Reflections from M.A. Lý Thị Thanh Yến on the course “Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory”

“Excellent learners are not born excellent. They become excellent because they know how to use the brain: how to focus, how to relax, how to visualize, and how to program inner learning goals.”

Ms. Ly Thi Thanh Yen, a state civil servant, is one of the students who participated in the "Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory" course guided by Psychologist & Therapeutic Hypnotherapist Nguyen Manh Quan. Due to the nature of her work involving frequent exposure to documents, materials, reports, and specialized knowledge, she was particularly interested in methods that help people read faster, understand more deeply, remember longer, and learn in a more relaxed state.

What is noteworthy in her sharing is not only the increase in reading speed but the shift in her perspective on learning. Previously, learning was often understood as striving, pushing oneself, reading a lot, memorizing a lot, and enduring pressure. After the course, she realized that learning can occur in a different state: more relaxed, more focused, more goal-oriented, and more joyful.

From speed reading to using the brain correctly

In her reflection, Ms. Thanh Yen shared that before taking the course, she had researched speed reading methods, memorization techniques, mind maps, and materials by famous authors on learning. However, most of that knowledge remained at a theoretical level. She knew about speed reading but had not had a sufficiently strong hands-on experience to create noticeable change.

What made the "Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory" course different was that students did not just listen to lectures; they practiced directly, had their reading speed, comprehension, and memory tested, and saw their own progress through each round of training. This learning method helped students move from vague belief to concrete experience: "my brain can learn in a different way."

From a cognitive science perspective, reading is not just an activity of the eyes. Reading is a process involving vision, language, attention, working memory, background knowledge, and reasoning ability. Therefore, when discussing "speed reading," it is not just about the eyes moving faster but about how the brain processes information more efficiently. Research on speed reading also emphasizes that if speed increases without maintaining comprehension, the reading process can easily become skimming or missing important meaning. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading]

Speed reading properly is not unconscious skimming

A common misconception is that speed reading means looking very quickly through a book, skipping many lines, or trying to "gulp" as many words as possible per minute. This understanding can create an illusion of speed but reduces comprehension quality.

The "Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory" course should be understood differently: reading faster by reading more purposefully, reading in phrase groups, recognizing document structure, reducing mental noise, increasing concentration, and enhancing memory through systematic approaches. This aligns better with modern reading science: skilled readers not only see words quickly but also know how to predict structure, use background knowledge, distinguish main ideas from supporting details, and retrieve information effectively.

Scientific analyses of speed reading show that there are biological and cognitive limits to increasing reading speed while maintaining the same level of comprehension, especially for complex, academic, or completely new texts. Therefore, a safer and more accurate way to communicate is to emphasize "efficient reading," "strategic reading," "faster reading within the bounds of still understanding and remembering," rather than promising unrealistic speeds for all types of material. (WIRED) [https://www.wired.com/story/speed-reading-is-bullshit/]

The role of self-hypnosis in the learning state

A very important part of Ms. Thanh Yen's sharing is that students were guided in self-hypnosis to relax the body and program their learning mindset. This is what makes this course different from many ordinary speed reading courses.

Hypnosis in this context should not be understood as unconsciousness, loss of control, or deep sleep. According to a commonly cited definition in psychology, hypnosis involves a state of consciousness with focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and increased suggestibility. This understanding helps explain why relaxation techniques, visualization, positive suggestion, and focused internal attention can be applied to learning when practiced safely and with clear goals. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis]

In learning, the more tense the body, the more cluttered the mind. A student who approaches reading with the mindset "I won't remember this," "this material is too difficult," "I'm not smart enough" has already created a negative suggestion before starting to learn. Self-hypnosis helps learners stop that loop, bring the body into a relaxed state, set positive goals, and direct attention to the task at hand.

How does stress affect memory and learning?

When humans are stressed, the body activates the stress response. In the short term, stress can increase alertness, but prolonged stress can affect attention, memory, sleep, and learning ability. Review articles on stress and memory describe that stress can interfere with encoding and retrieval processes; regions such as the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala are all involved in memory, emotion, and stress response. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_memory]

This has direct implications for learning. A person not only needs reading methods; they need the appropriate neural state to read. If a learner is chronically sleep-deprived, anxious, in pain, under pressure, self-doubting, or distracted by negative emotions, both reading speed and memory ability can decrease.

