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We try to get away from everything that seems difficult and unusual, and thus we drive the brain into a trap, depriving it of the load. Overcoming difficulties for him is the best "workout". Neurologist Kaja Nordengen in her book "Keep Your Brain Toned" offers a program of 30 exercises that will keep the brain fit even on a busy schedule.
When we want to get the body in shape, we train hard. It's the same with the brain: use it more often, difficult tasks will only benefit it! Anything that makes our gyrus tense up leads to the formation of new synapses and neural networks. So the main brain training is to learn to face challenges with joy. And if possible - deliberately look for them. Remember, it is better to practice a little than not to exercise at all.
Day 1. Brush your teeth or shave with the wrong hand
So you can develop the fine motor skills of the non-dominant hand (for right-handers - left, for left-handers - right), as well as learn how to perform actions with both hands. It is known that musicians who play an instrument simultaneously with their right and left hands have a denser structure of the cerebral cortex and corpus callosum (the tissue that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain). In this case, the posterior part of the frontal lobe is involved in the opposite of the arm that performs the swing.
Other uses for the non-dominant hand are to apply makeup, press the buttons on the mouse or the TV remote control.
Day 2. Play a game of chess
Chess trains the skills of concentration, problem solving, pattern recognition, strategic planning, and perseverance. All of this (except for pattern recognition) is primarily responsible for the prefrontal cortex, located in the front of the frontal lobe of the brain. This game uses all possible cognitive processes and keeps working memory active.
Day 3. Get off the bus sooner or later
As you turn off the beaten track and discover new routes and locations, you complement your imaginary map and hone your spatial awareness skills. It is associated with the inner part of the temporal lobe - the hippocampus - and the adjacent cerebral cortex. Research shows that when we train to find a route, the hippocampus grows larger. How about turning off the GPS on your mobile to keep your brain toned?
Day 4. Get on the bike and then get off the wrong side
Habitual movements are stored in a kind of motor memory that allows us to operate on autopilot. By disrupting your daily routines, you challenge your brain and strengthen synapses that you rarely use. In this case, the cerebellum and the motor cortex of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain interact.
Day 5. Get busy with new household chores
If you switch responsibilities with your partner (for example, you decide to pump up the wheels of your car or learn to sew on a sewing machine), you can try yourself at something new. If you live alone, change tires yourself, sew on a torn button, or prepare a complex meal. When looking for a solution to a completely new problem, the most anterior part of the frontal lobe is involved - the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Day 6. Learn to rotate a pencil around your thumb
As you develop coordination, new synapses become stronger and the insulating material (myelin) around the neuronal processes (axons) becomes denser, allowing for faster signaling. Have you noticed that when solving a new problem you concentrate only on it, but when you solve it again, you start to get distracted and think about other things? This task gradually becomes part of the motor memory for which the cerebellum is responsible.
Day 7. Answer the questions of others in a foreign language all day long
This exercise is probably best done on a day off. In situations where you communicate in a language other than your native language, the neural connections that were first formed during the period of learning this language are strengthened.
Day 8. Ask and listen
Refuse today from the routine question "how are you", which is usually answered "ok" and rarely told something. Ask what your colleague, classmate, teacher, or neighbor is working on and try to understand what is at stake. When we delve into other areas of knowledge, new neural networks are again formed in our brain.
Day 9. Buy groceries at the new store
In a store you don't usually go to, the display of the goods is likely to be unusual, and you will have to focus on more actively searching for what you need. The autopilot will not work. At the same time, the interaction of several parts of the cerebral cortex will begin, and the occipital lobe will help you visually find what you need and understand where to go.
Day 10. Remember your bank card number
It used to be necessary to remember the account number by heart. Now, when the card number needs to be entered when buying online, it is easy to remember it. The hippocampus is the “Save” button in our brain that allows information to be stored in long-term memory.
Day 11. Count without a calculator
A separate area of the brain is responsible for computing, and it should also be kept in good shape. Neural connections that are not used are weakened or used for something else. Avoid using a calculator whenever possible - it's best to double-check your calculations on a piece of paper later.
Day 12. Hold your computer mouse in the wrong hand throughout the day
The brain benefits from getting out of the routine. When you train the motor skills of the opposite hand or you have to press the keys in reverse, the brain trains, new synapses and bundles of nerve fibers are created.
