Is there an easier route to self discipline? Actually, there are many. Here are some of the most effective self discipline tricks and techniques. Why not try them today?

1. Start the process. Suppose you are procrastinating about doing your taxes. You feel stressed when you think about doing your tax return. Then don’t think about it! Once sufficient thought has been given to any project, more thought just creates more stress. The negative feelings that develop make it harder and harder to force yourself to do what needs to be done. You feel like you have no self discipline.

Action is the cure for this. In the case of the tax return, just lay out the forms where you can work on them. Later, just gather all the other necessary materials and put them with the forms. The next day, do just one form, and then another. Whatever the task is, you can find enough motivation for some small step. Training your mind to take that first step as soon as you think of it. The next steps (and so the whole project) become easier once you start.

2. Enjoy what you are doing. If you have ever stayed up all night talking about something interesting, you know what power the mind has over the body. How easily we put off sleep when we are motivated by a passionate discussion. It doesn’t take much willpower to keep doing something when you are enjoying it, and that gives us another key to self discipline.

When you enjoy what you are doing you are energized. Willpower goes up and down with energy levels, so play energetic music, move around, laugh, and look for ways to enjoy whatever project you are working on. The more you associate good feelings with a task, the easier it is to discipline yourself to do it.

3. Reward yourself. Break a task into s few steps, and give yourself a reward when you complete each step. This could be a bowl of ice cream, watching your favorite movie, or just relaxing for a few minutes. Reward yourself with a pat on the back too. When you recognize your successes, large and small, the possibilities become more real to you, and more likely to be repeated.

4. Become more aware of how you work. Suppose that piece of cake calls to you, or that television takes your attention away from your more important work. It can be hard to resist temptation, right? Stronger willpower is a nice theory, but here is a simpler solution: stop standing in front of the cake! Turn off that television!

This is an easy lesson to understand, but try to train yourself to apply it habitually. You shouldn’t keep beer in the house if you don’t want to drink it. You shouldn’t go alone to the single’s bars if you want to maintain a faithful marriage. You should just stay away from people that lead you to trouble.

Self discipline doesn’t mean being immune to temptation. Develop the willpower to say no, if you wish. While you are doing that, though, why not also have the wisdom to avoid temptation? Learn where your resistance is low, and don’t put yourself in those situations. Doesn’t this make more sense than fighting useless battles with yourself?

Fighting with yourself is no way to develop self discipline. It’s better to learn about yourself. How are you energized? What motivates you? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Why not learn about yourself, and start using what you learn to make the behaviors you want easier. That’s smarter self discipline.

Dreaming seems to be necessary. In experiments, people have been prevented from dreaming by being woken up whenever they start a dream, as evidenced by their REM or “rapid eye movement,” which accompanies dreaming. This seems to cause mental distress, although this was often shown in nothing more than increased attempts to dream. Those woken an equal number of times, but randomly, didn’t seem to suffer as much.

We may need to dream, but we don’t know why, and we could argue endlessly about the meaning of the content of our dreams. However, despite this essential ignorance about what dreams mean, we do know that there are ways we can use our dreams. A couple examples follow.

Dreams Mean Entertainment

You may occasionally remember a dream you had that was better than most movies you’ve seen. Sometimes you may not even want to wake up from a dream, because it is so enjoyable. Perhaps you wish you could have more dreams like these.

You can, by waking up IN the dream, and taking control. Want to fly over that lake? Or join that party? You can direct your dream if you know that you are in a dream. That is the idea behind lucid dreaming.

Does it work? Many swear that they regularly are conscious and in control during their dreams. I have had more than one dream where I argued with someone that we were in a dream (and of course proved it by waking up). Without getting into an debate about what consciousness is, it is still easy to see how much fun such “controlled dreams” might be.

One common way to induce lucid dreams is to have a “trigger” that reminds you that you are dreaming. This trigger can be any common object you’re likely to see in a dream. If you choose a clock, for example, then whenever you see one during waking hours, you say “I am dreaming right now and can do what I want.” Once this is habit, you are likely to say it when you see a clock in a dream, thus “waking yourself up” to the fact that you’re dreaming. Then you can take control and have some fun.

Dreams Mean A Chance To Solve Problems

I have had a number of good ideas come to me in dreams. In fact many of the pages on my web sites started out as dreams. To have creative ideas or solve problems in your dreams, try some of the following.

1. Do some mental work in the area you want ideas or a solution. Think about it, write some notes down, and consider some solutions. This work signals the brain that the topic or problem is important, so it will continue to work on it below consciousness.

