Unlock your minds hidden potential with this trick

Unlock your minds hidden potential with this trick Who among us doesn’t want to reach our full potential? Most of us have been told by someone at least once during our lives- possibly a parent or other family member, or maybe a friend or someone else in a position of trust, like a teacher- that we have a great deal of potential for achieving great things in life, and if we could summon the dedication, discipline, and mental fortitude to unlock it and utilize it to its fullest, we’d be successful! Using our mind’s full potential could benefit us in all areas of our lives, from strengthening personal relationships to reaching our professional and career goals and everything in between, so putting in the effort to unlock this hidden potential is a worthwhile investment.According to a blog post on pickthebrain.com, there’s a great deal of evidence that suggests people can unlock significant dormant mental potential and go on to achieve great success: â€Å"Your mind is a vast, largely unexplained source of en ergy and power†¦ many very successful people have believed in these powers and used them to create incredible fortunes and success†¦They exist whether you are willing to admit it and use it to your benefit or not. If you don’t, then you are missing out on getting the very most out of your life.†So†¦ the big question remains: How do you go about unlocking your mind’s hidden potential? Well, a recent Psychology Today article by Dr. Chris Gilbert, MD, PhD may just hold the answer to unlocking what she terms your â€Å"inner genius.†Dr. Gilbert focuses on a curious phenomenon that occurs in individuals who have suffered damage to the left anterior temporal lobe (LATL) in the brain and acquired what’s known as acquired savant syndrome, a disorder in which people spontaneously develop incredible  memories  and genius level abilities. This rare occurrence has been documented in a very small number of individuals (just 32 at the time of t his writing), but their experiences paint a powerful portrait of tapping into one’s latent potential.Take Derek for instance, who’s referred to in the article:Derek was a 39-year-old sales trainer with no musical skill when he dove head first into a very shallow swimming pool while visiting his mom. He suffered a severe head concussion and was taken to the hospital. Four days later, when he was resting at one of his friends’ house, he discovered that he was able to play the piano flawlessly and beautifully even though he couldn’t read music. That day, he played the piano for 6 hours. He is now working as a well-paid musician and composes music.Pretty powerful stuff, right? And Derek is just one example. There are others who, for some reason or another, often through an accident or brain altering illness like a stroke or dementia, acquired new talents after getting acquired savant syndrome. Dr. Gilbert notes, â€Å"Special skills in acquired savants, like the unusual abilities of ‘natural savants’ like autistic children, usually manifest as musical abilities- most often the piano with perfect pitch like Derek- visual memory, arithmetic abilities, painting, drawing, sculpting, and spatial skills where the savant can construct complex accurate models or excel at direction finding and map making.†However, before you go off and assume that you need to damage your brain’s LATL in order to get acquired savant syndrome, don’t get the wrong idea! Dr. Gilbert is not suggesting that anyone hurt themselves or do anything tragic and irreversible to their brains. However, she is saying that we can learn from the experiences of Derek and the others who have been diagnosed with acquired savant syndrome and apply this knowledge to answer the following question: Can healthy people acquire savant-like talents and unlock their â€Å"inner geniuses† by suppressing their LATL in a safer way? Dr. Gilbert argues tha t the LATL in our brains function to actively suppress certain portions of our ability to help us focus on the primary needs for survival, and that it keeps our full abilities and potential in check and dormant.Evidence for this has been shown in laboratory studies in individuals without brain trauma. Dr. Gilbert’s article refers to research performed by Dr. Allan Snyder, a neuroscientist at the University of Sidney, Australia, who demonstrated that there is a way to temporarily â€Å"turn-off† our LATL without any ill effects, so that all of us could exhibit savant-like talents:â€Å"Dr. Snyder artificially fatigued the LATL by stimulating it with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for 15 minutes in healthy subjects.  This technique is the equivalent of tiring out a muscle by vigorously exercising it. After TMS exposure, Snyder’s test subjects showed improved ability to draw objects from memory, to quantify the number of discrete objects in complex visu al scenes, and to accurately proof-read documents- all skills that depend upon memory for small details.†This means that there’s a potential sleeping â€Å"inner genius† inside all of us that’s just waiting to be woken up! But†¦can we emulate these results outside of a lab? It turns out that the answer is yes, we can.Based on Dr. Snyder’s work, Dr. Gilbert suggests that â€Å"anything we do that actively fatigues the LATL in a natural way could allow latent drawing, math, spatial, or musical abilities to surface.† She encourages engaging in activities that allow our brains to hyperfocus on the small, meaningless details of things to loosen the oppressive grip of our LATLs on our brain functioning. Things like transcendental meditation, repetition of a nonsensical mantra, and some forms of hypnosis can simulate the effects needed to temporarily suppress LATL activity, and allow our brains to unlock our hidden potential.The next time youâ €™re eager to unleash your mind’s hidden potential, consider the simple tricks mentioned here. Dr. Gilbert sums it up best: â€Å"So here’s the bottom line: To unleash your hidden talent, either focus exclusively on meaningless details or go overboard thinking about the meaning of things around you. Either way, you will push your LATL into the back seat and put your inner genius in the driver’s seat.†

The Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus

The Second Voyage of Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus returned from his first voyage in March 1493, having discovered the New World...although he didn’t know it. He still believed that he had found some uncharted islands near Japan or China  and that further exploration was needed. His first voyage had been a bit of a fiasco, as he had lost one of the three ships entrusted to him and he did not bring back much in the way of gold or other valuable items. He did, however, have a handful of bedraggled natives he had taken on the island of Hispaniola, and he was able to convince the Spanish crown to finance the second voyage of discovery and colonization. Preparations for the Second Voyage The second voyage was to be a large-scale colonization and exploration project. Columbus was given 17 ships and over 1,000 men. Included on this voyage, for the first time, were European domesticated animals such as pigs, horses, and cattle. Columbus’ orders were to expand the settlement on Hispaniola, convert the natives to Christianity, establish a trading post, and continue his explorations in search of China or Japan. The fleet set sail on October 13th, 1493, and made excellent time, first sighting land on November 3rd. Dominica, Guadalupe and the Antilles The island first sighted was named Dominica by Columbus, a name it retains to this day. Columbus and some of his men visited the island, but it was inhabited by fierce Caribs and they did not stay very long. Moving on, they discovered and explored a number of small islands, including Guadalupe, Montserrat, Redondo, Antigua, and several others in the Leeward Islands and Lesser Antilles chains. He also visited Puerto Rico before making his way back to Hispaniola. Hispaniola and the Fate of La Navidad Columbus had wrecked one of his three ships the year before during his first voyage. He had been forced to leave 39 of his men behind on Hispaniola, in a small settlement named La Navidad. Upon returning to the island, Columbus discovered that the men he had left had angered the native population by raping local women. The natives had attacked the settlement, slaughtering the Europeans to the last man. Columbus, consulting his native chieftain ally Guacanagarà ­, laid the blame on Caonabo, a rival chief. Columbus and his men attacked, routing Caonabo and taking many of his people as slaves. Isabella Columbus founded the town of Isabella on the northern coast of Hispaniola, and spent the next five months or so getting the settlement established and exploring the island. Building a town in a steamy land with inadequate provisions is hard work, and many of the men sickened and died. It reached the point where a group of settlers, led by Bernal de Pisa, attempted to capture and make off with several ships and go back to Spain: Columbus learned of the revolt and punished the plotters. The settlement of Isabella remained but never thrived. It was abandoned in 1496 in favor of a new site, now Santo Domingo. Cuba and Jamaica Columbus left the settlement of Isabella in the hands of his brother Diego in April, setting out to explore the region further. He reached Cuba (which he had discovered on his first voyage) on April 30 and explored it for several days before moving on to Jamaica on May 5. He spent the next few weeks exploring the treacherous shoals around Cuba and searching in vain for the mainland. Discouraged, he returned to Isabella on August 20, 1494. Columbus as Governor Columbus had been appointed governor and Viceroy of the new lands by the Spanish crown, and for the next year and a half, he attempted to do his job. Unfortunately, Columbus was a good ship’s captain but a lousy administrator, and those colonists that still survived grew to hate him. The gold they had been promised never materialized and Columbus kept most of what little wealth was found for himself. Supplies began running out, and in March of 1496 Columbus returned to Spain to ask for more resources to keep the struggling colony alive. The Start of the American Indian Slave Trade Columbus brought back many native slaves with him. Columbus, who had once again promised gold and trade routes, did not want to return to Spain empty-handed. Queen Isabella, appalled, decreed that the New World natives were subjects of the Spanish crown and therefore could not be enslaved. However, the practice of enslaving indigenous populations continued. People of Note in Columbus’ Second Voyage Ramà ³n Panà © was a Catalan priest who lived among the Taà ­no people for about four years  and produced a short but very important ethnographic history of their culture.Francisco de Las Casas was an adventurer whose son Bartolomà © was destined to become very important in the fight for native rights.Diego Velzquez was a conquistador who later became governor of Cuba.Juan de la Cosa was an explorer and cartographer who produced several important early maps of the Americas.Juan Ponce de Leà ³n would become governor of Puerto Rico but was most famous for his journey to Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth. Historical Importance of the Second Voyage Columbus’ second voyage marked the start of colonialism in the New World, the social importance of which cannot be overstated. By establishing a permanent foothold, Spain took the first steps towards their mighty empire of the centuries that followed, an empire that was built with New World gold and silver. When Columbus brought back slaves to Spain, he also caused the question of slavery in the New World to be aired openly, and Queen Isabella decided that her new subjects could not be enslaved. Although Isabella perhaps prevented a few instances of enslavement, the conquest and colonization of the New World were devastating and deadly for Native Americans: the indigenous population dropped by approximately 80% between 1492 and the mid-17th century. The drop was caused mainly by the arrival of Old World diseases, but other Native Americans died as a result of violent conflict or enslavement. Many of those who sailed with Columbus on his second voyage went on to play very important roles in the history of the New World. These first colonists had a great amount of influence and power over the course of the next few decades of history in their part of the world. Sources Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America From the Beginnings to the . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962Present. Thomas, Hugh. Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. Hardcover, 1st edition, Random House, June 1, 2004.