Learn How to Power Up Your Brain Through Simple Exercises

Most likely, you will at many points (more that you can remember) have felt overwhelmed at a stupid problem that required only a little effort to solve. Some time when you were asked a simple mathematical question and everyone around got it right except you. And by half a second faster at that. This is the result of extended periods of metal laziness. We get comfortable at a point in our lives and we just settle in into our comfort zone. However, once these situations of realizing that you are slacking on your mental abilities, the time has come to do something about it. Here are a few ideas to get those brain cells moving.

Take advantage of dead time

Dead time or lazy time is the moments in the day in which you are not being productive like when you are driving or waiting for an appointment. During this time where you are just gazing at nothing or looking from the watch to the door and back, you can instead do some mental exercises. These only have to be small tasks such as doing simple maths in your head or making observations on your surrounding and trying to remember them later on. Another one is to listen to things like books-on-tape.

Get writing

You can stimulate a large number of things just by writing. Memory is one of them. By having to think back to past events to note them accurately, your brain will work at providing a complete picture of the events. Another aspect is creativity and analytical abilities which are increase as we find ways to express ourselves in clear yet also entertaining ways. Writing options include: 

• Keeping a diary
• Keeping and idea journal
• Making poetry
• Taking notes regularly
• Story writing
• Blogging

Turn off auto correction

Technology is a great thing and it has made our lives a lot easier than before. Sadly, at the expense of the need to use our brains. Spell check is a very useful tool and naturally you should never submit any written document with spelling mistakes. The trick to break the pattern of laziness is to take the misspelt word and find the error within it rather than just clicking the right mouse button and choosing the correct variation. Sure, it might be disregarding all the hard work the programmers have put into scripting those handy tools but it is an easy and free way to put your brain to the test.

Learn how to speed read

When done correctly, speed reading will actually improve your ability to retain information and absorb it in a shorter period of time. Being able to take in so much more information with your peripheral vision will allow you to take in more information not only from the pages of the text, but also apply to your day to day life.

Get an imaginary friend

You might think this is a silly thing to do as it is only associated to children and crazy people. What may not know is that talking to a character you made up for a specific topic can help you access information that you have stored in your subconscious. Give it a try when you are stuck with a problem and feel you are not being watched.