Therefore, incorporating relaxation techniques, breathing, self-hypnosis, and emotional stabilization into a reading course is not a "secondary" factor but a foundational part. The brain learns better when the body is not in a prolonged defensive state.

Relaxation is not laziness; relaxation is a condition for deep focus

Many people think that to learn well, they must tense up, try harder, and force themselves to sit longer. But in reality, excessive stress often reduces attention quality. Proper relaxation is not letting go but bringing the nervous system into a stable enough state to focus.

Relaxation techniques are described as practices that help produce the "relaxation response," often accompanied by slower breathing, slower heart rate, and a body state opposite to the stress response. Techniques such as breathing, muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and self-hypnosis can all fall within the category of relaxation-supporting practices. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxation_technique]

In a classroom, this can manifest very practically: students sit straighter but not rigidly, breathe more slowly, eyes less strained, shoulders relaxed, mind less afraid of making mistakes. When the body is less tense, the learner can read with greater presence.

Student results: need to be understood correctly

In her reflection, Ms. Thanh Yen shared that before the course she read about 600 words per minute; after the course, her reading speed increased to about 1900 words per minute, and with continued practice, she reached nearly 3000 words per minute at some point.

This is a student's personal experience and should be presented as student feedback, not a guaranteed result for everyone. Each person has different language background, document type, concentration ability, reading goals, and practice level. For familiar material, easy texts, and goals of extracting main ideas, speed can differ greatly from reading complex academic, legal, medical, or technical material.

Therefore, an appropriate way to phrase this for a website is: the course aims to help students increase reading efficiency, improve concentration, understand text structure more deeply, and remember better; specific results vary by individual and require sustained practice.

Why does visualization improve memory?

Ms. Thanh Yen also emphasized that students learned memorization through visualization, turning forgettable things into memorable ones. Cognitively, this has a valid basis: the brain usually remembers better when information is organized into images, associations, structures, stories, or meaningful systems.

Scattered information is easily forgotten. But when information is placed into a diagram, an image, an imagined space, or an associative chain, the brain has more "access paths" to recall it. This is also why classical memory techniques such as the method of loci, mind maps, visualization, or storytelling are often used in learning.

Beyond reading memorization, another important scientific factor is active retrieval. The testing effect, or retrieval practice, shows that actively recalling information typically strengthens long-term memory more than passively rereading. In other words, to remember long-term, learners do not just read; they need to ask themselves questions, summarize, retell, test, and use the information again. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect]

Sleep and memory: a frequently overlooked factor

A person who wants to read quickly, learn deeply, and remember long-term but is chronically sleep-deprived will find it very difficult to maintain effectiveness. Sleep plays a crucial role in memory consolidation: during sleep, new memories are stabilized and reorganized through interactions between the hippocampus and the cortex. Literature on memory consolidation describes that sleep, particularly certain sleep stages, is involved in the stabilization and reorganization of memory traces. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation]

This clarifies why a cognitive development course should not only discuss reading techniques. It needs to address lifestyle: adequate sleep, stress reduction, relaxation, focus, knowing when to rest, and knowing how to recover. A fatigued brain cannot learn optimally through willpower alone.

The experiential scene: from a dense document to a knowledge map

Imagine an office worker who needs to read a 40-page report. Previously, that person started from the first line, read every word, subvocalized, and worried about not remembering while reading. After 20 minutes, eyes tired, head heavy, mind began to wander. They went back to the previous section, reread it, and felt the material was too difficult.

In the course, the process is changed. First, students do not read immediately. They are guided to relax their body, release shoulder and neck tension, adjust their breathing, and define their reading goal: reading to understand structure, to prepare a presentation, to find data, or to critique content.

Then, students survey the document's map: titles, main headings, subheadings, opening paragraphs, closing paragraphs, tables, keywords. The document is no longer a wall of text; it becomes an organized system.

