Creatine, a sports food supplement, not only makes you stronger and more resilient. Workers at the University of Sydney have proven that if you take 5 g of this supplement for 6 weeks, IQ increases by an average of 15 units - creatine fills with energy not only the muscles, but also the brain, thereby increasing its productivity.
2. A breath of freedom
It happens that you are in a stupor and the pot is not boiling, but at the same time you need to complete some task that requires mental effort. If the situation allows, run to the store and grab two beers. The Journal of Consciousness and Cognition reports that drinking in moderation can help you jump over a barrier and gain new perspective on a difficult situation. But don't overdo it.
3. You can smell what it smells like.
When choosing a new scent at a perfume store, ask the seller if there is anything with notes of rosemary. It's not that you want to be very fashionable. It’s just that scientific noses from Northumbria University (UK) sniffed out that the smell of this plant activates areas of the brain responsible for the speed of thinking and the correctness of conclusions. Do you smell what it smells like?
4. Chewing reflex
Even when you chew chewing gum, your pulse quickens a little (after all, physical activity). A higher pulse means more oxygen and glucose reaches the head, which leads to improved brain function. You may consider this fact far-fetched, but researchers from New York present it solely as scientific. And they strongly recommend chewing, especially when you’re just sitting and thinking.
5. Prepare a plan B
Hard mental work affects the contents of your head in the same way as rigorous training affects your muscles: your brain becomes painfully tired. Neurologist Daniel Wilson says what to do: “B vitamins help the brain recover faster after exercise. Milk, bread, eggs, liver - that’s what you need to make your head work with the same strength.”
6. One water
Without water, the brain is like an engine without oil: it creaks and breaks. Psychiatrist Murali Doraiswami, especially for brainy people, calculated the daily fluid intake: a sip of water every 15 minutes to avoid fatigue; a cup of coffee 30 minutes before solving a serious problem; green tea in the afternoon to keep you from nodding off, but then sleep well at night.
7. Will in the fist
Real men solve problems with their fists, but this can also be done in different ways. For example, as German psychologists advise: clench your left hand into a fist as tightly as possible and hold it for two minutes. This exercise activates neural pathways in the right hemisphere, which specializes in processing creative tasks. That's it, open your fist and create.
A computer is an analogue of the human brain, but increasing the “computing power” of the brain is not so easy. When neurologists and neurophysiologists talk about brain speed, they mean the speed at which a person receives new information, processes it, and formulates a response. Based on this definition, increasing the speed of the brain can be done by creating strong connections in the brain, which will lead to an increase in the speed of signal transmission. Most connections are formed during childhood, but you can still take steps to maintain and even increase the speed of your brain.
Steps
Healthy lifestyle
- Blueberry. It contains many antioxidants that protect the brain from excessive oxidative processes and reduce the impact on the brain of processes associated with aging. Eat one glass of blueberries daily. Pomegranate juice and dark chocolate are also rich in antioxidants.
- Salmon (sardines, herring). Rich in fatty acids necessary for the proper functioning of the brain. Eat 100 g of fish two to three times a week.
- Nuts and seeds. They contain vitamin E, which helps fight the negative effects on the brain of processes associated with aging. Eat 100 g of nuts daily.
- Avocado. Helps prevent vascular diseases (such as high blood pressure) and improves blood flow, which is important for brain health. But avocados contain a lot of fat, so eat no more than a quarter or half of an avocado daily.
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Get enough sleep. Doctors recommend adults sleep 7-8 hours (and teenagers 8-9 hours). During sleep, new connections are formed in the brain; Moreover, adequate sleep directly affects learning and memory. Sleep also plays a big role in restoring the body's circulatory system, which supplies the brain with oxygen and other substances.
Keep learning. The brain forms new connections throughout a person's life. Mastering new skills and studying new subjects allows you to form new and strengthen old connections in the brain, which leads to an increase in the speed of signal transmission along axons. (Glial cells surround nerve fibers (axons) to form the electrically insulating sheath of myelin.)
Learn to play a musical instrument. It also leads to stronger connections between different areas of the brain (since when you play a musical instrument, you are simultaneously reading notes, listening to what you're playing, and moving your fingers and/or hands, which causes different areas of the brain to work).
Maintain social connections. Here we are talking not so much about social networks on the Internet, but about live communication with other people, since such communication requires quick thinking, which will help you maintain the speed of your brain at the proper level.