2. Turn off the alarm clock. If you wake up naturally, you are more likely to remember your dreams.

3. Keep a recording device or a pen and paper next to your bed. Note any ideas you have if you wake up in the night, and especially when you first wake up in the morning.

4. Lay still when you first wake up, and review your dreams. This process “sets” them in your mind, so you won’t forget them as easily. You can think back on them later, to search for any useful ideas.

These techniques are not yet scientifically “proven.” However, having had lucid dreams, I can say that they are least entertaining. Also, having used numerous techniques to get good ideas from dreams – and always with more success than when I do nothing – I am convinced that there is some value in this playing with our dreams, whether or not we ever completely understand what dreams mean.

Specific types of sensory stimuli and activities, especially those that involve non-routine actions and thoughts, produce more of the chemicals that encourage growth of new dendrites and neurons in the brain. Routine activities become so automatic that they are done largely unconsciously (ever get up in the morning and walk to the kitchen before you are really conscious?). This means they require less activity in the brain, and exercise it less.

Therefore, a neurobic activity should do one or more of the following:

1. Involve one or more senses in a new context.

2. Involve your full attention.

3. Break your routine in a significant way.

Neurobics do not have to be complicated. They also don’t require that you set aside special times for them. As long as they follow the guidelines above, many simple activities make for good brain exercises, and can be worked into your normal day.

Some Brain Exercises or Neurobics

Learn Braille. This is a tough one, but learning to read with your fingers definitely involves one of your senses in a new context.

Do something in a new environment. Go to a new park, or a new store. Travel, by the way, seems to slow age-related mental decline.

Leave the lights off. Get around your home by memory and feel. This certainly fully engages your attention, but be careful of course.

New odors in the morning. Have new odors, like a bottle of mint extract ready to smell first thing in the morning, to “wake up” your brain.

Shower with your eyes closed. Your other senses become more active when you cannot see, and a shower engages several senses.

Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. This is difficult for some of us, and requires full attention the first time you try it.

Wear different clothes. Ever notice how you feel differently when you wear different clothes. You may think differently as well. Give it a try.

Choose to respond differently. Catch yourself in a normal and mostly unconscious response to a situation, and choose to respond in a different (preferably better) way.

Take a new route to work. It doesn’t have to be a longer route – just different. You may even find a faster way to work once you break your routine.

Act confident. In a situation you are unsure about, choose to act confidently. You’ll notice that your mind gets very active once you adopt the assumption that you will know what to do.

Learn to distinguish coins using only your sense of touch. This brain exercise can be a way to kill time when waiting for an appointment. If you really want a challenge, see if you can distinguish paper currency denominations by touch.

Of course following the simple guidelines above (involve your full attention, use one or more of your senses in a new context, or break your routine in a significant way) you can invent your own neurobics exercises. Have some fun with these brain exercises.

In my thinking, for example, 97 x 16 became 100 x 16 (1600) minus 3 x 16 (48). It was easier that way, and thinking this way became almost automatic. As a result, I might just write down 1552 even though I couldn’t explain very well how I arrived at the answer. My teachers called that a problem, but many years later such math shortcuts were being sold in seminars and books.

Making Your Own Math Shortcuts

You can make your own math shortcuts. The following may give you some ideas on how to do that. Alternately, you can try any of the shortcuts and algorithms you read about and adopt the ones that are best suited to you. There are no perfect techniques for all people, because our minds work in slightly different ways.

For example, suppose you want to multiply 68 x 6. My mind immediately thinks “60 x 6 = 360 and 8 x 6 = 48, and 360 + 48 is 408.” That is one way to quickly arrive at a solution without pen and paper. It is essentially this: (60 x 6) + (8 x 6) = 408.

Want another way? Think of it as (70 x 6) – (2 x 6). The “internal dialog” might be something like this: “70 x 6 = 420, but that is two “sixes” too many, so take away two sixes (12) and I have 408.” The point is that there is often more than one way, and you can use whichever math shortcut is easier for you.

If the problem was 68 x 9, by the way, my mind immediately focuses on the 9. Why? Because it is close to 10, and multiplying by 10 is easy. 68 x 10 is 680, from which I just have subtract the extra 68 to arrive at the solution of 612. Always look for the numbers that are close to 10 or 100 or 1000, and you’ll find the easier way to do the math, especially if you are trying to do it in your head.

