9 Things That Enhance Your Brain Function

Once you articulate a specific goal or a task for yourself, wonderful things will start happening. You will be able to find resources, opportunities and time to accomplish things.

And if you outline the main goal for yourself and split your main objective into smaller tasks while slowly, steadily, step by step trying to carry them out, you will have no problems in achieving what you set your mind to.

Emotions are short-term subjective human responses to the world around us (joy, anger, shame, etc.). Feelings can be described as consistent emotional attitude towards other people or phenomena. Feelings are associated with consciousness and can develop and improve continuously.

Emotions can be exciting and positively impacting human life, or depressing when they suppress vital processes. Positive emotions motivate people to action. They arise as a result of being satisfied. Start looking for simple pleasures in life, and brain stimulation will begin, leading to the release of large doses of endorphins, or pleasure hormones into your body, which will lead to satisfaction, and because of that, positive emotions which will excite and improve your life and allow an easy flow of thinking processes which will give a rise to good mood and a positive outlook on the world around you. It is human nature to seek happiness, it is just another form of self-preservation instinct.

Fresh air allows blood to be saturated with oxygen more actively, which causes blood to carry oxygen faster and provide better nutrition for the brain cells, while strengthening the processes of oxidation and metabolism, more energy required for healthy functioning is released, and new biochemical compounds are created. The brain makes us to be more active to save itself and, of course, our bodies. To provide us with an opportunity to think, create, solve complex problems and to have memories. Without the movement of fresh air, the blood becomes inactive, turning our brain also inactive.

Simple foods are easier to obtain, prepare and digest. The brain tells us (if you want to hear what it has to say), that 50 % of the energy produced by the body is spent on vision, 40 % on digestion and decontamination of food-related toxins, and only 10% remains for active motion, the functioning of mental and nervous systems, and fighting off billions of microbes. If we eat all the time, when is the time to think?

Soups are very healthy, they improve digestion, metabolism, fill the stomach much quicker, giving a feeling of fullness with less food.

The brain, just like the entire human body, needs to rest. During physical exertion we need to take mental breaks, during intellectual activity engage in exercise, and while being morally fatigued try looking for a change of place.

Complete rest can only be possible through sleep. The process of sleeping is the most mysterious human condition, without sleeping it is impossible to survive, even though sleep is sometimes called “little death”.

 

During sleeping, our consciousness is turned off, but we continue to think, even though the way we think is changed and follows completely different laws. This is due to the fact that while asleep, our subconscious activities become predominant. The brain analyzes what happened during the day, restructures these images and provides us with most probable outcome. This outcome could have been predicted even for a long time, but it was not accepted by our consciousness until extracted from the subconscious during sleeping.

It is assumed that before going to sleep each night, we need to instruct the brain to make a prediction, come up with a decision or solution or to just have a pleasant dream. Unnecessary impressions or obsessive thoughts can be washed away by the “nightly protective wave” inside the brain. People who experience prophetic dreams all the time are the most talented analysts.

The brain cannot instantly adapt to sudden changes in previously experienced circumstances, new life conditions, new work, new study routine or a place of residence, social circle, unfamiliar food or new people. Any new activity must be entered into gradually and calmly by slowly getting accustomed to it. Every day, by doing everything you can, you can achieve something that seemed impossible. The habit to study, or to work is formed gradually and continuously. Sudden insight and inspiration always involves previous knowledge and may not always be something you were fully aware of before.

Often, parents, teachers, bosses, loved ones (and sometimes ourselves), without understanding the complexity of forming a habit, require from us (and we expect from others) achieving instant results. It does not happen that way. It is best not to become overwhelmed, calm down, and kindly tell them or ourselves that nothing can be achieved all at once, “Hey kids, be patient and you will get you Christmas gifts just in time for Christmas”. And start moving forward slowly, and picking up the pace as we get used to new things.

The brain by itself creates stereotypes (habits, skills, reflexes). Stereotyped thinking helps immensely to live our lives as we do no need to repeatedly solve common tasks. Every day, when we perform same actions, we turn them into a habit, a skill or an ability, or sometimes a conditional reflex. Without much reliance on our brain, we become able to salivate at the sight of a lemon, close front door, turn off leaking tap, wash dishes, jump up from a sudden car horn, click X when we need to close a window on the computer screen.

Instincts and insufficient life experience force us to create stereotypes related to our childhood friends, enemies or lovers. This can be useful when dealing with “the ocean of mankind” to choose someone and to create our own team and then stop, which frees up the time and energy for other life goals. Stereotypes help us to deal with strangers, get along with our parents and to educate our own children.

