Take care of your brain from a young age. This is what the series of notebooks for the development of memory and intelligence “We train the brain” teaches us. We recently released the third and fourth notebooks, so it's time to get serious. As a person with a subtle philological soul, at first I was afraid to even open a book. The abundance of numbers, brackets, pluses and empty cells after the equal sign reminded me of failures in the mathematical gymnasium. But in the end, solving problems turned into an exciting quest. And now to the point.
Why does the brain need training?
With age, the body is losing ground, and in order to keep it in working condition for as long as possible, it needs training. Proper nutrition and exercise keep the body in good shape. Mental clarity is maintained through brain training.
How to train the brain?
By studying the brain using tomography, scientists have identified ways to help activate the anterior parts of the frontal lobes. It is this part of the brain that is responsible for its most complex functions.
The methods are simple:
- read aloud, write and count;
- communicate;
- develop fine motor skills.
Communication should be live: talking on the phone “turns off” the brain. Fine motor skills develop when we cook food, play musical instruments, draw, write, sew or do needlework. And it’s not enough just to sort out small objects without using your eyesight. It is important to create something.
Is this notebook right for me?
- The answer is yes, if you notice that you have become more forgetful, having difficulty remembering someone's names and the right words.
- Yes, if you can’t formulate your thought and unleash your creative abilities.
- Definitely yes, if you want to improve your memory, have easy conversations and increase your self-control.
- Exactly yes, if you have already solved the first and second notebooks. In the third and fourth book, the tasks are a little more difficult and interesting.
How often and for how long should you train your brain?
If you engage in reading, writing and counting for a short time, but daily and with great concentration, brain functions improve. You should set aside only five minutes a day for solving simple mathematical examples from the book "Training the Brain". Just do it daily.
What exercises are waiting for me?
Each exercise contains 50 examples of addition and subtraction of four numbers. All of them are of the same complexity, so it is easy to track the process by them, marking the time. The next day, you will notice that you completed the page faster than the last time. In the fourth notebook, the complexity of the examples increases slightly: equations with unknowns appear, the role of which is played by diamonds, squares and triangles.
How to evaluate your abilities today?
The easiest way is to take a score test. Time yourself and count out loud from 1 to 120 as quickly as possible. So valued general work frontal lobes of the left and right hemispheres. How many seconds did it take?
45 seconds - student level high school, 35 seconds - a high school student, 25 seconds - a student studying the exact sciences.
What results await us after training?
After training, memory in children improves by 20%, and in adults - by 12%. And this has been proven by numerous studies. Through reading, writing and solving examples, brain aging slows down.
Can you try?
You are welcome!
Just five minutes a day - and you will notice improvements. Every day I solve examples faster and faster, and while doing creative work, it seems like a second wind opens up. Set a goal for yourself and move with each page.
The ability to concentrate on small details, navigate the flow of information, instantly respond to changing situations and quickly make effective decisions are important skills that help businessmen achieve their goals. And in order to develop such business qualities in yourself and pump your mind, you need to regularly do special exercises for the brain, the so-called fitness for the head!
In the same way that muscles atrophy without exercise, the human brain weakens without various mental activities. Conversely, the more you train it, the more neural connections are formed in it, and the higher the activity of the brain, the more oxygenated blood enters it. And on this, in fact, the intellectual health of a person depends.
In order for the brain to function effectively, it is important to specifically activate the growth of neural connections through new experiences. During the period of study at school, university, the amount of new information made it possible to steadily train the brain. But for an adult, whose life and work is dominated by routine processes, in order to keep the intellect in good shape, one has to resort to stimulation.
with the help of special exercises for brain development. Therefore, it is so important to learn how to solve typical problems using non-standard methods.
Improving memory and brain function: the best exercises
To begin with, it is important to note that in order to properly pump the brain and develop the flexibility of the mind, it is important to pay attention to nutrition, habits and lifestyle in general. Fresh air, healthy sleep, physical activity and healthy food have not yet been canceled. Therefore, in order to achieve the desired result, it is necessary first of all to pay attention to these important factors.
Effective brain training is exercises that are aimed at developing memory, attentiveness, as well as separately the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
The main specialization of the left hemisphere is logical thinking. It is also responsible for such important abilities:
- language and speech;
- logic, analysis;
- literal understanding of words;
- mathematical ability;
- sequential information processing.
Also, the left hemisphere controls the movements of the right side of the body, and the right - for the left side.
