Handling mental blocks

Occasionally we try to focus on the task at hand and our mind goes blank. Now, what should we do next? Do not give up! There are some tricks that can help to some extent…

Relax. Very often if you simply relax your mind block will evaporate. Try some simple visualization exercises using simple objects, people or scenery. Familiar food and friends, nice resort landscapes and familiar places are very good for visualization and relaxation. Breath deeply to fill your blood with oxygen. While not entirely relaxing, remembering scenes from my favorite movies and games also work great. The simple and rewarding
visualization activate the reward centers in the brain, which enable efficient learning cycle.

Change position, maybe walk or jump in place. Some motoric activity activates a set of brain centers also responsible for visualization. This may be sufficient to activate your visualization abilities and your superlearning powers.

Dual coding. We often encourage our students to alternate several methods of visualization, including mental palaces vs mindmapping, PAO vs pegs, mnemonics vs visual memorization etc. When one way of memorization malfunctions, it is easy to switch to the secondary method. Always keep a backup in case your main memorization tools malfunction.

Repeat another day. Some autonomous processes that happen when we sleep may activate a specific visualization we need. Simply waiting a day may be sufficient for this magic to happen. This is especially true in the case of a deja vu when a specific memory simply does not surface into consciousness. Many experts recommend keeping a notebook and scheduling reminiscence sessions…

Search online. Often we do not remember what we need, but remember an association generated by what we need. Simple wandering online near the keywords that appear relevant may be sufficient to activate our memory.

To summarize: always have a backup in case of mental block. Quite often creative relaxation, sleep and physical activity will help.