Читать книгу The Pelman System of Mind and Memory Training - Lessons I to XII - Анон - Страница 10

4. Again, lack of discipline between the years of 14 and 25 often gives rise to mental inefficiency. Whatever advantage school routine has offered in the way of attention to prescribed lessons at certain hours is frequently lost; there is no master to supervise effort outside the round of daily duties; reading is an indulgence of curiosity rather than a fixed plan for the training of intelligence. Thus at 25, or later, men and women find themselves unable to concentrate because they have not continued the mental discipline which the school may in their cases have begun. They have developed certain bad habits, intellectually; and they need in consequence a course of training by way of corrective.

Illness, particularly of a nervous kind, is another source of mental inefficiency—concentration and memory being the functions that suffer most. In such cases physical and mental remedies should be used together cautiously, slowly, and hopefully. Any kind of negative suggestion, such as “I don’t think my memory will ever recover,” is very prejudicial to success, and any kind of physical neglect will exert a mischievous influence on the powers of the mind. There should be, first, a strong determination to become physically fit; next, a re-training of the defective functions on scientific lines, taking care not to press the exercises too keenly, as any over-exertion would defeat the end in view.

There are other reasons, both physical and mental, why inefficient conditions are brought about, but those indicated are the chief. Accidents, insomnia, residence in tropical climates, over-indulgence in alcohol or tobacco, are more or less potent factors in depleting intellectual powers—especially memory.