In its turn, right hemisphere is responsible for intuition and creativity, and also performs the following functions:
- processing of non-verbal information;
- orientation in space;
- musicality;
- recognition of metaphorical meanings;
- imagination, artistic abilities;
- emotions;
- parallel processing of information;
- face recognition.
So, how to develop the right hemisphere of the brain? These exercises will help you increase your intuition and creativity.
Mirror drawing
Take a large sheet of paper and a pencil in each hand. Start drawing the same shapes at the same time with your right and left hand. At first it can be circles, loops, squares. Over time, the task needs to be complicated - to depict full-fledged pictures with both hands.
Restoring Reality to the Imagination
The key point in the development of the right hemisphere of the brain is visualization exercises. It is important to connect the imagination, visual, auditory and olfactory memory. First, get rid of extraneous irritants and close your eyes. Think of a person you know well: facial features, hair and eye color. After you create in the imagination of his face, try to recall the sound of his voice and the smell of perfume from memory. Work out the image in as much detail as possible.
When you learn how to restore images of people, you need to move on, creating a whole parallel reality in fantasy. Such a set of exercises greatly develops creativity, creative vision, and imagination.
random words
The essence of the exercise is to choose a few completely random words and connect them with a story. At first, it will be difficult for you, and to connect these words, you will need a couple of long sentences. But in the course of training, you will be able to connect seemingly unrelated words with just a couple of phrases.
In addition, creative thinking can be developed by drawing a mandala. The intricate pattern of all the colors of the rainbow perfectly calms the nerves, concentrates attention and develops artistic perception.
Speaking about training the left hemisphere of the brain, first of all, we mean solving mathematical problems, crosswords, rebuses, as well as logic games such as chess. It is important to note exactly what
The left hemisphere is dominant in most people. Therefore, it does not make sense to develop it separately. In this case, it is better to apply complex exercises for the brain of an adult.
Neurobics
This is such a charge for the brain with exercises that include all five senses at once. The technique was developed by the American neuroscientist L. Katz. The bottom line is this: all ordinary things need to be done in an unusual way for you. For example:
- move around the house with closed eyes;
- write with your left hand (if you are right-handed);
- change the usual route;
- inhale and savor the aroma of food, flowers, perfumes;
- determine things by touch (for example, the denomination of a coin);
- perform unfamiliar work;
- answer non-standard questions, etc.
Unusual actions, sensations, smells, environment provoke the emergence of new neural connections, which, in turn, helps the development of intellectual abilities.
color words
Useful gymnastics for the brain or mindfulness exercise. It helps to increase the level of concentration, improves attention, develops both hemispheres of the brain.
So, your task is to quickly name the color of the words. At first glance, everything is simple, but try to do it as quickly as possible, and the left hemisphere will immediately begin to concentrate on the words, confusing you. You need to synchronize the work of both hemispheres.
Alphabet
This is an exercise to develop thinking, attention and improve performance. In addition, Alphabet helps to relieve emotional stress and restart the brain.
The work is as follows. Under each letter there is a mark - L, P, V. "L" means that you need to raise your left hand, "P" - right, "B" - both hands. You need to simultaneously pronounce the letter of the alphabet and perform the movement marked under the letter.
The first part of the exercise is to go from A to Z. The second part is from Z to A.
Illogical chain
This exercise is a test for training the brain and memory. Look carefully at the list of words for 90 seconds. A little tip: break the words into pairs and try to connect them with the help of visual associations.
Try to play all the words in order. If you can’t, then write on a piece of paper all the words that you remember. Now let's count: from 15 to 20 words - your memory is well developed. 10-14 words - the average result. Less than 10 - you absolutely do not know how to use memory.
Follow these simple brain exercises, and soon you will notice a qualitative improvement in the work of both hemispheres, memory and thinking.
Instead of a conclusion
To train the mind, it is enough to do routine things in unusual ways, perform new actions, read more, play mind games. A great way to develop flexibility of thinking is to study foreign languages and music lessons. This encourages the brain to actively produce new neural connections, which means to work actively and efficiently.
To systematize classes to improve intellectual health, you can use special online services that offer dozens of different exercises, tasks, tests for the development of thinking.
Write in the comments what useful exercises for the brain do you know? Share with us your experience!
Ecology of knowledge. Questions to activate the brain. One of the best ways to make your brain think is to search for answers to questions, but not on the Internet, in reference books or books, but within yourself, through reflection.