Day 13. Go to bed an hour earlier than usual.
Nothing is so good for the brain as calm and uninterrupted sleep, which will give vigor, freshness and complete clarity of consciousness. With a lack of sleep, brain activity decreases and this affects you all day.
Day 14. Walk ten thousand steps in a day.
If you are not a fan of physical activity, then you will feel a great effect even from a short workout - half an hour a day will be quite enough. Walking stimulates the emergence of new neural connections. You can install a special application for this purpose, or use the pedometer built into your smartphone.
Day 15. Include three new dishes on the menu for the week
Prepare something you've never tasted before! Then you have to get creative and exercise your brain, and as a bonus, you can diversify your diet.
Day 16. Dance with a partner or friend
This will be a good workout for the body and brain - in pair dances we have to keep the rhythm, learn steps and read the partner's signals.
Day 17. Print blindly all day
The cerebellum is the area of the brain that allows us to memorize automatic movements and store them in motor memory. When the process of typing on the keyboard is recorded in your cerebellum as an automatic movement, you can focus on the content of the text, and not on finding the right keys. It will make you work more efficiently and at the same time be beneficial for the brain.
Day 18. Take a new route to work
In fact, this task is close to the third exercise: as already mentioned, the hippocampus increases when we train in finding a route. Therefore, you should more often choose untrodden paths and use your own internal "navigator".
Day 19. Run
During physical activity, substances are released in the brain that promote the formation of blood vessels and neurons.
Day 20. Talk to a stranger at the store or on the tram
Challenge social norms - meet new people and experience the joy of communication! In the process of recognizing faces and interpreting emotional expressions, the lingual region of the frontal and temporal lobes, as well as the occipital lobe and the amygdala, are activated.
Day 21. Buy groceries from memory
By shopping without a list, you train your memory. You can learn completely new mnemonic techniques that will help you remember what you need to do without memorizing. When you mentally form a shopping list, you primarily use short-term memory, as well as the hippocampus, which is located in the temporal lobe of the brain.
Day 22. Learn five new words in a new foreign language
Learning new foreign words triggers the same reward system that is triggered by delicious food, sex, and drugs. This involves the entire brain, but the most important thing for our language function is the work of the cerebral cortex.
Day 23. Guess the riddle
John's mother had three children. The first child was named May, the second - June. What was the name of the third child? Solving puzzles is great for keeping your brain in good shape. (The answer is at the end).
Day 24. Skip the elevator ride for the whole day
Of course, the easiest way to get up is the escalator and the elevator, but neither the body nor the brain will benefit from not moving much. The more physical activity, the higher the brain. So go ahead and take the stairs!
Day 25. Have one of your scheduled work meetings "on your feet"
Research shows that meetings are 36% more effective when the participants are standing. Scientists have found that a person burns 50 more calories per hour if they work while standing. And when the body is in good shape, so is the brain.
Day 26. Take a walk in the forest
Walking in nature, research has shown, lowers blood flow in the areas of the brain that are most active when we are experiencing.
Day 27. Take an IQ test
The average IQ is 100, but this value is not constant. If today's 30-year-olds take a century-old IQ test, the GPA will be higher. This is called the Flynn effect. Intelligence is "located" in the cerebral cortex, more precisely, in its sinuous folds, and especially in the region of the frontal lobe. Many do not realize the fullness of their mental faculties. And how do you find them out if you don't pass the test?
Day 28. Play Erudite, solve the crossword puzzle
When guessing and composing words, for example in "Erudite", crosswords or other games, several areas of the brain interact at once. You must simultaneously use both long-term and short-term memory to memorize and correctly form words, as well as language areas of the brain. In this case, large areas of the brain interact and, most importantly, the frontal lobe.
Day 29. Move your gadgets away from the bedroom.
Leave phones and tablets in the living room. Frequent use of a computer and phone in the bedroom disrupts night sleep and leads to a disruption in the circadian rhythm. Research confirms that sleep is the guardian of the brain, triggering the elimination of toxins.
Day 30
And finally, guess the riddle: one of the options below does not fit the others. Which? Texas, Georgia, Colorado, British Columbia, or Alaska.
