MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MIND

Purportedly, a marriage of nervous-system discoveries to self-help techniques in order to improve memory, logic, arithmetic skills, and more. The amount of neuroscience, however, would make a contemporary investigator blush--and when it's not wrong, it's ancient or distorted. The self-help is largely the borrowings of past efforts. For instance, mnemonics for numbers (one is a pen; two is a swan; three, breasts; four a sailboat); advice to group or chunk items in a list. Chapters on how to listen better and how to use your eyes. (Blink a lot, breathe regularly, rest your eyeballs now and then, and make sure your glasses are clean.) Fans of speed reading will find a condensed method (the visual guide or point system), as well as instructions on how to tackle a text for efficient comprehension. Of course, there is some sense here--of the kind one hopes is conveyed to school children in early grades: look at the table of contents, at pictures, at chapter-beginnings and -endings. The self-help culminates with improving arithmetic skills and learning everyday logic. Nothing wrong with the advice here, either: don't be duped by logical fallacies, question appeals to authorities, etc. Those who find it useful to learn how to multiply any number by 11 or 5, or how to subtract numbers from multiples of 10, will find these old tricks set forth. The pep index is high: follow Buzan's instructions and you'll supposedly become the smart, savvy, creative person you know you secretly are. Pop pap.