Stop smoking. If you don't smoke, don't start; otherwise, quit smoking. Besides the fact that smoking causes cancer and emphysema, it is also responsible for reducing connections in the brain. Smokers lose nerve cells much faster than non-smokers, which negatively affects their cognitive abilities.
Brain Games
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Enlarge the picture by opening it in a new window. Research has shown that brain games sometimes have an impact on cognitive abilities and sometimes not. The popularity of brain games is growing, but so far there has not been a single serious (long-term) study that has confirmed or refuted their effect on brain function. Many people believe that brain games help them learn new things. This section describes a demanding brain game.
Moving from left to right and from top to bottom, name the direction of the eyes - down, left, up, right. Ask someone to time it. Do it without errors in 30 seconds. Keep practicing until you can do it in just 15 seconds.
Now do the same, but look at the picture below, or to the right, or above, or to the left. It's harder, isn't it? You have increased the difficulty of the task because you have changed your perspective.
- Do it without errors in 30 seconds. Keep practicing until you can do it in just 15 seconds.
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Now go back to step 2, but point your finger in the opposite direction of the eyes in the picture (if the eyes are pointing down, point your finger up, etc.). This one will be even harder because you've added motor skills to the verbal component.
- This challenge explains the fact that music education can improve brain speed. This exercise requires the coordinated work of several areas of the brain: visual (responsible for interpreting information in a picture), speech (responsible for voicing this information) and motor (responsible for moving fingers or hands).
- You can continue to complicate the described game, for example, by voicing the direction of the eyes of only the green “faces” or every third “face”.
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Play different brain games that can be found on the Internet (such games develop memory and information processing speed). You can also find many word games and logic puzzles online that are designed to develop your cognitive abilities.
Warnings
- Until now, there has not been a single serious (long-term) study of brain games that has confirmed or refuted their positive effect on brain function.
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Do more aerobic exercise. The speed of the brain depends on the speed at which signals are transmitted along axons, which are essentially conductors of nerve impulses within the brain. The white matter of the brain is made up of axons and is nourished by blood vessels, which means that vascular problems, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, lead to a decrease in the supply of oxygen and glucose to the axons. So, do more aerobic exercise to oxygenate your blood and increase your brain speed.
Eat the necessary foods. Physical health is linked to brain health. Along with exercise, you should maintain a balanced diet. Eat certain foods that affect brain health, such as:
There is a common belief that the human brain operates at about 10 percent of what it is actually capable of. Is it really? Or is this nothing more than a myth? Scientists say that virtually every area of the brain is active and there is no part of our brain that remains inactive, so to say that 90 percent of our brain is in an inactive state and that the average person's brain performance is only 10 percent of 100, in This would be completely wrong. But let's look at this circumstance from a different angle.
Thus, it is quite obvious that in a calm state, the activity of our brain is at a low level, while during the performance of a complex task its activity increases sharply. In the same way, it can be assumed that brain performance differs from person to person and largely depends, for example, on such factors as the level of education or the degree of brain training, so to speak. And if we are talking about solving everyday problems, then our ability to solve these problems will be higher, the more and longer we have solved these everyday problems in the past.
Announcement:
Almost all proposed ways to increase brain productivity can be reduced to the following basic recommendations:
- 1. Train your mental abilities constantly.
- 2. Use your memory and attention as often as possible.
- 3. Do something regularly that you haven't done before.
- 4. Eat healthy and avoid overeating.
- 5. Do physical exercises and lead an active lifestyle.
- 6. Give up bad habits and instill good habits.
- 7. And don’t forget about adequate rest for your brain and body.
How to increase brain performance:
- 1. Involve yourself in mathematics.
- 2. Solve problems in your head.
- 3. Play chess and other board games.
- 4. Develop both hemispheres of the brain.
- 5. Practice brainstorming.
- 6. Study and use mind maps.
- 7. Block one or more senses.
- 8. Laugh as often as possible.
- 9. Solve puzzles and logic problems.
- 10. Find new uses for ordinary objects.
- 11. Say words and sentences backwards.
- 12. Ask “What if?”
- 13. Write stories, poems, novels, articles.
- 14. Write in a different font.
- 15. Study and remember tastes and smells.
- 16. Use different perfumes.
- 17. Use different keyboard layouts.
- 18. Exercise.
- 19. Learn martial arts.
- 20. Watch your posture.
- 21. Drink more water.
- 22. Breathe deeply.
- 23. Determine a topic for daily observation.
- 24. Learn foreign languages.
- 25. Go to trainings.
- 26. Improve your skills.