This task promotes the development of thinking in categories, as well as flexibility. The prefrontal cortex of the brain is responsible for the flexibility of thinking. You can put forward your proposal and think it over again if your option does not match what is listed below.
When we want to get the body in shape, we train hard. It's the same with the brain: use it more often, difficult tasks will only benefit it! Anything that makes our gyrus tense up leads to the formation of new synapses and neural networks. So the main brain training is to learn to face challenges with joy. And if possible - deliberately look for them. Remember, it is better to practice a little than not to exercise at all.
Day 1. Brush your teeth or shave with the wrong hand
So you can develop the fine motor skills of the non-dominant hand (for right-handers - left, for left-handers - right), as well as learn how to perform actions with both hands. It is known that musicians who play an instrument simultaneously with their right and left hands have a denser structure of the cerebral cortex and corpus callosum (the tissue that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain). In this case, the posterior part of the frontal lobe is involved in the opposite of the arm that performs the swing.
Other uses for the non-dominant hand are to apply makeup, press the buttons on the mouse or the TV remote control.
Day 2. Play a game of chess
Chess trains the skills of concentration, problem solving, pattern recognition, strategic planning, and perseverance. All of this (except for pattern recognition) is primarily responsible for the prefrontal cortex, located in the front of the frontal lobe of the brain. This game uses all possible cognitive processes and keeps working memory active.
Day 3. Get off the bus sooner or later
As you turn off the beaten track and discover new routes and locations, you complement your imaginary map and hone your spatial awareness skills. It is associated with the inner part of the temporal lobe - the hippocampus - and the adjacent cerebral cortex. Research shows that when we train to find a route, the hippocampus grows larger. How about turning off the GPS on your mobile to keep your brain toned?
Day 4. Get on the bike and then get off the wrong side
Habitual movements are stored in a kind of motor memory that allows us to operate on autopilot. By disrupting your daily routines, you challenge your brain and strengthen synapses that you rarely use. In this case, the cerebellum and the motor cortex of the cerebral hemispheres of the brain interact.
Day 5. Get busy with new household chores
If you switch responsibilities with your partner (for example, you decide to pump up the wheels of your car or learn to sew on a sewing machine), you can try yourself at something new. If you live alone, change tires yourself, sew on a torn button, or prepare a complex meal. When looking for a solution to a completely new problem, the most anterior part of the frontal lobe is involved - the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Day 6. Learn to rotate a pencil around your thumb
As you develop coordination, new synapses become stronger and the insulating material (myelin) around the neuronal processes (axons) becomes denser, allowing for faster signaling. Have you noticed that when solving a new problem you concentrate only on it, but when you solve it again, you start to get distracted and think about other things? This task gradually becomes part of the motor memory for which the cerebellum is responsible.
Day 7. Answer the questions of others in a foreign language all day long
This exercise is probably best done on a day off. In situations where you communicate in a language other than your native language, the neural connections that were first formed during the period of learning this language are strengthened.
Day 8. Ask and listen
Refuse today from the routine question "how are you", which is usually answered "ok" and rarely told something. Ask what your colleague, classmate, teacher, or neighbor is working on and try to understand what is at stake. When we delve into other areas of knowledge, new neural networks are again formed in our brain.
Day 9. Buy groceries at the new store
In a store you don't usually go to, the display of the goods is likely to be unusual, and you will have to focus on more actively searching for what you need. The autopilot will not work. At the same time, the interaction of several parts of the cerebral cortex will begin, and the occipital lobe will help you visually find what you need and understand where to go.
Day 10. Remember your bank card number
It used to be necessary to remember the account number by heart. Now, when the card number needs to be entered when buying online, it is easy to remember it. The hippocampus is the “Save” button in our brain that allows information to be stored in long-term memory.
Day 11. Count without a calculator
A separate area of the brain is responsible for computing, and it should also be kept in good shape. Neural connections that are not used are weakened or used for something else. Avoid using a calculator whenever possible - it's best to double-check your calculations on a piece of paper later.
Day 12. Hold your computer mouse in the wrong hand throughout the day
The brain benefits from getting out of the routine. When you train the motor skills of the opposite hand or you have to press the keys in reverse, the brain trains, new synapses and bundles of nerve fibers are created.
Day 13. Go to bed an hour earlier than usual.