Percentages can be trickier to do as mental math, but there are ways. Suppose, for example, that you want to figure what the 4.6% sales tax will amount to on your $29 book. One quick way to estimate it is to take 10%, or $2.90, cut that in half to arrive at 5%, or $1.45, and then just guess at around $1.35, because you know 4.6% is a little less than 5%. Alternately, you could think of 5% as a 20th of the price – if this is easier – and then round that figure down a bit.

What if you want a more precise solution? 1% of $29 is easy to arrive at (.29), so multiply that by 4 to arrive at $1.16. (You might think of this as (4 x 30) – 4.) Now you just need to add .6% to that. Think 6 x 29 = 174, and then put the decimal in the right place: .174. Add that .18 (round it up as the store will likely do) to the 1.16 and you have $1.34 in sale’s tax, pretty close to our quick estimate. This is not as difficult as it might seem once you practice these shortcuts a bit.

These simple methods do require a basic understanding of math. If you don’t understand that 123 multiplied by 199 is just adding 123 to itself 199 times – that multiplication is just another way to do addition – you will have problems with these math shortcuts. In that case, you may want to simply use the easiest of the math shortcuts – a calculator.

More Effective Learning By Teaching

Suppose you want to learn about economics, and more specifically about the way that the money supply affects the economy. You read about it, but it just doesn’t “stick.” Then a friend asks you what you are studying, and you start to explain. You have a book or some of your other study materials in front of you, so you refer to these and tell him how the “velocity” of money – the number of times money is loaned out, deposited in banks and re-loaned – can increase the money supply.

Suddenly it is starting to make sense to you. The more you explain what you are learning to someone else, the more you remember the material. This is normal. Perhaps one of the most effective ways to learn something is to teach it to another.

There are a couple problems with this “learning technique,” however. The first problem is that you have to find someone who is willing to listen to you. Such students or “victims” may be tough to come by. The second problem is the time this will take. You not only have to spend the time to find your listeners, but then you have to spend a fair amount of time “teaching” them the material.

More Effective Learning – A Better Way

Fortunately there is a solution to these problems. You can get much of the benefit of teaching if you can vividly imagine yourself teaching the material. This can totally change your perspective and make your learning more efficient.

To develop this ability to mentally “teach” while studying, it may help to first do some real teaching. Do a little bit of real teaching with a friend, if you have never done much explaining and teaching before. This will give you an idea of how to explain things. It also will help you more vividly imagine the mental lessons you’ll be giving in your head.

Now, as you study, always keep the idea in mind that you will be teaching what you’re learning. Vividly imagine how you will teach it. If, for example, you were studying evolution, you would see yourself writing an example on a chalkboard. You would look at your imaginary students and hear yourself explaining how natural selection isn’t about individual animals adopting to their environments, but about those that are not already suited to it dying out, leaving the more suited ones to reproduce.

You’ll notice that these imagined lessons go much faster than real ones, and your students will only interrupt you with relevant questions. You’ll also notice that you can remember the material much better when you use this exercise in imagination. It is a powerful technique for more effective learning.

Brain Exercises

Regular use and “exercising” of the brain has been shown to generate new neuronal growth, and even halt the decline of mental function that often comes with age. Try numerous brain exercises, and when you find the ones that you enjoy, make doing them a habit. A study will someday prove that old people who do their crossword puzzle every Sunday morning maintain their mental function longer. Some other ways to increase that mind power:

- Do mental math while driving.

- Look around at things and redesign them in your mind.

- Sing a song, inventing the lyrics as you go.

- Learn a memory technique and use it daily.

Discipline Yourself

A recent study, reported in the journal Psychological Science, found that while IQ level did correlate with academic performance, there was actually a much stronger correlation with self discipline. Those students with high self-discipline have much better grades than high-IQ students. They also found that there was no correlation between IQ and discipline (they varied independently).

Again, this shows that it isn’t how smart you are, but how you use it. Self discipline doesn’t necessarily mean willpower, by the way. It can be accomplished by starting with simple and easy steps and creating good habits over time. A great mind power practice is to get in the habit of regularly building good habits.

Train Your Body

It has been shown that activities which involve timing and coordination cause dendrite growth in the brain. More dendrites mean more possible connections in your brain. More connections mean your thinking and learning can be more flexible and efficient. Physical exercise, then, of the right type, is also mind power exercise.

The activities most likely to help include any athletic activities that require a lot of coordination and timing, such as basketball, soccer, and tossing around a Frisbee. Other good mind power activities are playing musical instruments, especially when it requires precise timing (piano playing), and painting or drawing, which involve hand-eye coordination.