Next, students read in phrase groups. They do not try to hold every detail at once but prioritize grasping the main structure first. After each section, they pause for a few seconds to ask themselves: "What is the main point?", "What is the author demonstrating?", "What information needs to be remembered?", "What information is just an example?"

Finally, students record information using a diagram or short images. When asked to present the content again, they do not recite from memory but reconstruct the structure from recall. This is when reading transforms into understanding, and understanding transforms into memory.

Self-hypnosis and positive suggestion in learning

One of the important contents of the course is programming the learning mindset. In daily life, students often unconsciously give themselves negative suggestions: "I learn slowly," "I can't remember," "I'm too old so my memory is bad," "I have no talent for this," "I can't read thick books."

Repeated many times, these statements can become psychological barriers. When entering a classroom, learners carry not only materials but also histories of failure, fears, memories of being criticized, and old beliefs about themselves.

Self-hypnosis and positive suggestion help learners reset their relationship with learning. Instead of "I must learn because I fear failure," learners can shift to "I am learning to expand my capacity." Instead of "this material is too difficult," they can shift to "I will read it structurally, layer by layer." Changing internal language can change the emotional state during learning.

Effective learning is the combination of four levels

The "Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory" course can be explained through four scientific-practical levels.

Level 1: Body

The body needs sufficient relaxation so the brain is not consumed by stress. Breathing, posture, eyes, shoulders and neck, sleep, and fatigue levels all affect learning.

Level 2: Attention

Effective reading requires the ability to sustain attention. If attention is constantly distracted, reading speed may increase but comprehension decreases.

Level 3: Information structure

The brain remembers better when information is organized. Reading by structure helps learners know what is the argument, what is evidence, what is an example, what is a conclusion.

Level 4: Retrieval and application

Long-term memory is not just finishing reading and feeling familiar. Long-term memory is being able to recall information, present it again, reuse it, and connect it to new problems. This is why self-testing, summarizing, and retrieval practice methods are very important. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrieval_practice]

Why learning under pressure can be counterproductive

Ms. Thanh Yen made a very insightful observation: many students and adults are learning like machines, learning under stress, learning without joy, learning as a form of torture. This not only reduces learning effectiveness but can also affect mental health.

When learning is associated with fear, the brain no longer approaches knowledge as an opportunity for exploration but as a threat. Learners tend to procrastinate, avoid, lose confidence, learn to cope, learn to pass exams and then forget. Conversely, when learning is associated with feelings of mastery, curiosity, and progress, learning becomes more sustainable.

From this perspective, the course does not only teach speed reading. It helps learners reset their emotions toward learning.

Value for students

For students, the course can be valuable at multiple levels. First, they learn how to approach materials strategically rather than reading haphazardly. Second, they are guided to relax and stabilize themselves before exam pressure. Third, they build the belief that learning ability can be trained, not a fixed destiny.

In a context where students are exposed to large amounts of information, reading, understanding, summarizing, and memorizing skills become foundational. However, it must be emphasized that speed is not the only goal. For subjects requiring deep reasoning such as mathematics, physics, philosophy, law, medicine, or foreign languages, learners still need to read slowly at important passages, do exercises, check understanding, and review multiple times.

Value for working adults

For working adults, especially civil servants, businesspeople, managers, teachers, consultants, or researchers, the value of the course lies in the ability to process information in an overloaded environment. A modern workday may include emails, reports, messages, professional documents, contracts, plans, market information, and many decisions needing quick responses.

Without methods for reading and filtering information, working adults can easily become overwhelmed. The course helps them read more purposefully, grasp main ideas faster, remember important points, and reduce feelings of overload.

Student reflection excerpt

"I always feel truly fortunate to have been able to access the science of hypnosis and its applications when Mr. Nguyen Manh Quan brought hypnosis to Vietnam with the desire to help and improve the health of the Vietnamese community in terms of Physical strength, Mental strength, and Intellectual strength."

"The main purpose of the course is to teach speed reading, long-term memory, and a very valuable part: self-hypnosis so students know how to relax their bodies during learning and program their learning mindset."

