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Double your attention span by doing your learning here.
Double your attention span by doing your learning here.
Learning outside in a natural environment can double the attention span, new research finds.
The study of 9 and 10-year-olds found that when taught outside, they became more attentive and engaged.
Because of the ‘nature effect’, teachers were able to teach for twice as long as an indoor lesson.
Parks, trees and wildlife have been shown in many studies to increase the attention, motivation and physical activity of adults.
Studies have already shown that students demonstrate higher attention when they have a view of greenery from their classroom.
This study takes it to the next logical step.
Dr Ming Kuo, the study’s first author, said:
“We wanted to see if we could put the nature effect to work in a school setting.
If you took a bunch of squirmy third-graders outdoors for lessons, would they show a benefit of having a lesson in nature, or would they just be bouncing off the walls afterward?”
For the study, teachers held classes indoors and outdoors and compared the difference.
They counted the number of times they had to tell children to sit down and refocus on their work.
The results showed that children were more engaged during the outdoor session.
Outdoors, the teacher only had to redirect their attention half as many times.
The research also included a teacher who was skeptical about the benefits of teaching outdoors.
Dr Kuo said:
“Our teachers were able to teach uninterrupted for almost twice as long at a time after the outdoor lesson, and we saw the nature effect with our skeptical teacher as well.
We’re excited to discover a way to teach students and refresh their minds for the next lesson at the same time.
Teachers can have their cake and eat it too.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Kuo et al., 2018).
Two-thirds of Americans are deficient in this dietary metal, which boosts memory and learning.
Two-thirds of Americans are deficient in this dietary metal, which boosts memory and learning.
Magnesium supplements could improve both memory and learning, research finds.
The conclusions come from a study on rats that were given magnesium-L-threonate.
This enhanced many forms of memory and learning in comparison to a control group.
Only one-third of Americans are thought to get the recommended amount of magnesium in their diet.
Magnesium is found in:
Professor Guosong Liu, who led the study, said:
“”We found that increased brain magnesium enhanced many different forms of learning and memory in both young and aged rats.
[…]Magnesium is essential for the proper functioning of many tissues in the body, including the brain and, in an earlier study, we demonstrated that magnesium promoted synaptic plasticity in cultured brain cells.
Therefore it was tempting to take our studies a step further and investigate whether an increase in brain magnesium levels enhanced cognitive function in animals.”
Dr Liu and colleagues developed a new compound of magnesium to help boost the levels in the brain.
The magnesium-L-threonate was used in rats of different ages.
The researchers found it increased the number of working synapses (connections between brain cells).
It also increased processes that are vital to both long- and short-term memory in the brain.
“Our findings suggest that elevating brain magnesium content via increasing magnesium intake might be a useful new strategy to enhance cognitive abilities.
Moreover, half the population of industrialized countries has a magnesium deficit, which increases with aging.
This may very well contribute to age-dependent memory decline; increasing magnesium intake might prevent or reduce such decline.”
The magnesium supplement worked despite the rats already getting sufficient levels of magnesium in their diet.
In other words it was necessary to boost the magnesium levels higher than ‘normal’.
The study was published in the journal Neuron (Slutsky et al., 2010).
Magnesium image from Shutterstock
One cause of low learning ability is an imbalance of proteins in the hippocampus that can be corrected by cinnamon.
One cause of low learning ability is an imbalance of proteins in the hippocampus that can be corrected by cinnamon.
The common household spice cinnamon could be used to enhance learning ability, a new study reveals.
Some people seem to have more difficulties with learning than others.
Some lab mice are the same.
But when lab mice that were poor learners were fed cinnamon their learning improved, the researchers found.
Dr Kalipada Pahan, who led the study, said:
“This would be one of the safest and the easiest approaches to convert poor learners to good learners.”
One cause of a low ability to learn is thought to be an imbalance of proteins in the hippocampus, the part of the brain vital for memory and learning.
Cinnamon, though, is transformed by the body into sodium benzoate: a drug used to treat brain damage that rebalances critical proteins.
In the study, mice were fed cinnamon for a month.
The results showed that the poor learners improved dramatically in terms of their learning and memory.
Dr Pahan said:
“We have successfully used cinnamon to reverse biochemical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with poor learning.”
Cinnamon, though, did not have any effect on the mice who were already good learners.
Dr Pahan said:
“Individual difference in learning and educational performance is a global issue.
We need to further test this approach in poor learners. If these results are replicated in poor learning students, it would be a remarkable advance.”
Cinnamon has also been found in previous research to reverse changes related to Parkinson’s in the brains of mice.
Along the way, they have discovered the best type of cinnamon to use (Ceylon versus Chinese), Dr Pahan explained:
“Although both types of cinnamon are metabolized into sodium benzoate, we have seen that Ceylon cinnamon is much more pure than Chinese cinnamon, as the latter contains coumarin, a hepatotoxic (liver damaging) molecule.”
The study was published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology (Modi et al., 2016).
Question marks image from Shutterstock
The colour that boosted concentration was the reverse of what most people expected.
The colour that boosted concentration was the reverse of what most people expected.
Brightly coloured rooms can boost your concentration, new research finds.
This is the exact opposite of what most people expect, according to the same research.
Two-thirds of people believe that a bright red room was linked to discomfort, depression and annoyance.
When psychologists tested it, though, they found that vivid reds and yellows enhanced students’ concentration.
Aseel Al-Ayash, the study’s first author, said:
“Bright colors can support students’ learning performance by positively affecting psychological and physiological states.
If the reading tasks are difficult, the vivid colour conditions may increase arousal to optimal levels.”
This was the exact reverse of what most expected, Ms Al-Ayash said:
“In general, most participants believed that pale colors with high whiteness would be appropriate color schemes in learning environments, because they are considered calm and relaxing.
However, the calmness and relaxation aspects may not help students to be alert and active.
They performed better in the vivid color conditions, because these colors have arousing properties that stimulate neural activity.
If the task is boring, a red condition may stimulate individuals and enhance their performance.”
The finding is consistent with a century-old psychological finding called the Yerkes-Dodson Law.
This is simply the idea that people perform at their best when somewhat stimulated.
Too much and too little stimulation, though, tends to make people’s performance worse.
For the research participants read passages of text and had to answer questions afterwards.
They did this in six different rooms painted a variety of colours, including pale and vivid shades or red, blue and yellow.
The results showed that their reading comprehension was higher in the vividly painted red and yellow rooms.
The study was published in the journal Color Research and Application (Al-Ayash et al., 2016).
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