By Maksim Khotimchenko, Ph.D.
Nowadays, the progress in science development is so fast, that it is impossible to follow all the new knowledge being obtained. About 2.5 million new scientific papers are published each year in peer reviewed journals. This means 2.5 million of the new important results giving new knowledge for various fields of the human life.
But the human beings are still the same as they were thousand years ago, and the length of their working activity during each days is still the same. We always experience the lack of time for learning. And we want to make our learning more effective and, thus, better and faster.
There are several ways to help your brain learn effectively generally known. They are very simple, and they work:
- Mental training. Brain cells would work faster and efficiently if they always in active state. Like the muscles, neurons and interconnections between them called synapses can be trained. So, mental exercises like remembering of names or numbers, text writing, or a verb composing help to accelerate learning processes.
- Physical training. Light physical exercises can help to learn better. Walking on a tread mill or use of elliptical machine improve brain circulation and make higher number of neurons in brain work together.
- Emotional calmness. Any positive emotion as well as the negative one creates a focus of activated neurons in brain which cannot be involved in any other activity. And the less number of neurons takes part in learning activity, the worse results you get. So, quiet and cozy environment is the best for fast and effective learning.
- When you're hungry, your neurons in brain are involved in permanent thinking about necessary meal and cannot provide learning capacity. So, starving is bad for learning. But not all kinds of food are equally good for brain functions. Foods like fish, fruits, and vegetables help the brain network works optimally. Dark chocolate is a good source of glucose, dopamine, flavonoids and antioxidants, which are able to improve the brain functions.
- Sleep regime. Good long sleep but not a short nap is necessary for a good learning. When we sleep, our brain works out all information that was obtained before. It is supposed that all necessary information is being transferred from short memory into the long-term memory during our sleep. Night sleep is a structured process consisted of two consecutive phases of slow and rapid sleep. If we do not sleep enough and do not have all these phases to pass three or four times one after another, our sleep is useless, and all we have learnt before may get lost.
- Use of safe herbal mental stimulators - adaptogens. There are several adaptogen herbs exerting stimulating effects on the central nervous system. One of them is Rhodiola rosea, also known as Goldern root. Influence of Rhodiola on brain function is very well studied. It activates neurons in various parts of the brain resulting in enhanced cognitive functions, in particular, attention, memory, and learning. The main active constituents of Rhodiola rosea were isolated and studied in experiments. They are named rosavins and salidrosides. It was figured out that they directly affect brain cells and synapses providing them sufficient glucose supply, stabilizing cell walls, and regulating ion flow. Effect of Rhodiola rosea on central nervous system is much more significant under unfavorable conditions such as sleeplessness, lack of oxygen, or emotional stress. Comparative studies have shown Rhodiola rosea to be more effective than many available drugs purposed for treatment of nervous disorders. At the same time, Rhodiola's intake is rather safe because it does not provoke disturbances of attention and memory in contrast to many psychostimulators' activity.
We may definitely say that herbal adaptogens like Rhodiola rosea may help the process of learning to be fast and effective with no adverse influence of brain metabolism and function of adrenals.
Safe and effective Rhodiola rosea is a real help for anybody needing to learn something or to do precise mental work in short time.