Developing your memory advices? Your morning newspaper is a great place to start. “Simple games like Sudoku and word games are good, as well as comic strips where you find things that are different from one picture to the next,” says John E. Morley, MD, a professor of medicine in the division of geriatric medicine at St. Louis University in Missouri and coauthor of The Science of Staying Young. In addition to word games, Dr. Morley recommends the following exercises to sharpen your mental skills. Test your recall. Make a list — grocery items, things to do, or anything else that comes to mind — and memorize it. An hour or so later, see how many items you can recall. Make the list as challenging as possible for the greatest mental stimulation.
Keep challenging yourself to learn new things. By doing this, you will gain more knowledge about things around you, and you will learn how to utilize things in a better way. Don’t let yourself get stuck in one place, either mentally or physically. Be proactive, curious, conscious, and informed about the world. Exercising your brain means using it more. Generally, the brain takes part in everything we do, but there are some types of activities which can specifically exercise our brains. Activities like doing puzzles, playing games like Chess or Scrabble, solving numerical problems, studying difficult topics, and challenging your dexterity, spatial reasoning, and logic. Doing these mental exercises daily can sharpen your mind, and it can be an excellent way to strengthens neural links in your brain.
Practice throwing a ball in the air and catching it. If you’re good at it, take up juggling. People who master these kinds of sensory-guided movement activities can hone their brains’ visual, tactile, and hand-eye coordination responses, with widespread positive impact on the brain. This type of activity has been shown in MRI studies to thicken parts of the brain’s cortex.
When was the last time you looked at your smartphone? Was it within the last 30 seconds? The last minute? On average, Americans open their phones 58 times a day and spend three and a half hours online. Worldwide, millions rely on the little computers in their palms to do everything from look up directions to recall important information like birthdays, deadlines, and to-do lists. For leaders, this kind of attrition quickly adds up: When you forget small details about your customers and teams, you send the message that you aren’t interested in them as people or invested in your relationships. This is especially true during times of crisis when people are looking to you for comfort and support. Remembering their individual circumstances will help you adjust your communications and expectations around each person’s situation. In a state of emergency, technology will only get you so far. Read even more details on neuroscientia.com.
Speed of Information Processing refers to how quickly a learner can process incoming information. Some scientists consider speed of information processing a central aspect of IQ. Many children with attention problems often are unable to keep up with the lesson plan presented by the teacher. Cognitive Flexibility is the ability to change what you are thinking about, how you are thinking about it and even what you think about it – in other words, the ability to change your mind. Cognitive flexibility is required in multiple ways throughout the school day.