- 27. Enroll in an educational institution.
- 28. Get enough sleep.
- 29. Read a book upside down.
- 30. Use a timer.
- 31. Compete with other people and with yourself.
- 32. Visit different places.
- 33. Become familiar with scientific methods.
- 34. Do art, draw, sculpt, play music.
- 35. Watch your thoughts.
- 36. Learn to manage your thoughts.
- 37. Do several things at once.
- 38. Eat a little less.
- 39. Learn to joke and write jokes.
- 40. Choose a new hobby.
- 41. Argue, defend your point of view and consider someone else’s.
- 42. Look to the root of the problem.
- 43. Use a voice recorder instead of notes.
- 44. Write down your ideas.
- 45. See the world through the eyes of a child.
- 46. Get into the other person's shoes.
- 47. Generate ideas.
- 48. Listen to classical music.
- 49. Read the classics.
- 50. Simplify complex things.
- 51. Meditate.
- 52. Develop visualization skills.
- 53. Create your own mental sanctuary.
- 54. Develop self-awareness.
- 55. Relax.
- 56. Improve your concentration abilities.
- 57. Contemplate the world here and now.
- 58. Write down your dreams.
- 59. Learn lucid dreaming and OBEs.
- 60. Learn from geniuses.
- 61. Collect quotes and phrases and reflect on them.
- 62. Make friends.
- 63. Increase your vocabulary.
- 64. Watch films of various genres.
- 65. Turn off the TV.
- 66. Eliminate procrastination.
- 67. Vary the speed of your actions.
- 68. Do one thing at a time.
- 69. Keep a diary.
- 70. Use fewer technical devices.
- 71. Change your image.
- 72. Walk barefoot.
- 73. Talk to smart people.
- 74. Challenge yourself.
- 75. Do more than you plan.
- 76. Be in nature more often.
- 77. Take different routes.
- 78. Create change in your environment.
- 79. Learn to work with a computer and programs.
- 80. Install different operating systems.
- 81. Study the brain.
- 82. Learn to read quickly.
- 83. Develop your intuition.
- 84. Create a mental memory warehouse.
- 85. Describe the experience in great detail.
- 86. Remember people's names.
- 87. Manage your stress.
- 88. Confront your fears.
That's all. Remember that each of us has approximately the same amount of gray matter in our brains, and almost all of us have the same opportunity to develop our mental abilities and, as a result, increase the efficiency of our brain. The main thing is not to let your brain sit idle for too long and try to regularly give it tasks at the peak of its capabilities, and then after some time you will begin to notice that your brain has become much better at coping with everyday tasks. Good luck and all the best to you!
Happy and healthy people are more creative and productive. What can affect brain function and what prevents you from achieving the desired results in life? How to increase brain productivity?
The human brain is always in motion, up to a hundred thousand different thoughts rush through your head every day, and in today’s crazy pace of life we experience a load much greater than our grandparents did in their time. Add to this more working hours, traffic jams, various distractions, and increased stress levels.
How can we cope with the madness in our daily lives and provide the brain with normal working conditions? Here is a summary of what may be affecting its performance and what is preventing you from achieving the results you want.
What does an out of control brain look like?
Constant transitions from thought to thought, doubts, resemble the behavior of a monkey jumping from one tree to another. This phenomenon is called uncontrollable or monkey brain. The Buddha also described the mind of an ordinary person who was easily distracted and in constant motion, like a monkey's mind.
What determines our productivity?
People sometimes get so busy creating their own productive lifestyle, but sometimes it’s worth just stopping, relaxing and turning on the most important tool - the mind.
If you are a busy person with a busy work schedule and many tasks that need to be completed in a short time, you send too many signals to the brain, as a result, you become nervous and absent-minded.
Constantly racing thoughts give you a feeling of anxiety, you may be overcome by a feeling of fear, and you will not be able to focus on one thing for a long time.
The inability to organize your brain is one of the most common productivity blockers.
There are often situations when there are so many things to do that you don’t know what to do or where to start. You find yourself unaware of what is currently happening. This happens due to the fact that you are unable to adjust your focus, do not know how to deal with distractions, thus simply burning your brain and mental resources.
If you constantly switch between tasks instead of concentrating on one thing at a time, you will end up not doing anything well. You seem to be doing more, but the quality of work may decrease significantly.
Your brain is distracted by unimportant tasks, and you waste time and energy. All these are significant preconditions for stress; the brain will not be able to work efficiently, which will also significantly affect your productivity.
