It is widely acknowledged that exercise is not only important for improving flexibility, developing strength and maintaining balance, but is essential in remaining fit. The same applies to our brain! Just as adding physical exercise challenges our physical body, it would only make sense that our brain would also need some sort of exercise to promote functionality for the betterment of cognitive abilities. Just like physical skills get rusty and deteriorate over time (problem-solving, memory, concentration and focus), brain training tasks will enhance and extend your performance while also blunting the degeneration over time. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to work on mental agility, see the following simple tasks to incorporate into your daily living!
1. Break A Strict Routine:
Although routines provide structure to our lives, neuro-imaging studies suggest that mental activity declines when you are engaged in automatic performance of daily habits. Conversely, novel tasks increase brain activity across multiple regions of the cortex. Mixed routines will promote your improved cognitive abilities! If you are a morning person, consider getting up earlier and using that time to do something else like exercise or meditate. Making change how you sequence activities provides an additional change. If you run at 6 pm, study at 7, read at 9, watch TV, or socialize and run errands at a regular time, simply changing the order of those activities puts a different pattern of thought in your brain.
2. Find A New Path:
The pathways you travel each day to work, school, or home are likely committed to memory. After a time, they become so recognized that you are barely thinking about them. Difficulties, however, do not stimulate your neurons! You must change your routine to and from work or school often, and your brain will be used actively. For instance, could you switch from mainline streets to side streets, or the opposite? A different type of change in your routine is to roll the window down (weather permitting) and simply listen and smell. You will more likely remember the routes better with those sensory changes. The hippocampus is associated with memory processing and map-making via sensory processing, which is why the changes aforementioned are helpful. Sensory processing involves a level of association between your memories of sounds and smells or visuals.
3. Utilize Your Non-dominant Hand:
Which of your hands do you use for common activities such as holding a telephone, consuming a meal with a utensil, rotating a key, or writing? You probably use the same hand for all, unless you are ambidextrous. Repeating these routine activities is so engrained that your brain goes on autopilot, using little or no mental effort or as little conscious engagement as possible. Lack of mental engagement means it is not pulling on an established neural pathway within the brain, and, therefore, lacks any cognitive challenge. Therefore, let's switch it up and start using the non-dominant hand! You will quickly recognize that even the simplest tasks become far more engaging through planned usage of the hand you don't normally use. By frequently using the non-dominant hand to accomplish the simple tasks that you have performed numerous times, you will not only improve hand coordination, you'll also learn to repeat this with little mental effort while improving your metrics for concentration and conscious engagement.
4. Play Observation Games:
Have you ever found it easily to miss rather valuable detail? Our brains often imperceptibly reject information it doesn't seem to find unnecessary. For example, do you recall the color of the cashier's shirt the last time you were in a store? Or what do you remember that your colleague was thinking about last week? Do you recall the name of that secondary character on the TV show your roommate was watching? If you're like most people, you probably don't. Nonetheless, you can become a better rememberer and increase your attention by choosing to pay attention. An observation activity can also improve your focus. Choose some sort of observation game, or just engage in a simple daily observance process. Pick a detail that you'll observe and look for it everywhere, like people's clothing styles or eye colors, or even the emotion they are feeling. Whether you're at home watching TV, or out for a walk in your neighborhood, mentally keep your observation game going. You're providing your brain with any kind of workout, and it is strengthening.
5. Tell Stories:
It is essential that your stories transform into memories: those that you have lived yourself, or those that you know are to be shared by others. Each day, consider a story that you want to retell. From there, you can always rehearse it if you want. When you are remembering and achieving your retell, it is paramount that you do so in an interesting way, and then try to retell it more interesting each time you tell the story. This can not only develop your ability to hold a conversation, which is a lifetime skill, it is also a valuable exercise to work on to engage your memory.
6. Memorize Your Lists:
Lists can be a useful tool, particularly for irresponsible people, because they relieve you of the need to remember things. Nevertheless, you can enhance your memory by avoiding lists! Instead of using a list, make a list and then have to try to replicate it from memory. When you are ready and fully prepared, see if you can reproduce the entire list without looking. For example, you may need to remember a grocery list, review it a couple of times before you head to the store, then bring it with you, and once you're at the store, scroll through the entire list and do not look at it again, and simply complete your shopping. After several times of doing this, your memory should improve.
7.Quit Relying On Tech:
While technology can facilitate ease of living, we often turn to technology without regard for giving our brains a challenge. Subsequently, we might consider using less technology as a method of pushing ourselves cognitively. You might try not immediately calculating math problems with a calculator, or checking a spellchecker, but first doing the math or spelling in your own head. You could, for example, try to memorize your friends phone numbers to strengthen your ability to recall numbers—you never know when it might come in handy. You might also consider turning off your GPS and using a map to navigate. Enabling your natural sense of direction will aid in honing your brains connection with the spatial setting, while using navigational technology will further promote reliance on these apps--effectively diminishing cognitive effort.
8. Practice Problem-Solving:
Critical thinking and creativity are hand-in-hand. First, think of a hypothetical situation. For example, perhaps you own a successful café and it is quite busy around lunchtime because a lot of customers typically grab lunch to take back to work. Now there is a fast food restaurant opening up directly across the street. How can you consistently avoid losing business? Be creative. Consider a second scenario that requires problem-solving: suppose your grocery budget is only $20 a week. What can you prepare on your budget for meals while still ensuring a balanced, nutritious diet? Or consider how you would survive, if you were stranded on a deserted island. Using creative problem solving helps create new neural connections in the brain and ultimately helps with cognitive functioning.
9. Read Aloud:
Reading plays an important role in keeping your mind sharp and engaged, but it may surprise you to learn that there are distinct brain circuits activated when listening to a story versus reading. Brain imaging studies reveal the brain regions activated during silent reading, when one reads aloud, and while listening to a story. Reading aloud, listening to audio books, or having a live reader read to you can all engage your imagination in different and valuable ways. It is wonderful to provide our brains with such valuable stimulation! To engage yours and strengthen your connections, read aloud with a friend or someone you love. Children will especially love this fun and interactive way to connect! Certainly, listening to an audio book, or reading to yourself can all provide the brain with mental engagement and thought time.
10. Write On Paper :
In today’s digital world, typing has largely replaced handwriting. While drafting an email on paper may seem impractical, writing by hand can actually help embed information into your memory more effectively and quickly than typing. This is especially beneficial when learning new material. The brain’s filtering system, known as the Reticular Activating System (RAS), helps you focus on important information. Writing with a pen or pencil activates this filtering system, enhancing your concentration and retention.
11. Look From A New Perspective:
We often take the orientation of objects for granted. Our brains are wired to distinguish between right and wrong when it comes to our surroundings. When you view something right-side up, the left hemisphere of your brain quickly processes it. When it’s upside down, the right hemisphere takes over, trying to make sense of the visual data as if it were a puzzle. To stimulate your brain, try flipping familiar objects upside down and simply observe them. This could be anything—an image, a clock, or a labeled container. It may seem unusual, but it’s an easy way to engage your brain and challenge your perception!
Conclusion:
There you go - 11 different ways to animate your mind for mental development! At the point when you carry on with your existence with an aim, you can present new encounters in each sense to your cerebrum. These tale sensations will fortify spaces of your mind that control your memory, feelings, capacity to focus, critical thinking capacities, learning, and handling. What do you think? Which one of these activities for warding off the impacts of maturing and further developing your memory will you attempt? Offer in the remarks beneath!
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