bodner088

Beware: Creative Brainlock! Perplexed by a problem? Is the solution eluding you? Are you running out of ideas and just "sick and tired" of thinking so hard that your head hurts? This is a very common dilemma for people of average to above average intelligence when they cannot immediately 'sense' or 'see' the solution to a perplexing problem. When they focus too long, the problem seems to become more difficult, and all creative thought regarding a solution seems to retreat further and further away. My Braintenance readers have all suffered from this annoying phenomenon at one time or another. As Human Beings , it is our nature to reach for the solution to any problem through an immediate association with a comparable past situation. If our ability to recall such an association does not connect fairly immediately, we quickly become frustrated, and this frustration, itself, starts to shut down our informational access (i.e., the databanks become less accessibl...

Image via Wikipedia  In our last thrill-packed episode of Braintenance , we discussed the benefits of doing arithmetic calculations ("chain calculations") without the assistance of computers or any extrasensorial visual aids. The problem in the re-posting of the last show, yielded an answer of 28 [or at least it should have]. Most people's biggest challenges are not the arithmetic at all -- the challenges are 1 ) memorizing a string of data, and 2 ) recalling the string in "pieces" ("fractional recall") when going back to check or reaffirm our computations . One hint which might prove helpful is to visualize the entire string as if it were placed at the top of your mental blackboard for reference, and to do the individual calculations below. In this way, you can trick your mind into having a source of embedded reference to go back to. By doing this, you'll have less problems worrying about 'losing your place,' during the computational pro...