Albeit limited by the instinct of self-preservation and social norms, freedom is essential to all of us. Freedom is our ability to be free of fears and stereotypes. Of course, the stereotypes in the form of unconditional and conditional reflexes are important, if we get burnt by a fire for the first time, the second time around we most definitely will not stick our hand in the fire – it hurts! But if life circumstances require to show contempt for pain and death, we may burn the right hand, just as the famous ancient Roman military man Muzio Scevola once did. Without being afraid to think according to our beliefs or in a completely new way, we defend our way of thinking, way of living, our appearance and our loved ones. Without blaming the whole world for the lack of understanding and acceptance to recognize our “wonderful uniqueness” and allow others to be different, to have their way of thinking , their own outlook on life.

…which is the ability of the brain to create new, unique and artistic things using and relying on old memories. Creativity is a favorite type of activity of the brain, making us similar to God, making us to be close to God. Creativity in the form of science studies, describes, explains the world and nature of humans, advances new ideas, finds ways and means to implement them, looks into the future and is ready to change it for the better.

Creativity in the form of art combines hard work and emotions and reflects upon reality through artwork. Art brings people together: writers share their lives, feelings and perceptions of other people, showing that we are not alone in the feelings we may experience. A painter offers a look at how inside our environment we can see ourselves being beautiful or ugly. Musicians make us to respond to the sounds of their heart at the sound of a tuning fork.

Art awakens our imagination and enriches our inner world, helps to see the world in a different light. Art creates ideals.

Life is a continuous process of cell division, constant metabolism and distribution of information. The work of the nerve cells of the brain neurons is based on “love.” They constantly “hug” each other, with a close contact of dendrites (extensions, “hands” ), always transmit energy (nerve impulses) and exchange information about everything (through biochemical compounds). Harmful not to share, but impossible to demand, which can become quite confusing. You should befriend your brain as well as make friends with people around you.

This is the essence of the brain when it is in a constant need to receive and exchange information.

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7 Common Mind Traps That Affect Our Thinking

The human brain is able to perform more than a thousand operations per second. This means that its power is still greater than of any computer invented to-date. But this does not mean that our brain does not have limitations. A simple calculator can perform calculations much more precisely and faster, and our memory is often unreliable.

In addition, we tend to fall into traps of our own consciousness, which, time and again, lead us to questionable choices or result in making biased decisions. In this article we will discuss seven of these common traps or, scientifically speaking, “cognitive dissonances.”

We like to agree with people who agree with us. That is why we often visit forums where people sharing our political views tend to congregate, and we communicate with people, whose tastes and opinions are similar to ours. We despise individuals, groups or sites which provoke us to doubt our established beliefs. Psychologist B. Skinner called this phenomenon a “cognitive dissonance.”

This selectivity leads to “affirmation bias”, we often subconsciously perceive only information that “feeds” into our existing opinions, ignoring or rejecting anything that conflicts with these opinions and threatens to undermine the familiar image of the world around us. Internet, by the way, only reinforces this tendency.

The phenomenon of affiliating ourselves with a group is similar to affirmation bias, which was discussed above. This is a manifestation of our innate need to “be a part of a group.”

Oddly enough, this need is related to the hormone oxytocin, also known as a “love molecule”. This neurotransmitter, on the one hand, helps us to build strong ties with each other, on the other hand it results in an opposite effect towards those who exist outside of our “circle”. It makes us suspicious, frightened, and even arrogant towards unfamiliar people.

This is a tendency to attach great importance to the events which have already happened, when we become confident that they can somehow influence our future. The classic example is a coin toss. If five consecutive tries show tails, the probability that the next try will result in a head becomes highly likely to happen according to the way we think. In fact, the probability is still 50/50.

The trap called “positive expectations”, which is typical for gamblers works almost the same way. They think that after a couple of losses luck has to be on their side, and the next game will bring them a huge jackpot. The phenomenon called a “strip of luck” works in the same fashion.

Any one of us can recall at least one case when, after buying something useless, non-working or prohibitively expensive, we tried to convince ourselves that “the purchase was still worth it.” This is known as “post-shopping rationalization”, a way of thinking built into our consciousness which can make us feel a little better after doing something obviously stupid.

Very few of us are afraid to get in the car, but most of us can admit feeling anxious when coming on board of an aircraft. Flying, which is, unarguably, a completely unnatural state for humans, is commonly associated with danger. At the same time, almost everyone knows that the probability of dying in a car accident is many times greater than dying in a plane crash. And yet, our brain refuses to accept this relationship (statistically, the chances of dying while traveling by car are 1/84, while by plane – 1/5000). The same phenomenon makes us to be afraid of dying at the hands of terrorists, and not think about more immediate dangers, such as falling down the stairs or being accidentally poisoned, for example.

Selective observation is when we suddenly start to notice something around which is completely novel to us. We think that this “new experience” started pursuing us at a certain point, while in reality it simply escaped our attention earlier.

