Learning New Things

Remember thinking of the mind as a muscle? Well, learning new things exercises your encephalon, just as a recent activity can exercise your muscles. It doesn’t have to be knowledge from books or textbooks or studying an event or anything like that. It could be learning to dance or learning a new language. Perhaps you decide to learn to play the piano finally, and this is an excellent way of developing the skill of translating what you can see, the sheet music, to something you are doing, which is playing the piano.

Training Programs

The internet, as you probably know, is an excellent device for finding and learning about anything and everything, including cerebrum training programs.

Get Up, Get Moving

You are probably tired of always being told you need to exercise to be healthy. Well, the same thing applies to your head, so here it is again.

Exercising for around 20 minutes improves memory functions and how information is processed in the cerebrum. You become more alert, and this will lead to you learning much faster. And all you have to do is move regularly.

Of course, you can’t discuss exercising without including your diet. We have already talked about the foods to eat in a previous chapter, but just to reinforce the information, make sure you eat the foods that stimulate the function of your brain. Vegetables, fish, and dark chocolate all help to improve your head.

Time with Friends and Family

You probably didn’t expect this to be in the list, but believe it or not, your cognitive function can be optimized through meaningful relationships. By discussing and engaging with others, it can lift your mood and clear your mind. Often extroverts will gain an understanding of what they are thinking and process those thoughts through talking to others.

Crossword Puzzles Not As Good AS You Think

Most of us think that to do crossword puzzles; you have to be smart or that by completing them, you are expanding your knowledge and, therefore, your intelligence. They can indeed be fun to do, and a bit of a challenge, but they don’t benefit your head at all. Isn’t that a surprise!

Don’t Forget the Chocolate!

An ideal boost to your energy while studying, chocolate is great for the brain, but only if it is dark chocolate. The dopamine created through eating the chocolate increases your ability to learn faster and memorize more efficiently. This doesn’t mean you can eat truckloads of chocolate, though! You still have to watch your weight, but a little here and there is hugely beneficial for your mind.

Exercises for Your Brain

There are numerous electronic brain training exercises out there, and for some, they work quite well. But, they can be costly, and in older people, it showed no significant improvement. The best way to train it is by using activities that are in your real world. The exercises you choose to do for your mind need to be varied and challenging to stimulate and strengthen the brain function.

There have been many studies over the past century trying to understand whether the mind is ‘plastic’ and can improve and grow. In some studies, the results showed an improvement, particularly with memory-based recall, also referred to as working memory tasks.

Brain training is aimed at improving working memory, reasoning, problem-solving, attention, and executive functions. These aspects of

the mind are targeted due to the differences between people concerning academic achievement and life skills. It is believed that by targeting these areas, the training will encourage improvement over the different domains.

Looking Around

One of the best exercises for it is so simple to do, and you probably are already doing it without even knowing! It involves being more present and observant of what is around you. Noting down details of what you see and then visualizing them is good for the memory. The best thing to use as your ‘observing’ subject is people.

Take note of four details of someone and store them in your memory to recall later. If you want, you could do multiple people or try to remember more details about the person. This will also make you a little more friendly.

Testing Your Ability to Recall

Create a list of items, or anything that you can list and memorize it. A grocery list is a great example. After about an hour, test yourself to see how many of the things on the list you can recall. If you want to stimulate your brain, making the checklists more challenging is excellent.

Calculate in Your Head

Instead of using a calculator, cell phone, or pen and paper, try and calculate mathematical problems in your head. Interestingly, if you are walking while trying to do the calculation, it becomes more

complicated and further stimulates it.

Learn to Cook

When learning how to cook, especially if it’s a cuisine you haven’t experienced before, it stimulates it. All the different senses involved in cooking, such as taste, smell, touch, and sight, come from other areas of it.

Word Pictures

If you visualize in your mind how to spell a word, you can work the mind by then trying to come up with words that start with the same two letters of the word. You could also do it by using the last two letters of the word.

Drawing a Map

If you have been somewhere new, when you get home, have a go at drawing a map of the area you have just visited. This is an excellent exercise to do every time you go somewhere you haven’t been before.

Taste Testing

When you are eating, try identifying all the different ingredients used to prepare the meal. If you can narrow down the spices or herbs used, usually the most subtle flavors, you are exercising your brain.

Fine-Motor Skills

Any new hobby that involves using fine-motor skills, such as painting, drawing, or assembling a puzzle, is a good exercise for it.

Learn a New Language

Your cerebrum is stimulated by the need to listen to learn a new language. It uses more than one of your senses, which is ideal for brain training. And if you can learn to sing in a new language, it is even better for your head as it increases numerous chemicals and cortisol in your brain that promotes healing.

Take Up a New Sport

Ideally, choose a sport that relies on your body and your mind, something that will not only get you moving but also thinking. Yoga is a good option or any of the sports that use a racquet or a bat.

Four Details Exercise:

This exercise aims to note the details then recall them later on. The Four Details Exercise is sometimes referred to as passive memory training. The four details exercise relies on your skills of observation and visualization. Examples are:

Describing a Candle

First, close your eyes and use your imagination to tell yourself that when you open your eyes, there will be a candle on the table in front of you. Now here are the four details to observe:

How big is the candle?

Has any of the candles melted away?

Is it close to you or far away?

What do you think the candle weighs?

Describing an Apple