Questions to activate the brain. One of the best ways to make your brain think is to search for answers to questions, but not on the Internet, in reference books or books, but within yourself, through reflection. Questions are powerful in developing our brains.
We have just heard a question, and now our brain is activated, and we unconsciously begin to look for answers to questions.
Brain activity promotes the creation of new connections between brain cells, as well as the appearance of new brain cells, as a result, our thinking becomes clearer and more open. In this article, you will find several questions that will help you activate your brain.
© Kate Macdowell
Questions for activating the brain:
1. What would you do if you had a million rubles?
2. If there was no money in the world, what would it be like?
3. Why do some people care about the opinions of others?
4. How much would you give yourself if you didn't know how old you are?
5. What's worse, failing or not trying?
6. If the end of the world came and you were alone in the whole world, what would you do?
7. Why, knowing that life is so short, do we strive to have so many things that we don’t even like?
8. Can you imagine how big the universe is?
9. From everything said and done, draw a conclusion, what do you have more of, words or deeds?
10. If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change?
11. How much money do you need so that you never have to think about working for money?
12. What would you do if you had one year left to live?
13. If you had the opportunity to live your life again, what would you change?
14. If the average age of a person was 30 years old, as it was in the Middle Ages, would you live your life differently?
15. Looking back, can you tell how much your life belonged to you?
16. Do you prefer doing everything right or doing the right thing?
17. Of all the habits you have, which one gives you the most trouble and why are you still with it?
18. If you could give your child one single piece of advice, what would it be?
20. How are you different from most other people?
21. Why does what makes you happy not necessarily make other people happy?
22. If there is something you really want to do but are doing, can you answer why?
23. Is there something you are holding on to that you need to let go?
24. If you had to leave your homeland, where would you go to live and why?
25. Imagine being rich and famous, how did you get there?
26. What do you have that no one can take away?
27. Who are you: your body, mind or soul?
28. Can you remember the birthdays of all your friends?
29. Is there one thing in life for which you are infinitely grateful?
30. If you could forget everything that happened in the past, what would you be like?
31. Have your worst fears come true?
32. What upset you five or ten years ago, does it matter now?
33. What is your happiest memory?
34. Why are there so many wars in the world?
35. Can all people on earth be happy, if not, why, and if so, how?
36. Is there absolute good and evil, and how is it expressed?
37. If you could live forever, what would you do?
38. Is there something in you that you are one hundred percent sure of, without a single thought of doubt?
39. What does it mean to you to be alive?
40. Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Come up with your own questions that would make you think about life, about yourself, about other people, about anything, the main thing is that the question is open, and could not be limited to a yes or no answer.
Remember, the more often you use your brain in a non-standard way, the better it starts to work, good luck to you. published
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Answer ten questions to test how smart you are (just don't peek at the answers!):
1. Johnny's mother has three children. One is called April, the second is May. What is the name of the third child?
2 . A chicken standing on one leg weighs 2 kg. How much does a chicken stand on two legs weigh?
3. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
4. How much earth is contained in a pit 3 meters wide, long and 3 meters deep?
5 . Which word is always misspelled?
6. Billy was born on December 28, however, her birthday is always in the summer. How can this be?
7 . What is the cubed angle?
8. If you overtake a person who is running second in a race, where will you be?
9. What is the correct way to say: "The yolk in the egg is white" or "The yolks in the eggs are white"?
10. Why would a barber in Geneva prefer to cut two Frenchmen's hair rather than one German?
Yes, some of the questions are pretty trivial. But they all clearly illustrate some of the features of our thinking that affect the decision-making process.
We always strive to see what we want and what we expect to see - this is how our brain works. This feature is very important to take into account in business when studying customers, markets, competitors, as well as various data on the basis of which people make the most important business decisions.
When we see only what we want or expect to see, we may miss a potential threat from one of the competitors, because our brain tells us that there is nothing to fear from that side. We don't notice new opportunities because we focus primarily on what has worked in the past rather than what might work in the future. We are missing out on changes in markets and consumer behavior that would later seem obvious in retrospect, but are currently eluding our attention because we are focusing on what we already know.
Our brain does not like information gaps, so we are in a hurry to give the first more or less suitable answer, instead of thinking and analyzing all the data we have. The situation is aggravated by the fact that we live in a world where every day more information falls on us than we are able to "digest". In addition, our brain loves to find patterns and relationships. And this feature is very useful in Everyday life However, the brain does not always work correctly.
