Forget what you heard in school, chewing gum activates your brain
Chewing gum and learning are linked
Teachers like to chew guns in class, it scares them. They never think in the future, that when the dam breaks, the gum can be used to occlude the cracks and save us all. It’s a joke. Chewing gum is a learning tool, as real as a big, red,
juicy apple.
If you want to seriously improve your memory by up to 28%, improve your IQ by 15 points and focus like Al Einstein …
Did you know that Al was a lifelong ‘dyslexic’ and
Totally frustrated reading because your brain reversed the words and spelling?
Dyslexia taught Einstein to trust his “imagination,” the right side of the brain.
To access your memory and concentration, become a master at learning … Chew Gum. What happens is that the act of chewing speeds up the heartbeat and blood pressure enough to wake up the left and right hemispheres and be “in sync.”
work together.
Does it have to be chewing gum?
Nyet, an apple, a turkey bone, or a slice of bread all work, but in class or at the library
chewing gum (sugar-free) is more discreet, right?
Who says it?
The original research began in 2001 and reached the major leagues the following year at the University of Northumbria in Great Britain. The Lead-
The researcher is Professor Andrew Scholey, who used control groups for his
experiments. Subsequent research using fMRI (brain scans) reinforced their conclusions.
How does it work?
It turns out that the action of chewing creates a body rhythm (mouth and jaw) that the brain copies, so that the mind and body go into “drag” (in sync).
What happens next is that the “insulin” starts to flow because the mind and body are tricked into waiting for real food to reach the stomach, not just the saliva produced by chewing.
The first discovery was that there are ‘insulin’ receptors (catchment basins), both in the left and right hemispheres (cerebral cortex). When insulin enters the
left and right brain grooves: excite the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex toward cognitive activity. In plain English, not neuroscience, our attention (concentration), memory, and understanding (Broca and Wernicke’s areas) kick in and our learning abilities increase.
The test itself?
Dr. Scholey’s team uses a group that chews gum, one second that does not move its
lips and jaws, and a third who did not have gum, but who pretended to chew by moving his
jaws up and down: they chewed “air.”
The results were eye-opening: the gum chewers doubled the scores of those who did.
nothing more than to keep their jaws closed. The ‘fake’ group improved, but less than 25% of the ‘gun chewers’, but significantly compared to the ‘normal’ (non-chewers) people.
What happens in the mind and body?
We conducted our own experiments over a twelve-month period and replicated Dr. Scholey’s results: he made us believers.
What happens is that the insulin connection helps to change the central nervous system from sympathetic to parasympathetic; fight or flight
to relaxation mode.
Hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters activate ‘acetylcholine’ instead of epinephrine (adrenaline). When we go to Parasympathetic
and ‘inhibit’ fight or flight (cortisol), we learn and think fluently and quickly.
You probably know that your three-pound coconut uses 22% of all the body’s oxygen and glucose (body fuel). When you study and learn, you need an additional 10% oxygen to keep your brain running at full speed.
The parasympathetic system leads to greater amounts of oxygen and glucose, and removes greater amounts of carbon dioxide than the sympathetic nervous system. It is the insulin that causes everything to happen.
Final words
Don’t remember that when we chew gum our heart rate increases by about three (3) extra beats per minute. Simply put in your long-term memory that “insulin” is
produced by the action of chewing. All the good things happen from physiological change: more oxygen, more glucose (fuel for the body and mind) and the elimination of more
CO2 – (the wastes and toxins that damage our blood vessels and immune system).
Chewing gum during a test, study session, giving a presentation or listening to one,
It is a Speedlearning 100 strategy because it works. You have ‘will’ (volition), and
can exert ‘effort’ (persistence and determination), to improve language areas
of your brain – (left hemisphere), and the ‘pattern recognition’ area of your right hemisphere. Making the two work ‘in sync’ gives you access to your personal best
talents and gifts to achieve your goals.
But, it requires a personal decision. UCLA School of Medicine Professor Jeffrey M. Schwartz calls it DWE: Directed Voluntary Effort. You must activate: your Intention – your Attention – and finally your Volition.
It is your job first, ‘pay attention’ (concentrate), second, ‘try’ – reach the goal of your ‘burning desire’, and third, make a decision, (choose).
Volition ‘is using your will and effort, and requires making a new choice each time.
Tell me, don’t you need a ‘hoop’ to shoot, to know if you scored?
The score is the result of your making the decision to be persistent and determined to achieve your goal.
That’s DWE – Directed Volunteer Effort.
Please, never forget that you are your boss, so decide if you really want to win by making the necessary effort. You are connected with the freedom of choice,
and you can choose the correct behavior or veto working on your desired goal.
The will is using your will to choose.
Oh yeah, reading while chewing gum increases reading speed by up to 80%.
See ya,
copyright ©
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org