Whatever you think and feel about these questions, those thoughts and feelings will have an effect on your brain function. Some still argue that basic intelligence is unchangeable after childhood (not true), but we can all agree that some people use that brainpower better than others. Psychology plays a role.

Brain Function And Psychology

I know a man who never graduated high school, yet makes very good money in his business. Is the fact that he spent much of his childhood with wealthy kids and their families a coincidence? No.

His rich friends did not give him money, by the way, nor did they help him in his business. Ultimately, how they helped him is by altering his expectations. He expects to find a way to make a certain amount of money. He feels that a certain level of income is normal, and so his mind will always try to find a way to push him towards that level.

Here is another example of expectation altering brain function for the better. I used to read the occasional book on chess puzzles. Checkmate in four moves, the puzzle might say, and the reader has to find it. Of course, I would look until I found it, because I knew the solution was there.

However, I used to think those elegant solutions were not often possible in real games. Then, after doing enough of these puzzles, I started to look for them. I started to find them more often too. Without the expectation of finding them, I had previously settled for less worthy moves.

How do these examples relate to improving your brain function? Directly: Expect to increase your brain power, and you are far more likely to. Think of yourself as a problem solver, and you’ll find more solutions. Consider yourself a creative person, and you’ll express more creativity.

Changing Your Expectations

Do you think you can improve in these areas? Yes, even if you are not sure, you still can. Yyou can at least leave open the possibility, and look for the evidence. This, in my opinion, is a much better way than standing in front of a mirror repeating positive affirmations. It is also easier.

What we look for, we tend to find. This is the key to changing your expectations. You can prove this to yourself in almost any area. For example, watch for generous people for a few days, and make a mental note to yourself each time you see one. You’ll start to see them all over. Then watch for greedy or selfish people for a few days, and you’ll begin to see them all over. You’ll get the point.

How do you apply this to increasing your brainpower? Find your successes. When you learn something new, write it down even. List problem-solving successes, and you’ll start to have more of them. See how creative you already are, and you’ll soon have even more creativity.

Evidence is more convincing than affirmation. Just start finding examples of progress, however large or small. Then focus on them, and remember them, and watch for more. Start doing this now, and soon you’ll see that your brain function is improving.

Of course, to do anything consistently and repeatedly over time is a difficult goal. What if you want to make real and permanent improvements? Can you increase brainpower permanently, or at least as permanently as things can be for mortals?

Yes, you can change the physical structure of your brain, in order to improve its function. There are two basic ways to do it. The first is to physically build and strengthen your brain with mental exercises. The second is to strengthen it by doing certain physical exercises.

Mental Exercises To Increase Brainpower

Mental exercises do not just create temporary changes in your thinking. Exercising the brain has been shown in many studies to actually generate new neuronal growth. It has even been shown to halt the decline of mental function that often comes with age.

What mental exercises should you do? Ideally ones that you enjoy, because you will get more involved and be more likely to keep doing them. There have been many activities used to test neuronal growth that results from exercising the brain. No specific ones have been singled out as more effective yet, so we are left using our common sense.

Watching TV, for example, is not mental exercise, because it is too passive. Doing crossword puzzles certainly is good mental exercise, as is playing word games, arguing philosophy, or doing mental math while driving. Other possibilities include learning and using memory techniques, habitually redesigning things in your imagination, and inventing lyrics as you sing a song.

Physical Exercises To Increase Brainpower

Physical exercise has been shown to improve brain function indirectly. This is easy to understand. A better cardiovascular system means better blood flow, and it is blood that carries that much-needed oxygen to the brain. Of course, this better oxygen supply to the brain will persist only as long as you stay in shape. Are there physical exercises or activities that will make more permanent changes in the brain?

Yes. Activities which involve timing and coordination cause dendrite growth in the brain, resulting in more possible connections in your brain. Having more connections means learning and thinking can be more flexible and efficient. Physical exercise, then, can increase brainpower – if it is the right type.

Athletic activities likely to help include tennis, basketball, soccer, and tossing around a Frisbee. Less athletic activities that require a lot of coordination and timing will also accomplish the same thing. These include playing musical instruments, especially those that require precise timing, like piano playing. You can also try activities which involve hand-eye coordination, like painting or drawing.

Meditation, which is part physical and part mental activity, also changes the structure of the brain. Recent research shows that it increases the thickness of the cortex in those areas that are involved in sensory processing and attention – the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula. Other studies show that highly skilled musicians and linguists also have thickening in the relevant areas of the cortex.

