Refresh and Refocus the mind.

One day I was alone at home. My parents were out for a marriage party. I also love parties, but next day it was my exam and I was preparing for it. So I have to stay back.

It was about 8 pm. I was studying on the table for almost two long hours. I was tired. I was studying forcefully. But nothing was going in. My head was aching. I was feeling stress.

Suddenly my sight fell on the clock on the wall in front of me. It was ticking. I focused on the second-hand. It was moving like a soldier – tick-tick-tick.

            I closed my book and lied on the sofa. It was very comfortable. I took a deep breath. It seems as if air was passing through my head right at the place where I was feeling stress. It was cool. I breathed deeply once more. Same feelings again. It was great. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breath. With every inhale, fresh air entered into the head and sucked the stress out with every exhale. After some breaths I felt very light and fresh. My mind was very calm. I opened eyes. Clock was ticking. Second-hand was moving -  thung-thung-thung. This time sound was louder and clearer. It has engaged all my attention. I could see the second-hand moving slowly. When it struck – thung , I felt a bang in my heart. I started enjoying the rhythm. Slowly I closed eyes. I didn’t know when I fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was 8:30pm. I was feeling very warm and fresh. Mind was quite focused. It was time to study. I got up and go to my table. I was very happy as I had discovered a method to refresh and refocus the mind.

concentration inbetween

When I discovered power of concentration

There was a pin drop silence in the hall. People were waiting for professor’s turn to speak .His name had already been announced. He was coming to stage. He adjusted his mike. When he started to speak audience were all ears. He spoke very clearly on his subject which others considered very tough. He was the master of his subject. He loved to discuss with his students who in turn respected him.

That day was his last day in the school. Students were very sad on his departure. He promised to come for special classes. I was also present in the audience. I always respected him for his sincerity and honesty. I didn’t want to miss even a single word. So I discarded all other thoughts that were coming to my mind. It was hard. There was a train of thoughts in my mind. I kept trying to neglect them. After a short time I was able to focus on speech. I succeeded to concentrate because I had keen interest in what sir was saying. I felt that interest is the cause of concentration.

For the first time in my life I was so focused that I could hear even his breath. I can’t forget that day and the high level of my concentration .I realized that with this high concentration I can improve not just my memory but my whole life. I promised to myself that I would practice to achieve this deep concentration permanently.

MORAL --- (interest)à(concentration)à(memory) .

Memory-- two parts

Our mind has two parts- temporary and permanent. Permanent mind has lots of space to collect many types of information like text, picture, sound etc. It is almost infinite. In our whole life we use very small part of it. On the other hand our temporary mind has limited space.

There is more important difference between these two parts. In temporary mind things stay only for sometime. Old things clear-out for making space for new things. Things in temporary mind either move to permanent mind or just discarded. Only ‘important’ things are stored in permanent mind others we forgot .On the other hand, once a thing goes to permanent mind it stays there forever. When we learn/memorize something, what we are actually doing is to transfer things to our permanent mind.

Now question is -”how our mind decides which things is important and should be stored in permanent mind and which is not so important and can be forgotten? ”It is very useful to know the answer of this question because it will help us in our study.

These are some ways of telling our mind ‘WHAT IS IMPORTANT?’

Memory--a few questions

Memory is a mystery. It separates Man from Animal.It separates Successful from Failure.It separates Brilliant from Mediocre . There are so many techniques which claims to be memory enhancer. But they rarely work. Its time to give deeper thought to the understanding of memory--the mystery.


firstly ponder on following points--


(1)  Our memory is not equally sharp all  the time.Sometimes We can recollect things even after long time,but it was near impossible for a student to retain all the answers even for next day exam.So, memory has something to do with our state of mind during the time of storing things in the mind.


(2)  During exam we learn and retain many things .If we write answers in paper then it proofs that things have been stored in our mind otherwise how could we have written the answers.But after a month or two we can recollect only few things. It means things are stored in our mind at two levels -- temporary level and permanent level.


(3) A student must have experienced this.You know the answer very well, you wrote it twice at home, it is at the tip of your tongue.But why is it not coming out? You tried very hard but in vain. Finally you accept that it has slipped out of your mind and you leave it. You come home. In the evening when you are taking tea suddenly the answer that elude you in the  exam and you accepted that it has gone,pop up. What is this? You have not seen the answer in your notebook.From where it come now! From your mind?? Then why you could not recollect it in exam ,if it was present in the mind.It means all things that are stored in our mind can not be recollected at our wish.We need some sort of organisation and cross linking of information in our mind.


These points want your attention and contemplation.So keep thinking...


I'll continue this discussion with you in next blog.
We will discover concrete methods to enhance memory.
Enjoy learning.