How did you, for example, answer the first question (only honestly)? The first thing that comes to most people's minds is "June" because our brain quickly picks up the April-May-June sequence. If you reread the question and analyze it, it becomes obvious that the correct answer is Johnny.
What about the question about the angle in the cube? The answer depends on how you understood the word "cube": as a third degree or as geometric figure. A trick question, but it clearly shows how the use of certain words forms our picture of the world.
And the best example of how easy it is to miss important information is the egg yolk question. Everyone knows that the yolk is yellow. But the question is worded in such a way that our attention is switched to choosing the correct grammatical form, and we do not notice the obvious information and the even more obvious answer.
We can't change the way our brains work - at least not yet. Give scientists another 50 years and who knows what things will become real. For now, we can only learn how it works and stop from time to time and ask ourselves if we are missing something important, including whether we have unknowingly missed some important information or additional sources of data to check Expected Result.
Train your quick wits regularly, and after a while you will be surprised how much you begin to notice things that previously eluded your attention.
Answers:
1. Johnny.
2. 2 kg.
3. Everest. They just didn't know about it yet.
4. There is no earth in the pit, that's why it is a pit.
5. The word "wrong" (except when it's spelled "wrong").
6. Billy lives in the southern hemisphere.
7. The cubed angle is 90 0 .
8. You will be in second place. After all, you overtook the one who ran second, not first.
9. Not so and not so. Egg yolk is yellow.
10. Because he will earn twice as much money.
Translation from English by Olga Antonova especially for ORTHODOXY and MIR
Unfortunately, today a person does not use his brain to its full potential. However, you can try to change the situation by training this body daily. This is what will be discussed in the provided article.
About the brain
Brain training is a very important and necessary activity. Indeed, today scientists have proved that only by the age of 60 this human organ reaches its peak of development. Previously, it was believed that at this time, brain activity is already significantly reduced. Modern scientists have proven that brain activity does not depend on the neurons themselves (the number of which decreases with age), but on the quality of the connections between them. It is these links that can be maintained and strengthened through active
At all times, people have known that the most important activity is brain training. It was about this that the American writer Dorothy Brand wrote in her book back in 1936. She provided some simple but very effective brain exercises.
- Every day you need to allocate one hour when you have to reduce speech activity to the maximum. Those. don't talk to anyone. If necessary, questions should be answered in monosyllables, clearly and to the point.
- For half an hour a day you need to think about one subject. Since at first it will be very difficult to do this, training should start from 5 minutes.
- A quarter of an hour a day you need to talk without using the word me, mine, me.
- It is necessary to draw up an activity plan for two hours a day and strictly follow it.
- You need to set yourself 12 tasks per day. All of them must be fulfilled.
These exercises not only train the brain, but also make a person look at himself and the world wider.
Morning exercise for the brain
The brain, like the body, requires awakening to be well active. In this case, morning brain training may be necessary. It takes about 5-10 minutes in the period immediately after sleep. All exercises should be done in a comfortable position. Everything is also said out loud.
Exercise 1. You need to try to count backwards from 100 to 1 as soon as possible.
Exercise 2. For each letter of the alphabet, you need to come up with a word. You need to do the exercise very quickly.
Exercise 3. You need to say 20 male names, each of which must be assigned a number (for example, 1 - Sasha, 2 - Oleg, etc.). The same must be done with female names.
Exercise 4. You need to try to number 20 types of different foods.
Exercise 5. You need to choose any letter of the alphabet and come up with 20 words for it, numbering each of them.
Most often, during exercise, a person's eyes are open. After all the tasks, you need to close your eyes for half a minute and open them again. That's all, the brain has "warmed up" and is ready for active work.
Neurobics
Brain training, i.e. a set of exercises invented for this, in science is called "neurobics". The creator of this science - professor of neurobiology Lawrence Katz - believes that you can use the achievements of neuroscience anytime and anywhere. Since these exercises are simple and accessible to everyone, and the benefits from them are enormous.
Exercises:
- Ordinary things should be done in an unusual way. To do this, you can wash your face in the morning with your eyes closed.
- Changing the usual order. Every day you need to try to go to work in different ways. Alternatively, you can buy products not in the usual place.
- Very well activate the brain of various kinds of travel. If it is not possible to travel far and for a long time, you can periodically go on a voyage to neighboring cities or villages.
- It is necessary to solve puzzles, solve crossword puzzles and tasks as often as possible. At the same time, the level of complexity of all tasks must be increased.