People have a tendency to pay more attention to the bad news, and it does not necessarily mean psychological abnormalities. Scientists believe that we subconsciously perceive bad news as more important to us. In addition, the bad news instill more confidence in us, perhaps because the good news often seem to be too suspicious or boring.

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Your Subconscious Mind Can Do Anything: How to Use Its Power

The most important thing about the subconscious mind you need to know is that it is always “on”. That is, it is active day and night, regardless of whether you are doing. The subconscious mind controls your body. You cannot hear this silent inner process with your conscious effort. You need to start taking care of your subconscious mind. It is vital to maintain your mind in a state of expectation of only good events and make the usual mode of your thinking based solely on loyalty, justice and love.

Faith and belief are the foundation of the subconscious. Do not forget that “you will be rewarded according to your faith”.

A Protestant minister who suffered from lung cancer wrote about his methods of transferring thoughts of perfect health into his subconscious mind: “Two or three times a day, I put my body and soul in a relaxed state, repeating these words: “My feet are completely relaxed, my legs are relaxed. Right now my stomach muscles are relaxing. My heart is beating quietly, my breathing is calm and relaxed. My head is completely relaxed, my whole body is completely relaxed and calm.” After about five minutes, when I got into a drowsy, sleepy state, I repeated: “The perfection of the God’s plan finds its expression in me. My subconscious mind is filled with thoughts of that I have perfect health. My image is spotless before God.” This priest managed to heal himself.

Here are some brief recommendations to help you use your subconscious power for your best:

1. Your subconscious mind not only controls all the processes of the body, but also knows the answers to the various questions and can solve many problems.

2. Before going to bed, refer to your subconscious mind with any specific request and soon you will see its miraculous power in action.

3. Anything that is captured in your subconscious will directly affect you in the form of emotions, circumstances and events. Therefore, you need to watch closely what thoughts and ideas govern your mind.

4. All experiences arise from unfulfilled desires. If you are “fixated” on various issues and problems, thus will be the reaction of your subconscious mind.

5. When you have a specific goal or dream, consciously repeat this statement: “I believe that the power of the subconscious, which gave me this desire, will embody it in me now.”

6. Stress, anxiety and fear can disrupt the natural rhythm of breathing, heart rate and work of any other part of the body. Cultivate in your subconscious mind thoughts of health, peace and harmony, and all the functions of the body will return to normal.

7. Fill your subconscious with expectations of the best experiences and emotions, and your thoughts will become a reality.

8. Imagine a positive outcome of your problems, fully feel the enthusiasm from what has happened. All your fantasies and feelings are clearly accepted by your subconscious and then implemented in life.

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How to Make Your Wishes Come True with the Power of Thought

What is a wish? It is your thoughts that arise in your mind, and that can become a reality, thanks to you and that inner power that you possess. Researchers have long studied the human subconscious and made the following discovery: any thought just like a magnet attracts and transforms the outside world.

And it is very joyful discovery, since it gives a person the tremendous power and creative energy and makes the fulfillment of wishes possible for everyone.

In order to enhance this power of thought you need to train your mind and increase energy every day, because one’s wishes become a reality much faster if they are supported by a large supply of inner strength and a positive attitude.

All sorts of negative thinking – fears, doubts, disturbing thoughts – take away your energy, so your mind should be exempt from such beliefs. Try to think positively, switching to the thoughts full of positive energy and light.

Anger is a powerful destroyer of your energy. So learn to forgive and release negative emotions, and the power of thought will attract the desired event many times faster.

Pessimism and eternal dissatisfaction also harm our energy. Learn to enjoy life, feel gratitude for every moment of your life.

Passive lifestyle and bad habits also have a negative impact on your supply of internal energy. Engage in physical exercise, yoga, spend more time in the fresh air and your power of thought and energy will increase significantly. Instead of watching news on TV or films with a lot of aggression, prefer reading books on self-development and spend time with positive people.

Once you get rid of negative thoughts, emotions and feelings, your energy will increase, and you will be able to implement any of your wishes.

There are many techniques for wish fulfillment. In this article, we will focus on one of the most powerful ones – the visualization.

The first thing you should do is to articulate your wish. It should cause you pleasant feelings such as joy, happiness and pleasure. Positive emotions make your wishes stronger and bring closer the moment when you reach your dream.

Then you need to enter into a state of relaxation. Choose the time when you will not be disturbed, take a comfortable position, close your eyes and relax. Let your body become light and weightless as a feather, trying to keep your mind calm.

Once you reach a state of relaxation, think of the happiest episode in your life. “Tune in” to the wave of joy and positivity. This will fill your thoughts with the necessary energy.

Now imagine your dream as if it has already come true. You’ve got what you want. Feel the joy and gratitude, and the whole range of positive emotions. Stay in this beautiful state for some time, enjoy it, and then open your eyes.

Congratulations! Your dream is already on the way to implementation. Now let it go easily and freely. Your “order” has already been received by the universe, so let it find the way to implement it.

