Simple Exercises to Enhance Brain Power

You need to increase your brain power to ensure that you retain most, if not all, of everything you study. But did you know that to increase your brain power, you need to use and challenge it on a regular basis? You might think that making your brain work a lot may diminish its thinking capacity but, based on researches, it does the opposite.

It makes sense: just as giving your body a work out to maintain strength, endurance and health, exercising your brain also yields benefits to it. So to keep your brain power in top shape, you might want to give it some power-boosting workout regularly. Read on to learn some simple exercises for your brain.

• Do math exercises. If you’re stuck in traffic, add up the numerals you see on car license plates. Or if you have a book in hand, open it randomly, look at the page numbers and add them up. You may also subtract, multiply and divide them.
• Memorize phone numbers. Take your celphone and randomly pick a contact. Memorize his or her number, then recall after an hour or so. Try memorizing one person’s contact number per day. If it’s too easy for you, why not memorize 2-5 numbers a day?
• Test your taste buds. When eating out or enjoying your mom’s cooking, try to figure out all the different tastes and ingredients present. Concentrate even on the subtle flavorings you can detect. For verification, ask the waiter or your mom if you figured out everything correctly.
• Switch hands. For some daily tasks, try using your non-dominant hand to challenge your brain. For instance, instead of using your right hand, use your left hand for combing your hair, brushing your teeth, sweeping the floor or using the remote control. Try if you can learn to write legibly with your other hand.
• Play but don’t replay. During your free time, play card or board games, or learn a new one. But try not to play with the same thing each time. So if you’re playing solitaire today, play chess tomorrow, then another game on the following day.
• A word a day. Look around you and look for new words, then look up their meanings in the dictionary. Try to learn one new word a day. Imagine how extensive your vocabulary would be after a month of doing it daily. Just make sure you got a pocket dictionary handy all the time.
• Learn by heart. Pick a long speech or just randomly select a page from your favorite paperback novel. Try to memorize one sentence daily. Now on the following day, memorize the next sentence, then add it up to the one you memorized previously. Let this go on for days until you can recite it in its entirety.
• Use your hand. Close your eyes and try to identify objects with just your hands. Take note of various shapes, sizes and texture. You may also try to learn how to read Braille.
• Try out something new. Learning something new is a great way to challenge your brain. If you like arts, you may learn how to do cross-stitching, quilting or painting. You may also try to learn how to play a musical instrument, a sport or any other hobby you think you’d be interested in.

Combine different suggested brain exercises above on a regular basis, and always remember to add challenge each time by increasing the words you memorize, the numbers you compute, or the new things you try to learn. It also helps to keep track of your progress by recording your activities in a small notebook, to check out how much your brain power have come a long way.