudras’, literally ritual hand movements and gestures. It is the subject
of international scientific research because it produces results and a
control of stress and a reduction or elimination of anxiety, fear and
panic.
Our research indicates that for an investment of a few minutes
daily, students, executives and professionals ace exams, presentations
and interviews.
It is easy to figure out, and consists of baby steps you can be using
in minutes. It works because it involves our Central Nervous System, which
controls our mind body emotions. Learn these basic ‘Mudras’ and permanently
have the edge over your peers who live as a victim of stress and tension.
Who Says So?
Dr. Hans Selye, Canadian scientist, and the father of
research on the fight or flight syndrome (stress), recommended ‘mudras’
as a form of relaxation and meditation. He said it helped mediate
the ‘alarms’ of adrenal enlargement, shrinking of the thymus, spleen and
lymphatic system, and bleeding ulcers. He labeled his work on stress and
its affect on the mind, body and emotions – the General Adaption Syndrome.
He wrote 32 books on the subject, and suggested that relaxation strategies
could help inhibit runaway hormones.
We have researched the use of mudras for students and executives and recommend
their use because they statistically improve learning and memory. Directed
Willful Effort (DWE) (‘Intention Attention Volition’) uses mudras to help
triple reading speed read and remember three (3) books, articles and reports
in the time it takes others to read barely one. We conclude that the simple
practice of mudras as a stressbusting strategy can add up to 40% to your
learning skills. Is that worth the the investment of five minutes daily
to release distorting stress?
Mudra #1
It is far easier to ‘do’ this fingertip posture
(gesture) than explain it in excruciating detail. Do this hand movement
secretly, while sitting, standing or walking. It only takes five minutes
to reduce life’s annoying stress
a) Alternatively touch the tips of each of your
four fingers with the tip of your thumb.
b) Do both hands simultaneously.
c) Touch thumb to each finger for a count of 1 2 3 (three seconds).
d) Start with the fingertips of thumb and ‘index finger’, move to thumb
and ‘middle finger’, next your thumb and ‘ring finger’, and finally, thumb
and ‘pinky’.
e) move left to right (sinistro dextral), and
then switch to right to lift, (dextro sinistral). This is called ‘boustrophedon’,
meaning alternatively from Greek meaning “as the ox plows.”
f) Once you have a smooth rhythm, mentally visualize your ‘burning desire,
your core goal.
Facts
1. Thumb linked to index finger delivers a
electro chemical pulse to our legs and lower body. It produces calmness
and deep concentration. This gesture appears to positively balance our
Enteric Nervous System (intestines), which is called a Second Brain. It
communicates with our sense of ‘sight’.
2. Thumb linked to middle finger reaches up to our Reptilian complex (brain
stem), the site of our instincts and reflexes. It accesses comprehension
through patience. It communicates with our sense of ‘hearing’.
3. Thumb linked to ring finger connects with our Neo Cortex – thinking
and executive functions. It accesses additional energy (life force ‘chi’),
stability and self confidence. It communicates with our sense of ‘touch’,
(kinesthetic).
4. Thumb linked to tip of our pinky connects with our Limbic System, emotional
brain structures and pathways. It is the seat of intuition and feeling,
and the Cardio System. It links to our sense of ‘smell’.
5. Thumb into a claw surrounded by all four fingers. This accesses our
frame of mind, mood, and peak performances by being in the zone. It links
to our sense of ‘taste’.
Mudra #2
This hand gesture is baby stuff, but it produces
significant improvement in both logical reasoning (deductive and inductive),
and intuition and pattern recognition. Best of all it takes only two minutes.
1. Have the tips of fingers of both hands touch in the form of a ‘peak’,
producing a ‘triangle. It is also called Steepling or Steeplejacking.
2.
Fold the peak flat. Picture a ‘spider doing pushups on a mirror.
3. Create a rhythm of 1 2 3 between ‘peaking’ (the triangle), and fold
the triangle. This is not a race track – slow down the switch between
movements. This mudra focuses on integrating our left brain with our right
hemisphere through the ‘corpus callosum’, the brain’s mediator for communication
between hemispheres.
4. This strategy activates long term memory (hippocampus and prefrontal
cortex), and improves intention and attention focus. You think clearer
and communicates better for up to four hours after this exercise.
5. Visualize your core goal in your mind’s eye simultaneous with peaking. See the successful
conclusion: acing the exam with an “A”; getting that promotion and raise;
people at your presentation applauding and handing you the ‘check’; or
placing first in the interview.
Mudra #3
a. This
one is as easy as pie, and all it takes is two minutes to calm your emotions,
activate critical thinking, and creativity and imagination.
b. The tips of each thumb and index fingertip creating two OK symbols.
Make sure the three other fingers are vertical and comfortably curved,
and facing outward (away from you).
c. OK sign facing outward and folding into your palm for a count of 1
2 3. Create a rhythm and let it take over without thinking the steps.
d. Open and close gently.
e. Simultaneously see in your mind’s eye your (single) core goal. Invoke
the Law of As If. Feel, Think, Believe, and Act as if you have already
succeeded in obtaining your goal of money things or relationship.
One Last One
We are not going to explain this variation on a mudra, but it has far
reaching potentialities for worldly success and is an excellent stressbuster.
Please remove your shoes and sox and focus on your feet.
Your assignment is to gain control over your toes and in particular your
‘hallux’ – your big toe (comparable to your thumbs).
Start to feel your toes, one by one, and begin to move each one separately.
This is not as easy as pie, nor for the impatient.
The rewards are access to your deepest intuitional levels the seat
of imagination and supercreativity. Enough said. Master this and you enhance
your self image, self esteem, by reaching your ‘hara’ (belly: in Japanese),
your life force, the 3rd charka, (also known as your enteric nervous system).
Dr. Selye called it the ‘Adaptive Energy’ source – the basis of health
and life. Some researchers believe it can inhibit or even reverse the
aging process. It is not the Fountain of Youth, but a strategy to reduce
stress of body and mind. Remember, even a small change causes ‘expanding’
structural and functional modification in our brain. It is called ‘neuroplasticity’.
Who knows what small change can initiate and excite your immune system,
circulation, respiration, and heart rhythm? We do know that balancing
your energy systems assists your endocrine system to limit the stress
hormone cortisol.