Meditation will help improve brain function and increase its productivity.
Monk meditation is a great way to improve your own productivity. When you do meditation, your brain is in peace and harmony. Meditative techniques provide clarity of mind and thoughts, and life harmonization occurs.
The Buddha demonstrated how meditation techniques can pacify the monkeys in your head. Regular practice helps develop strength, concentration, creativity, the ability to focus and relax, improve mental abilities, and increase productivity.
Meditation helps you achieve awareness - a special mental state when you feel yourself in the present time. Research clearly shows that meditation helps you concentrate on the task at hand for longer, reduces distractions, improves memory, and reduces the likelihood of stress.
Improving concentration and productivity
Focus on the present moment and accept everything that happens around you. Don't worry about the past, the future, or anything else that is important to you at this time. You will be able to get more things done because meditation techniques will help you focus on the task, adapt to it and not be distracted. Awareness will allow you to enjoy the work you do, and you will put your best effort into it.
Focused efforts will be more rewarding than when you work with distracted attention.
Be purposeful, let go of unimportant things, focus on the important things. A clear mind will tell you what is important to you in life at the moment and what is a waste of energy and time. This way you can switch gears and not waste energy on matters of secondary importance.
How a trained brain works
A trained and focused brain creates a feeling of peace and well-being, you are confident in what you are doing, which increases motivation. Several scientific studies have proven that meditation reduces stress hormones and the brain begins to work more stable and focused. Productivity improves and you are not at risk of severe depression.
Happy and healthy people are more creative and productive.
Increase your productivity by eliminating the incessant chatter in your head, which can drive you crazy if left unchecked. Practice meditation, it will improve your productivity and the efficiency of your work. Avoid the ineffective practice of multitasking and enjoy life at a more relaxed pace.
Start your next morning with a specific schedule to keep your mind clear throughout the day:
make a list of priority tasks;
meditate;
do an exercise before you start your to-do list;
A nutritious, balanced breakfast is the right start to the day.
Forming new habits is not always easy. You may feel unsure or uncomfortable, but if you remain steadfast in your resolve, new habits will become part of your day and work their magic for you, creating a clear mind and a productive lifestyle.
In a dynamic era of fierce competition and abundant information, the success of an individual in all spheres of life directly depends on the size of intellectual capital. However, constant overload and chronic stress do not contribute to clarity of thinking and high brain performance.
Inability to concentrate, muscle weakness, indifference to current events, loss of interest in exciting activities are clear symptoms of deteriorating brain function. You may not pay close attention to such signals if these signs occur in the evening hours after a busy day at work or they appear during a viral illness.
However, if such symptoms begin to overcome after a full night's rest and constantly interfere with usual activities, it is necessary to take measures to activate the brain.
The human brain is an amazing organ, the secrets of which are still not fully understood. Despite the fact that the work of a person’s “main computer” is influenced by a certain proportion of genetic factors, brain functions need to be improved daily: develop memory, improve concentration abilities, polish logic and analysis.
If an individual neglects his body, the first signs of a decrease in brain performance will appear without waiting for old age. It has been confirmed by numerous studies that in people over 40 years of age, cognitive and mnestic functions gradually deteriorate.
Some mature people find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on one task. It becomes increasingly difficult for them to keep important details of the task in their heads. A more labor-intensive task becomes clearly expressing your thoughts, conducting the necessary analysis, and drawing up a logical conclusion.
Deterioration in the performance of the main computer cannot be considered the norm. It has been established that you can maintain clarity of mind and excellent memory into old age if you do not let the process of biological withering take its course, lead a healthy lifestyle and train your brain daily.
Causes of decreased brain performance
The reason for a decline in brain performance is not always natural age-related changes in the body. There are a huge number of factors influencing brain activity that are relevant both for people of working age and for children. Let us describe the main reasons for the decline in brain performance.
Factor 1. Chronic stress or one-time mental stress
Long-term exposure to negative external factors or a one-time strong nervous shock, a feeling of irrational anxiety or sudden fear causes the destruction of cells of the nervous system and prevents the formation of new neural connections. The consequence of this is a deterioration in the quality of all cognitive processes: attention, memory, thinking, imagination, perception and sensations.
Factor 2. Lack of sleep
Sleep deprivation reduces a person's ability to concentrate, causes memory loss, causes unclear speech, and initiates a slowdown in all reactions. It can be argued that depriving a person of sleep is a terrible torture, insidious with serious consequences in somatic health and the mental sphere.