What’s the bottom line? Areas of the brain that you exercise grow bigger, from new neurons, and from bigger blood vessels and supporting structures like glia and astrocytes, and from increased branching and connections. It is clear that you can increase your brainpower by physically improving your brain.

The idea makes sense to anyone who has noted how depressed they get when they repeat certain thoughts or say certain things over and over. If repeating negative thoughts and beliefs “works” to produce a negative state, why wouldn’t positive affirmations work as well? And with a CD, it doesn’t even take time as with written affirmations. Just push that play button and go about your business while constant repetitions reprogram your mind for success.

But what if you don’t like the affirmations that you hear on the popular CDs? What if you don’t want to spend the money to buy eight different ones for eight issues you are working on? Why not make your own? Use a tape player, or get a microphone for your computer and make a CD. Then follow the guidelines below.

Rules For Making Affirmations

There are a couple “rules” for making good affirmations that are likely to affect your mind. The first is to keep statements in the positive form. Say, “I don’t bite my nails,” and your unconscious mind – which has a hard time with negatively stated instructions – may take it as “bite my nails.” Instead you would say something like, “I take care of my nails with a nail clipper and nail file.”

The second rule for making affirmations that work is to use repetition. This means not only listening to your CD as often as you can (and at least once per day for three weeks), but also repeating the statements several times each on the recording. A little trick to make them even more powerful, is to use inflection with each repetition to create a slightly different meaning. For example:

I create my future with the actions I take now.
(The basic belief you want to program in your mind.)

I CREATE my future with the actions I take now.
(Emphasizing that your future is created, and doesn’t just happen.)

I create MY future with the actions I take now.
(Emphasizing that it is your future.)

I create my future with the ACTIONS I take now.
(Emphasizing that your actions are what matter in creating your future.)

A final “rule:” Stick to one area at a time. Don’t try to work on losing weight, motivation, quitting smoking and making money all at once. Start with a clear goal, such as “Improving my relationships,” and make a CD for that purpose. Listen to that for several weeks before starting the second one.

Make positive statements. Repeat them several times. Use inflection to “squeeze” the most meaning out of each statement. Finally, listen to them often and consistently. That is how to make and use your own affirmations.

2.2% of the population scores below 70.

6.7% of the population scores 70 to 79.

16.1% of the population scores 80 to 89.

50% of the population scores 90 to 109 (This is considered the average).

16.1% of the population scores 110 to 119.

6.7% of the population scores 120 to 129.

2.2% of the population scores 130 or higher.

How To Raise Your IQ Score

Of course, since the IQ test is supposed to measure your innate intellectual capacity, and not your knowledge, you shouldn’t be able to raise your IQ score. However, there certainly is evidence that you can become more intelligent, which would be one way to raise your score. Then there are the specific techniques that are aimed at just doing better on the specific tests you take. Here are four of them.

1. Prepare and have the right conditions for optimal brainpower. Start by sleeping well before the test. During the test, breath deeply through your nose, and sit up straight. These have been shown to improve performance on almost any intellectual test. Eat fish before taking the test. Recent studies show that eating fish actually speeds up brain waves and increases concentration.

If you’re allowed to listen to music during the test, make it Mozart. Otherwise, listen to it just before taking the test. In one study, those who listened to Mozart’s sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448 for ten minutes before an IQ test scored nine points higher than those who didn’t. Do anything you can to have your body and mind ready for the test.

2. Learn to be a better test taker. There are techniques for better test-taking. They include rules like skipping over questions you aren’t sure about, and returning to them later. On a timed test it is usually better to answer the easy questions first. This way you won’t leave questions unanswered just because you spent too much time trying to get the answer to a tough one.

Answer every question on multiple choice tests, unless the score is reduced for wrong answers. If in doubt, eliminate the answers that you know or suspect are incorrect, then choose one of the remaining. Eliminate two of four answers on a number of questions, and you’ll get half of those questions right on average.

3. Learn more. Knowledge shouldn’t affect your IQ score, but it can. A recent test asked “Which of these fruits is different?” and you needed to know something about the fruits (one had just a pit, while the others had numerous seeds). Tests have subtle cultural biases, so learning more can help, as can taking a test that originates from your own cultural background.

4. Do brain exercises. This longer term strategy assumes you can permanently improve your brain function and intelligence, and thus increase your average IQ score. It’s a safe assumption in my experience, but in any case no harm will come from the effort.

A final tip. In my experience my score is higher on an IQ test the second or third time I take one. This suggests that you might benefit by taking an online test the day before your scheduled test. This might just increase your IQ score by a point or two.