"By the end of the course, my reading speed increased to 1900 words per minute, and when I maintained the practice method, my current reading speed reached nearly 3000 words per minute."

"The knowledge and skills in this course not only make learning and knowledge acquisition effective but also light, joyful, leisurely, and comfortable like a walk."

Scientific perspective: how to understand speed reading results?

For responsible communication, three reading modes should be distinguished.

Deep reading is slower reading used for complex materials requiring reasoning, critical thinking, and understanding of each concept.

Strategic reading is reading according to goals, knowing when to skim, when to pause, when to take notes, when to reread.

Skimming is fast reading to grasp main ideas, suitable for surveying materials, finding information, or assessing relevance.

An effective reading course should help students master all three reading modes, not turn every text into a speed race. Critical analyses of speed reading show that extremely high speeds often carry the risk of reduced comprehension, especially when material is new or complex. Therefore, a scientific approach is to optimize the balance between speed, comprehension level, reading goals, and memory ability. (WIRED) [https://www.wired.com/story/speed-reading-is-bullshit/]

Research bases that can be linked to the course content

1. Science of hypnosis – Hypnosis involves focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and increased suggestibility; this is the foundation for understanding why self-hypnosis can be used as a tool to regulate the learning state. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis]

2. Science of stress and memory – Stress can affect encoding, storage, and retrieval of information; the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala are key brain regions in memory, emotion, and stress response. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_memory]

3. Science of relaxation – Relaxation techniques, breathing, imagery, and self-hypnosis can support the body's relaxation response, helping reduce stress states before learning or mental work. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxation_technique]

4. Science of retrieval practice – Actively recalling information strengthens long-term memory better than passive rereading; this is the foundation for summarizing, self-testing, and re-presentation exercises after reading. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect]

5. Science of sleep and memory consolidation – Sleep supports the stabilization and reorganization of memory traces; therefore, effective learning cannot be separated from sleep and neural recovery. (Wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation]

6. Science of speed reading limitations – Critical literature on speed reading emphasizes that there is no "miracle" for reading extremely fast while maintaining the same comprehension level for all text types; a more reasonable approach is strategic reading, increasing vocabulary, increasing background knowledge, and practicing reading regularly. (WIRED) [https://www.wired.com/story/speed-reading-is-bullshit/]

Who is the course suitable for?

The Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory course is suitable for students, working adults, civil servants, businesspeople, managers, teachers, lecturers, researchers, and anyone who regularly needs to read documents.

It is especially suitable for those who read slowly, get distracted easily, study a lot but forget quickly, fear thick materials, frequently suffer from information overload, need to read reports – books – professional documents, want to improve memory, and want to learn in a more relaxed state.

Important note

The results mentioned in this article are personal reflections of a student, not a guarantee of identical results for everyone. Post-course effectiveness depends on initial foundation, document type, reading goals, concentration ability, health, sleep, practice level, and how the student applies the methods in daily life.

The Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory course is a skill-training program for learning, focus, memory, and cognitive development. The course does not replace medical consultation, neurological treatment, psychological therapy, or professional intervention if the learner has serious health issues.

Course information

Course name: Super Speed Reading – Deep Understanding – Long-Term Memory

Orientation: Speed reading, deep understanding, long-term memory, self-hypnosis, relaxed learning, visualization, memorization, learning mindset programming

Instructor: Psychologist & Therapeutic Hypnotherapist Nguyen Manh Quan

Suitable for: Students, working adults, civil servants, businesspeople, managers, researchers, and lifelong learners

Hotline: 0904.606.965

Email: chualanhkhongdungthuoc@gmail.com

References

- Wikipedia. Speed reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_reading

- WIRED. (2019). Speed reading is bullshit. https://www.wired.com/story/speed-reading-is-bullshit/

- Wikipedia. Hypnosis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis

- Wikipedia. Stress and memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_and_memory

- Wikipedia. Relaxation technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxation_technique

- Wikipedia. Testing effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect

- Wikipedia. Memory consolidation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_consolidation

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