My articles
Why are sensory stimuli so necessary and important for life?
Sensory stimuli support and stimulate our nervous system! In a world of high technology and speed, the work of adults is full of monotonous and repetitive activities. We spend a lot of time sitting at a desk, in a car, and all this monotony leads to feelings of fatigue and exhaustion. People spend a lot of money on pleasure, seeking new sensations for only one purpose – to get joy and a sense of fulfilment. Without feelings and sensations, it is very difficult for us to live a truly fulfilling life.
There are the following human sensory systems (analysers):
– visual
– auditory
– gustatory
– olfactory
– somatosensory
– vestibular
The sensory system is a complex that includes the sensory organ, the cranial and spinal nerves, and certain areas of the cerebral cortex where information received from the sensory organs is processed.
Our sensory system keeps our bodies in optimal condition in a wide range of situations. It enables us to hear, to participate in events, to work and to be involved in activities. For quality perception, the sensory system needs to be in an active state, but not overloaded.
Try asking yourself the following questions, your answers will show how much you either need a new sensory experience or you will realise that the system is overloaded and needs to be balanced:
– When did you last have a new sensory experience?
– Do you like the sensations in your body?
– When did you last see something new?
– What new sounds have you heard and what impression did they make on you?
– Which senses do you use more and which less?
– When was the last time you allowed yourself to play? Yes, yes, play like a child? Did you do something really unusual and fun?
All of our emotions and their interpretations make up our individual perception of the world. Perception is the reception of information by our senses. The information is processed by our central nervous system and we realise the reality of what is happening. Quality perception requires healthy senses, stimulation from the environment, a quality process of information transmission and processing, and of course the motivation and experience of the perceiver.
What is the conclusion to be drawn from all this? The holistic process of a balanced system, of play, physical living, each sense organ and the awareness of daily life gives us an excellent opportunity to gain the experience of deep awareness and attention, both to ourselves and to what surrounds us. It is the depth of awareness that helps one to meet all of life’s challenges! An integrated sensory system is a self-confidence, an ability to develop strategies, a prerequisite for concentration. And most importantly, a sense of fulfilment and stress reduction!
What are the benefits of learning foreign languages and how does this relate to neuropsychology?
Everyone has long known that a knowledge of a foreign language is in demand in the modern world, but few people know how beneficial the process of learning it is!
At the level of physiology, learning is the formation of new neural connections, synapses, and their constant change and renewal. As we know, neuronal connections are formed thanks to chemical substances – neurotransmitters. If we imagine that neurotransmitters are letters and neural circuits are sets of words that we master, then physically a foreign language is literally born in our brain in the form of new synapses!
Language is a social phenomenon. Communicating with other people makes us happier. So what is the link between the brain and language? If we look at how the brain works, we can identify speech areas that are located in the left hemisphere. Activating the left hemisphere creates positive emotions, encourages openness and promotes a happy state of mind!
Scientists have long proven that learning a foreign language is one of the best ways to exercise your brain! With each lesson, our brains improve how they process information, optimising performance and becoming more plastic. Brain plasticity affects our ability to analyse and perceive the world around us and encourages exploration. In the process of exploration, the body releases a huge amount of pleasure hormone and the result is an improved quality of life!
By studying brain function, scientists have also concluded that learning foreign languages improves memory. Learning has a preventive effect on diseases related to memory disorders, such as dementia caused by Alzheimer’s syndrome. Language learning is therefore useful and appropriate for all ages.
In the process of learning a language, one encounters a great deal of novelty, namely: lexical units, grammar and phonetics. Attention to detail becomes stronger and is transferred to the mother tongue, logical connections of grammatical structure and word formation become clearer. Bilinguals (people who speak more than one language) are also characterised by their ability to multi-task.
Learning phonetics opens up a wealth of new sounds, intonations and rhythms! By learning a new language, we also develop our inner rhythm, which helps us to learn musical instruments.
Modern research has also proven the significant lifelong benefits of learning a foreign language! By formulating a situation in a language other than one’s mother tongue, a person makes better decisions. In our native language, at the emotional level, we have many templates of all kinds of situations that our brain creates to speed up the processing of information. In psychology, these templates are called ‘cognitive distortions’, and they lead us to make the wrong decisions by ignoring the real state of affairs.
We hope that our article has been useful to you and has given you additional motivation to learn foreign languages. The NeuroEnglish course at our centre is characterised by a special teaching methodology that promotes the correct functional organisation and development of the brain during the learning process.
The basics of neuroplasticity in the nervous system and how it relates to learning
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to physically and functionally self-organise as it learns new experiences. As a result, the brain is able to change its ‘settings’ and improve the quality of a person’s life at any age.
For a long time, the scientific world believed that it was impossible to go beyond the ‘limits’ set during childhood development. It is now known that the brain develops throughout life and has adaptive and compensatory mechanisms that enable the human brain to recover successfully from trauma or pathologies and malformations.
The basis of neuroplasticity is novelty! It is desirable for novelty to be present in all exercises and to require different levels of effort: physical, mental and sensory. Processing information in a new way trains the nervous system, reorganises it and ensures its growth. Each time a person performs an exercise in a new way, he or she changes the habitual course of responses and forms a new spatial pattern of the body. Continuous training leads to meaningful and lasting results.
The flexibility and fluidity of the brain gives us the ability to respond to new conditions, to analyse and identify essence, regardless of previously acquired skills. These skills are particularly applicable to solving mathematical problems in the future and are also important for forming spatial relationships about ourselves and the wider world.
The adaptability of the human brain is very high, but it is different for everyone! The level of difficulty of the tasks in the lessons should be feasible, stimulating and maximally adapted to the individual characteristics of the group of students.
Speed of information processing is another factor that affects intelligence and learning. In the learning process, we start by delivering the material slowly, then gradually build up resources and increase the speed, with the student’s response being the determining factor for the teacher.
Compensatory mechanisms of the brain – the ability to cope with damage, such as that caused by injury or infection, by using alternative functions to solve tasks related to the damaged areas.