Brain Boost: Easy Ways to Train Your Mind

You ever meet someone who was beautiful, attractive and confident and then they open their mouth to talk...All that glitters ain't gold! Great conversations, passionate debates, thoughtful insights are just some signs of a beautiful brain.

Here are some things you can do to improve your cognitive skills and overall "brain power"! 

Reading Exercises:

1. Read more than one book at a time and different types (fiction, non fiction). This helps your brain improve it's multitasking capacity.

2. Read something for ten minutes and then grab a piece of paper and detail what you read. Compare notes. What did you miss? Keep doing this and watch your memory retention grow. 

3. If you want to go the extra mile ask yourself questions about the material you just read.Questions such as; What concepts have been discussed? What are the applications in the real world? What if you changed one significant event in a characters life? How do you they will do things differently? Has the book changed your preception and how?

Questions like these will require higher order thinking skills. You will be able to analyze pieces of information and bring them together to solve problems, make accurate assumptions and better decisions. Why do you think we had to do book reports in grade school or essay analysis in high school or critical thinking projects in college?

Writing Exercises

1. Try writing a creative short story. Build a character profile with a background story, personality traits, dialogue patterns and physical attributes. This will improve your attention to detail and creativity.

2. Write out a sales pitch for yourself. Think of yourself as a product. What are your features, benefits and what objections would people have when hiring you? Then write out the rebuttals or goals to improve those objectionable traits

This exercise is cool because you get a self analysis and a self improvement plan. You will never have a problem answering questions about your strengths and weaknesses in an interview!

Physical Exercises:

Work out! It helps clear your brain, produces adrenaline which promotes heightened clarity and chemical balance. 

Coffee:

Drinking coffee in moderation helps jump start your brain on those slow mornings.

Diet:

Eat brain food! Almonds, walnuts, complex carbs like whole grains and wild salmon can have some incredible impact on the brain.

Play:

Games like Sudoku, Tetris and Chess have known to improve your strategic thinking, spatial analysis and logic.

Draw:

You can doodle stick figures all you want but try sketching a real life objects. Try to replicate the same shades, angles and perspective. You will improve your spatial analysis, hand-eye coordination and creative thinking skills. Plus it can be extremely relaxing for some.

Quick Tip:

You will retain up to 95% of information you read, hear, or see IF you teach it to someone else.