Power Up Your Mind

Understanding Your Mind

Most people know more about how their cars work than how their minds work. To improve your ability to learn, you must first understand how your mind works.

The common notion of intelligence has been warped by the widespread acceptance of Alfred Binet and William’s Stern’s IQ or intellectual quotient. IQ as a measure of intelligence places too much importance on the use of language and figures at the expense of other types of intelligence like creativity, common sense and control of emotions.

Psychologists have identified at least eight types of intelligence, and scholars like Daniel Goleman are paying more attention to new concepts like emotional intelligence.

Paul Maclean has proposed that every person actually has three brains, rather than one:

1. The primitive or reptilian brain, which sits at the bottom of your brain and governs your most basic survival instincts, such as the fight-or-flight response, blood circulation, breathing and digestion.
2. The limbic brain, which sits like a collar on top of the reptilian brain, processes emotions, sensory input and long-term memories. Human beings share...