Rachel (name changed) did not turn up for a birthday party hosted by my daughter. The occasion was to celebrate and unwind. Unfortunately, Rachel had performed below par in a preparatory examination and was mentally distraught. Personal space had been lost and innocence sacrificed at the altar of competition.
While the brain is an organ that serves as the centre of the nervous system, the mind is the faculty of consciousness and thoughts. It is an individual’s intellect, memory or the attention span and will, whose potential needs to be enhanced.
It is pre-board time, to be followed by the final examination and then the frenzy to seek admission in a top rung college. Unless students have been regular in their scholastic pursuits, last-minute mental wrestling will lead them to an abyss. There is no substitute for regular, hard work and only a trained and smart mind can take up the challenge.
EXAM FEVERDuring examination time, children suddenly suffer from physical and psychosomatic maladies especially when the trend is to excel at any cost. A raging debate is taking place on tolerance, while the stakeholders have become intolerant to students without understanding their mind power. Parents begin planning the careers of their offspring as bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, academics without appreciating the ability and interest of the child. I am reminded of the film Vicky Donor where an infertility specialist is in search of a versatile sperm which can produce either a Dhoni or an Aishwarya.
Parents and teachers should identify the proclivity and interests of children from a young age and accordingly guide them to join the correct stream. That is smart parenting and teaching.
A child learns through visual, auditory and the kinaesthetic medium. Do teachers and parents impart such techniques scientifically? The mind, if trained properly, can improve concentration, faculty of recall, speed reading and memory which produces desired goal results.
Speed reading is paramount as it helps in absorbing facts, numbers and data with felicity and focuses on concepts without losing basic information. The teacher should educate a child to look everything afresh, trigger such a thought process to be creative, recall fast, master new languages and skills.
REMEDIAL MEASURESA student needs to be challenged or else he will get bored and drift. Only through proper counselling can anxiety be reduced and cobwebs be eliminated.
Detox and de-stressing are equally important in enhancing mind power. This can be achieved through a proper diet, rest, exercise and proper relaxation. Few students are aware that alternate nostril breathing helps in infusing fresh energy.
Mind power is dissipated the most through distraction. This can be arrested through the process of visualisation (remember names, places, dates and colours so that information seeps into the subconscious mind), conditioning memory (adding landmarks, events and incidents in daily lives ) to enhance recall and the usage of electronic gadgets like computers, smartphones and calculators to provide intelligent information. The idea is to stretch without straining. The mind should be kept fresh like the dew on petals.
Finally as Zig Ziglar writes, “If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