- You should always be interested in something new, unknown. So, it’s good to periodically learn new sciences or find new hobbies for yourself.
- Great brain training is watching TV. However, at the same time, you need to turn off the sound and try to pronounce all the dialogues that occur on the screen.
- You should try to answer ordinary questions in a non-standard way.
- Fantasy trains the brain very well. So, you can periodically come up with poems, jokes, stories. It doesn't have to be written down. As an alternative, you can “pronounce” various dialogues in your head with familiar people or strangers.
Games
Excellent brain and memory training - all kinds of games. It can be checkers, chess, card games (they also make a person think!). You can also just play with your child. After all, for this you need to turn on your imagination, which is very useful for brain activity. It is very good today to use various gadgets and developments of programmers to train the main body. For example, it could be a NeuroNation application. Brain training, concentration improvement and logic development - all this can be found in this game. Feedback from people who have tried this application, as they say, on themselves, is only positive. All users were completely satisfied with the results.
About the hemispheres of the brain
All people probably know that the brain consists of two hemispheres. So, the right is responsible for intuition and creativity, the left - for logic and mathematical abilities. Ideally, when a person develops two of these hemispheres in parallel. However, you can try to develop certain qualities in yourself by training only the right part of the brain.
Right hemisphere
Training the right hemisphere of the brain may consist of the following exercises:
- Need to pay more attention creative activity. So, you can go to the museum or do drawing.
- You have to think about the next day. In this case, it turns on for which it is the right hemisphere that is responsible.
- You can also train your brain outside. You just need to peer into the faces of people and guess what they are thinking now.
There are many such exercises. You just need to try to use your imagination as much as possible. By the way, games with a child perfectly develop the right hemisphere of the brain.
Left hemisphere
The training of the hemisphere of the brain may be somewhat different (in this case, we will talk about the left hemisphere). What exercises will be relevant in this case:
- You need to try to solve as many crossword puzzles as possible.
- It is good to train the left hemisphere of the brain with mathematics. You need to solve problems, gradually increasing their complexity.
- You also need to decide
It is worth saying that for the development of the brain, the body must also be involved (however, in a mirror image). If you need to develop the left hemisphere, you need to train the right arm and leg more. And vice versa.
Harmonious development
But still I want to say that it is better if brain training is carried out harmoniously. Exercises in this case are aimed evenly at developing both the right and left hemispheres. So, for this you can try to use your hands:
- Nose-ear. It is necessary to touch the left ear with the right hand, and the tip of the nose with the left hand. Next, you need to clap your hands and quickly change hands.
- Painting. To evenly develop both hemispheres of the brain, you need to take a pencil in each hand and start drawing a picture in a mirror. Those. so that it consists of equal two parts.
- Ring. For this task, alternately with the thumb, you need to fold the rest of the fingers into the ring. You need to do this on both hands at the same time. For a more serious workout, you can come up with a tongue twister for each finger (this will also train diction).
Auxiliary pictures
To train your brain, you can also use pictures specially designed by specialists. For example, it is possible to determine which hemisphere a person is “leading” with the help of a girl dancing on one leg. And you can train your brain using the "Traffic Light" exercise. So, the color in which the word itself is written, and the color that it means, will be different. It is necessary to read correctly what is written (and not the color that is written). Exercise at first glance seems simple, but it is not at all.
About vessels
If we talk about it, it is his vessels that are of great importance here. After all, if they do not work properly or drive the blood away in insufficient quantities, this affects the mental abilities of a person. And if training the vessels of the brain is an almost impossible action (no one has yet learned how to control them), then you can periodically clean your head vessels.
- Perfectly clean vessels of various kinds of herbal teas. To do this, you can take lime blossom, currant or strawberry leaves, oregano, St. John's wort, dried berries of viburnum or mountain ash.
- Lemon juice and soda also work well in this direction. A teaspoon of these ingredients should be dissolved in a glass of water.
If the above means can be used frequently (even daily), then a serious cleaning of the vessels should be carried out no more than once a year.
- Horseradish should be grated, take a tablespoon of it and pour sour cream (1 cup). This medicine is taken for a month with meals, one tablespoon.
- Approximately 300 grams of garlic must be passed through a meat grinder and pour 200 ml of alcohol. Everything is placed in a tight container, closed and left for a week in a dark place. Further, the medicine is taken approximately 10 drops (diluted with milk) three times a day for half an hour before meals. The course is a month.