Nothing is so good for the brain as calm and uninterrupted sleep, which will give vigor, freshness and complete clarity of consciousness. With a lack of sleep, brain activity decreases and this affects you all day.
Day 14. Walk ten thousand steps in a day.
If you are not a fan of physical activity, then you will feel a great effect even from a short workout - half an hour a day will be quite enough. Walking stimulates the emergence of new neural connections. You can install a special application for this purpose, or use the pedometer built into your smartphone.
Day 15. Include three new dishes on the menu for the week
Prepare something you've never tasted before! Then you have to get creative and exercise your brain, and as a bonus, you can diversify your diet.
Day 16. Dance with a partner or friend
This will be a good workout for the body and brain - in pair dances we have to keep the rhythm, learn steps and read the partner's signals.
Day 17. Print blindly all day
The cerebellum is the area of the brain that allows us to memorize automatic movements and store them in motor memory. When the process of typing on the keyboard is recorded in your cerebellum as an automatic movement, you can focus on the content of the text, and not on finding the right keys. It will make you work more efficiently and at the same time be beneficial for the brain.
Day 18. Take a new route to work
In fact, this task is close to the third exercise: as already mentioned, the hippocampus increases when we train in finding a route. Therefore, you should more often choose untrodden paths and use your own internal "navigator".
Day 19. Run
During physical activity, substances are released in the brain that promote the formation of blood vessels and neurons.
Day 20. Talk to a stranger at the store or on the tram
Challenge social norms - meet new people and experience the joy of communication! In the process of recognizing faces and interpreting emotional expressions, the lingual region of the frontal and temporal lobes, as well as the occipital lobe and the amygdala, are activated.
Day 21. Buy groceries from memory
By shopping without a list, you train your memory. You can learn completely new mnemonic techniques that will help you remember what you need to do without memorizing. When you mentally form a shopping list, you primarily use short-term memory, as well as the hippocampus, which is located in the temporal lobe of the brain.
Day 22. Learn five new words in a new foreign language
Learning new foreign words triggers the same reward system that is triggered by delicious food, sex, and drugs. This involves the entire brain, but the most important thing for our language function is the work of the cerebral cortex.
Day 23. Guess the riddle
John's mother had three children. The first child was named May, the second - June. What was the name of the third child? Solving puzzles is great for keeping your brain in good shape. (The answer is at the end).
Day 24. Skip the elevator ride for the whole day
Of course, the easiest way to get up is the escalator and the elevator, but neither the body nor the brain will benefit from not moving much. The more physical activity, the higher the brain. So go ahead and take the stairs!
Day 25. Have one of your scheduled work meetings "on your feet"
Research shows that meetings are 36% more effective when the participants are standing. Scientists have found that a person burns 50 more calories per hour if they work while standing. And when the body is in good shape, so is the brain.
Day 26. Take a walk in the forest
Walking in nature, research has shown, lowers blood flow in the areas of the brain that are most active when we are experiencing.
Day 27. Take an IQ test
The average IQ is 100, but this value is not constant. If today's 30-year-olds take a century-old IQ test, the GPA will be higher. This is called the Flynn effect. Intelligence is "located" in the cerebral cortex, more precisely, in its sinuous folds, and especially in the region of the frontal lobe. Many do not realize the fullness of their mental faculties. And how do you find them out if you don't pass the test?
Day 28. Play Erudite, solve the crossword puzzle
When guessing and composing words, for example in "Erudite", crosswords or other games, several areas of the brain interact at once. You must simultaneously use both long-term and short-term memory to memorize and correctly form words, as well as language areas of the brain. In this case, large areas of the brain interact and, most importantly, the frontal lobe.
Day 29. Move your gadgets away from the bedroom.
Leave phones and tablets in the living room. Frequent use of a computer and phone in the bedroom disrupts night sleep and leads to a disruption in the circadian rhythm. Research confirms that sleep is the guardian of the brain, triggering the elimination of toxins.
Day 30
And finally, guess the riddle: one of the options below does not fit the others. Which? Texas, Georgia, Colorado, British Columbia, or Alaska.
This task promotes the development of thinking in categories, as well as flexibility. The prefrontal cortex of the brain is responsible for the flexibility of thinking. You can put forward your proposal and think it over again if your option does not match what is listed below.
