Daily Exercises that Boost Brain Power
Whenever you learn something new, engage in new activities, or even ponder a new concept, your brain makes new neural connections and rewires itself in response. Voilà, cognitive growth. The more you challenge or stimulate your brain, the more it will evolve.
Let’s look at some practical activities, many of which you already do, but maybe not nearly often enough or varied enough to exercise your brain. Do any of them daily in the course of your normal routine. Each exercise is the basis for a more enduring exercise. Vary when and how you do them to excite your brain in different ways.
- Play with words, such as in puns, word games, and crossword puzzles. Whenever possible, solve puzzles with pen and paper, instead of using a touch pad devices.
- Ditch the calculator. Hone numerical skills by doing calculations in your head, or on paper. Do them out loud from time to time. Using conveniences like using GPS and auto correct in MS-Word are made for a lazy brain.
- Ignore technology, like television or smart phone for mental stimulation because neither source will stimulate or challenge all areas of the brain.
- Play board games. Choosing games that have both visual and analytical components will stimulate more areas of the brain. Look for games that involve using fine motor skills. Games with spatial and logical challenges, like jigsaw puzzles or charades should be interspersed with strategy games or those that force you to use math or language skills, like scrabble or Suduko. Playing games with people adds even more stimulation. Playing a board game is a good way to recapture the kind of relaxed concentration that you learned in childhood.
- Use the Japanese art of origami to boost motor skills. Folding paper into fascinating shapes pushes the mind to be more innovative with each attempt.
- Learn a new word and its meaning and how to use the word in conversation. Keep track of the words and review them weekly or monthly.
- Read. Even reading as little as fifteen minutes per day is good exercise for your brain. Besides, reading helps improve your language skills while keeping your memory strong. Remember reading is an engagement with storytelling. Reading is cognitively enriching when the content takes effort to understand, or sparks questions, ideas or “aha” moments.
- You can turn watching television or movies into a challenge that exercises your brain. The key is to add another engaging dimension to the experience. You can do that through keen discussion about what you have seen, conducting research to answer questions, or writing about the experience or what you have learned. You can also excite your brain by engaging in active storytelling or daydreaming, tying in aspects of a movie, documentary or news story into your thoughts or a live reenactment.
- Writing is accepted as one of the best mental activities for clarifying thoughts and improving memory and powers of logic: make notes after a class or a meeting, write in a daily journal to recount joys or achievements, and don't fret over grammar and style to allow your thoughts to flow.
- Increase your knowledge. Learn a something new every day - a world fact, advance a skill, explore the depth of a brief news story. Share learning and engage in discussion that expands on the subject matter. Become a student again. Take an online tutorial or self-directed course of study. Attend workshops, seminars, and other conferences where knowledge is shared and active learning takes place to augment your professional pursuits, hobbies and personal interests. Master a new skill, preferably one that includes deductive reasoning, like learning a new language or html coding.
- Switch hands to increase brain activity to do things like: brushing teeth, eating, and using the keyboard. Exercising the opposite side of your body wakes up the left side of the brain. Even writing with the opposite hand for a minute or two a day is helpful.
- Explore ways to excite your senses. Take a few extra moments to inhale spices or herbs when you cook. Test your ability to identify different tastes, flavors or aromas. When you do laundry run your fingers along seams, zippers, feel the roughness or smoothness of the cloth or the sharp edges of the seams, stitches or zippers on your forearms, wrists, shoulders.
- Plan and solve a challenge, such as deciding a new or complex route to work or school, creating your own crossword or Sudoko puzzles.
- Rely on memory or logic. For example, when preparing a grocery list, think about the meals and who is being fed. Visualize the contents of the pantry or freezer. Do not rely on the list for shopping until it is time to check out. Then use the list to double-check your purchases. Visit museums, historical sites, zoos, art exhibits, cultural events, trade fairs. All these venues help build better cognition. Instead of wandering, read the signage, brochures, absorb the information so you can repeat it during and after the visit.
