I'd like you to reflect on this for a minute. As you sit there right now reading this article, information is entering your brain through your sense of sight. But you are also hearing various sounds, sensing bodily feelings like the force of the chair touching your buttocks and back, the touch of the clothing on your body, and the air temperature and movement on your skin. You are also receiving information through your nose in the form of smells. And of course, you're receiving information in the form of a variety of tastes on your lips.

And how about the emotional thoughts that you are presently experiencing? That is also information that you're currently processing. We reside in an information intensive world. Thanks to the Internet, almost anything and everything that a person could ever want to know is only a few clicks of the mouse away.

Recently I read an editorial that said that even in a tranquil and peaceful setting, we are bombarded by sixty thousand stimuli per second. And that's occurring sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour. And it goes on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, week in and week out for the length of our entire life.

And happens to be a big part of the dilemma. We are all suffering from "information overload." And that makes it very tricky to memorize all of the information that we want to remember or need to recall.

Very often, while we are reading, we realize that our eyes have been traversing the information on the page, while our conscious mind has been off somewhere else on a tangent. When we get to the bottom of the page, we become conscious of the fact that our eyes have seen the words, but we have no conscious memory of what we have just read. That is because our mind has been somewhere else thinking about a problem, or working out a scheme.

Today it's an every day occurrence to hear even young people say things like, "I'm having a senior moment." No matter what your age, and whether you are a student, part of the work force, or a retired senior, I'm sure that you understand what I'm talking about. In our frantic world it is often extremely difficult to focus your concentration.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SCENARIOS IS YOUR PROBLEM?

A. Your mind begins to wander as you read or study, and then suddenly you appreciate that you do not possess the slightest idea what you have read.

B. When you are in a social environment and you are introduced to new friends, you find that you forget their names as quickly as you hear them.

C. You recall that you have a task to do in another room; but as soon as you start to go to the other room you totally forget what that errand is.

D. You can stay alert and absorb new information. But when you take an exam, "Test Anxiety" rears its ugly head and creates a mental block, and you are not able to call to mind the answers to the questions on the exam that you in reality know.

The largest cause of a person's failure to focus their concentration is that people are suffering from . And the largest cause of a mental block to recall is also tension. So it stands to reason that the more relaxed a person is, the better they will be able to focus their concentration, absorb information, and then be able to recall it at a later date.

Today, has become a hot topic. That is to some extent because hypnosis is a brilliant tool for causing relaxation. As a matter of fact, the very fundamental nature of the hypnotic state is relaxation. And as the mind becomes peaceful, the ability to keep the mind focused increases. Similarly, a peaceful mind increases the ability to retain information, and recall it when it is needed.

is a fantastic modality for getting rid of test anxiety. There are several hypnotic techniques that can be used to program a student with the positive expectancy of tranquility, self-assurance, and achievement while taking tests.

Anyone can take a course on how to apply self-hypnosis simply and affordably in the privacy of their own home by buying hypnotherapy CD's. You can locate further information on hypnotherapy to improve memory and recall in the Hypnosis Research Library located on my website.