Factor 3. Depressive states
With depression, there is a significant decrease in the synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which not only causes a depressed state, but also “rewards” the person with cognitive impairment and interferes with high-quality intellectual activity. A drop in the level of another neurotransmitter, dopamine, initiates a significant deficit of attention, a decrease in working memory, and depression of executive functions.
Factor 4. Impaired functioning of the thyroid gland
Insufficient production of thyroid hormones leads to delayed mental and physical development in children and causes a significant deterioration in intellectual abilities in adults. The entire brain, including the parts responsible for attention and memory, suffers from a deficiency of such hormones.
Factor 5. Lack or excess of estrogen
Increased or insufficient production of the female hormone estrogen can cause enormous disruptions in the functioning of the brain. An inappropriate level of this hormone causes a sharp deterioration in memory and a decrease in the ability to concentrate.
Factor 6. Alcohol abuse
Excessive alcohol consumption has far-reaching negative effects on the brain. Alcoholism is memory loss, clouding of consciousness, organic changes in brain cells, compression of the brain and, as a consequence, Korsakov’s psychosis and complete collapse of personality.
Factor 7. Traumatic brain injuries
The dire consequences of head injuries can appear either instantly or over a long period of time. Common complications of traumatic brain injury: unclear speech, severe decrease in intelligence.
Factor 8. Vascular pathologies
Chronic vascular disorders or acute disruption of the blood supply to the brain have an extremely negative impact on the functioning of the “main computer”. Problems with blood vessels cause a deterioration in the integrative activity of the brain, interfere with memory consolidation, and complicate learning processes.
How to Increase Brain Performance: Mind Training
To have a toned, athletic figure, you need to train regularly, providing your muscles with a reasonable amount of stress. This statement is also true for a high level of higher nervous activity, for excellent indicators of intellectual abilities, for the absence of problems with cognitive functions and memory: the brain should be regularly trained.
Rule 1. Do mental exercises every day
Rule 2. Include brain food in your diet
Adjusting your diet can improve the quality of brain activity. Scientists have determined which foods promote maximum brain activity and increase a person’s intellectual potential. Among the components essential for the brain are the following products.
Rule 3. Get rid of bad habitsMany treatises have been written about the damage that smoking and alcohol abuse cause to health. However, there are people who are sincerely convinced that alcohol and cigarettes help them think better and faster. The fallacy of this point of view has been proven as a result of numerous scientific studies.
Tobacco and ethanol are false activators of brain activity, which for a short period of time create the illusion that the brain has begun to function more productively. In fact, these bad habits lead to the destruction of existing neural connections, which deteriorates the cognitive and mnestic functions of the psyche. The conclusion is simple: to improve brain performance, you need to say goodbye to addictions once and for all.
Rule 4. Move energetically
Vigorous physical exercise, brisk walking, swimming, cycling activate the work of all body systems. Thanks to daily half-hour exercise, it is possible to improve the elasticity of blood vessels, increase blood circulation and lymph circulation, and naturally cleanse the body of toxins. Physical exercise stimulates the restoration of nervous tissue, promotes the emergence of new neural connections, which ultimately has a beneficial effect on brain performance.
Rule 5. Perform a head massage
Daily massage of the head and collar area increases blood circulation in the vessels of the brain and promotes venous outflow. The ideal option is to visit a professional massage therapist’s salon once a season, and the rest of the time to perform the massage yourself. You can perform the procedure in the classic way - with your hands, or using a special device - a massager. Simply brushing your hair with a brush for 10 minutes can improve blood circulation.
Rule 6. Use color therapy and essential oils
It has been established that each specific color has a specific effect on the functioning of the body. Some shades excite the nervous system and activate the brain, others calm and pacify. A picture made in bright yellow tones can improve brain performance - this color significantly improves a person’s intellectual abilities. The rich orange color will be an effective stimulant for achieving new heights and self-affirmation.
You can achieve progress in brain performance with the help of aromatherapy. Natural essential oils with a citrus aroma and woody scent have a tonic effect on the body, promoting the development of cognitive functions.
Rule 7. Developing our abilities
To discover our hidden talents, we use a proven technique: we block one of the channels of perception for a short time. We can eat with our eyes closed, brush our teeth or comb our hair with our left hand. We try, with our eyes closed, to identify the object by touch and recognize the product by smell. We also develop the ability for ambidexterity - we train the functions of both hands, for example: we draw geometric shapes with both hands at the same time.
