The Decline of Your Mental Powers
by Get Smart on Apr.23, 2010, under Brain Health
Factors such as poor nutrition, lack of exercise, the consumption of stimulants and aging can all lead toward the decline of our mental powers.
The brain is known to be the most powerful organ in the body, as it gives all the directions on how the rest of the organs should work. It also takes charge of both your voluntary and involuntary motions, and takes care of your growth and maturity. But while it possesses great power, the brain can also suffer from a decline of its abilities, and this can actually put your health into danger.
Reasons Why Your Brain Loses its Prowess
Age
The brain stops growing as we turn 15. We later enjoy its full force during our prime years, but as we grow older, the brain’s abilities decline as well. This is due to the brain cells losing their strength through time, thus making us prone to senility, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia during our senior years.
Unhealthy Lifestyle
The brain is strengthened by the food we eat, the rest we take and the exercises we perform. If we tend to slack and feed on a poor diet which lacks the nutrients our brain needs, it would then be prone to losing its powers faster, in turn making us more susceptible to forgetfulness even at a young age.
Chronic Stress
Exposure to stressful environment such as everyday family arguments, noisy surroundings and pressure at work can easily wear us out of both physical and mental strength. This is because our adrenal glands, the glands which provide us with vital energy, are pushed to the limit, and when they get tired, so does the rest of our body, including the brain.
Drug Dependence
Relying on certain medications, particularly stimulants such as amphetamines and cocaine is highly detrimental to brain health. Stimulants (including caffeine) make the brain work faster and more efficient at a particular time frame, but once they wear off, the brain is left tired and all burnt out. In turn the normal brain functions are greatly altered, and in time the effects can no longer be controlled, leading the person to be mentally and emotionally unstable.
It is important to take good care of your brain’s health, as the nerve cells, once damaged, can no longer regenerate. Taking care of your brain is easy, and that is by following a proper diet, giving the brain muscles enough exercise, and having enough good, quality rest.
Tips on How to Increase Your Creativity
by Get Smart on Apr.16, 2010, under Brain Power
By relaxing and taking the time to identify your problems you may increase your potential creativity.
If you are having trouble coming up with new, original ideas, then here are some helpful tips which can be of great help in building your brain power and increasing your creative juices:
1. Relax. The brain, when pressured to produce results faster, sometimes fails to work at its best, thus you are left with a mental block or a brain cloud. To enable your creativity, take time to breathe and relax. Allowing your brain boosts its potential to work better and faster, and also provide you with new ideas which you can use on your project.
2. Begin with the basics. It can be difficult to be creative when your brain is exposed to a lot of influences-these existing ideas can mingle in your brain and cause confusion, and in turn make it hard for you to think straight. Start with the basic object by taking away its current embellishments, then try to view it from your own angles. From there you can find new concepts and ideas which are from your own head, and not just a mere modification of others’ work.
3. Look for problems. If you are given a particular assignment with an already existing set of ideas, what you can do is to find issues on how to make the assignment better. See what is lacking, what you can add for improvement or even form an image out of your own visions, regardless of the present ideas at hand. Your creative muscle is then stretched and used, and becomes more useful.
4. Change your schedule. The brain becomes complacent whenever it gets used to a particular routine. Like any other muscle, the brain becomes immune to the various things that it encounters while following the routine course it has adjusted to, thus it would be hard to come up with new insights in the long run. You can however prevent this from happening by changing routines, following new schedules, and giving yourself some cheap thrills. When your brain gets excited, it unleashes new ideas and innovations for you to do in order to enjoy that particular moment of excitement, as compared with usual events you follow on a regular day.
5. Expose yourself to new heights. Exercising your creative muscle can also be done by exposing yourself to various influences. Take time to enjoy life by watching a movie, attending concerts, going out and visiting places you have never been to before. By gathering information, you will be able to see new ideas and develop concepts that can help achieve your goal.
6. Socialize. Talking to people also helps a lot in unleashing your creativity. You get to hear to other people’s ideas, see how they voice out their own insights and find areas for better appreciation. This way your ideas won’t only rely on one point of view, but of a multitude of opinions as well.
7. Think about the future. When unleashing your creativity, you not only have to think of the present, but more importantly, the future. Answer the “why” questions involving your simmering concept, and try to come up with other approaches which haven’t been used yet. Besides, if you haven’t thought about that assumption today, somebody else would come up with the same idea sooner or later.
8. Do the locomotion. Your muscles become more functional when they are exposed to moving objects, so try to play with a rubber ball while brainstorming, or write doodles while thinking of new ideas for a particular project.
9. Write down all your bad ideas. If you’re thinking only of the good ideas, you’re actually not being creative, since you have set these concepts in accordance with already existing tastes. Take note of your bad thoughts-given that you have thought of them to be bad or negative, this just means that these concepts haven’t been tested yet to challenge mainstream innovations. The “good” and the “bad” are both subjective-you can actually take advantage of this and make new trends using your bad ideas in the future.
10. Stretch your right brain. The right side of the brain is where your creative muscle is located, and you can help improve its function by using your left body parts. Try to write using your left hand, or reach for things with your left grip. If you can do these things, you may try a much easier activity-breathe out through the left nostril.
Remember that unleashing your creative juices not only develops your brain, but your overall capabilities at your chosen field. Just try to be inspired with a famous quote from Karl Marx: “the philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point is, however, is to change it.”