Your wish must not harm people or the world. If the power of thought will be used for destructive plans, nothing good will come of this.After using this technique, you shouldn’t just sit and wait. Help the higher powers, act and get active in the real world.If you have a big dream to make come true, you should do this exercise more than once. The more creative energy you will manage to give to your wish, the faster it will turn into reality.

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10 Ways to Improve Your Brain Function

Thinking process is continuous. We constantly reflect and solve challenging puzzles of life. Sometimes it is necessary to help your brain speed up the cognitive processing. How to do it? Try the following tips.

Caffeine helps you focus on labor-intensive tasks and accelerates cognitive processes. Of course, it doesn’t mean that coffee will make you more intelligent. Caffeine temporarily makes our brain work more efficiently, but drinking coffee all the time can be harmful to other organs (for example, stomach).

Scientists have found that wine also accelerates cognitive processes due to the presence of antioxidants. But here it should be noted that it is good to drink this alcoholic beverage only in moderation; only in such case it will have a positive impact on the brain and overall physical health.

 

The abundance of sunlight can be harmful to the skin, but not to the brain. Researchers believe that higher levels of vitamin D (which is produced by sunlight) can slow down the brain aging.

 

In order to “unload” your brain, you can perform simple brain tasks, daydream, or recall interesting and funny cases. After such little rest, your mind will clear and you will be more efficient.

 

Mental search for items is very useful for the brain. In order to increase the efficiency of this exercise you can say your actions out loud.

 

Some studies have shown that dancing and other examples of leisure activities reduce the risk of dementia. Such activities keep your body and mind in tension, teach you to make quick decisions and adopt new behaviors.

Not all the food is good for the brain. Which ones can enhance the cognitive processes? These are products that contain glucose, fatty acids, amino acids and antioxidants. Experts advise to eat nuts, blueberries, avocados, and whole grains.

 

The game of Tetris develops memory, improves the response, and positively affects various cognitive processes in general.

Many people believe that bodybuilders or athletes are less intelligent than, for example, post-graduate students. However, studies show positive effects of physical exercise on cognitive function. If you are not an athletic type, try regular walking, which also can be rather useful.

 

Scientists at the Yale School of Medicine made tests on mice and found that more hungry individuals perform cognitive tasks much better.

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8 Weird But Effective Exercises for Brain Power

In 1936, the American writer Dorothy Brandt in her book «Wake Up and Live» offered some fun exercises for the brain training to help you make your mind sharper and more flexible. These exercises are aimed to get you out of your usual environment, show a different perspective (even a different reality, if you want) and create a situation that will require ingenuity and creative solutions.

1. Spend 1 hour a day without saying anything, just answering direct questions in your usual surroundings, without creating the impression that you are offended or in a bad mood. Behave as normally as possible. Do not make any comments and do not give in to attempts to extract information from you.

2. For 30 minutes a day, think of one and only subject, being completely focused on it. You can start with five minutes.

3. For 15 minutes a day keep conversation without using the words “I, me, my, mine.“

4. Allow your interlocutor to talk only about himself without realizing it. Using polite questions, get him back to the mainstream of mutual conversation so that he does not feel any pressure or negative emotions.

5. Try to talk only about yourself without boasting, without complaining and without making your interlocutors get bored.

6. Make a strict plan for two hours a day and follow that plan.

7. Give yourself 12 random tasks, such as walking 20 miles from home without using any means, stay 12 hours without food, have breakfast in the most unexpected and unlikely place that you can find, not to talk all day except of giving answers to the questions.

8. During the day, say “yes” to all questions and suggestions (within reasonable bounds).

These exercises may seem silly and useless, but in fact they can bring much new in your life and get to know yourself better.

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10 Effective Ways to Keep Your Brain in Shape

How to make your brain work more productively? Here are 10 popular ways to keep your brain sharp.

Physical exercise does not only keep muscles in tone, but also has a positive impact on the overall health of the brain, because intense movements improve the blood supply to the muscles and brain. Exercises when the head is below the heart are particularly effective (such as yoga postures).

Many studies show that a morning cup of coffee does not stimulate brain activity but on the contrary, makes people dumber! But if you replace it with a glass of water, the feeling of cheerfulness will be much longer. Drinking water on an empty stomach activates the entire gastrointestinal tract, and, in contrast to the hot, strong coffee, it doesn’t irritate mucous membranes, which in turn gives a sense of cheerfulness.

As a rule, people do not recognize smells well, which in fact help focus and give courage. Specialists advise to use aromatherapy scents of basil, rosemary, lemon balm, thyme, rose and lavender in situations where the focus is particularly needed.

It is no secret that in a tranquil environment, any work (especially mental work) is significantly easier to do. However, a quiet environment is a rarity in our society. But if you learn to focus on the bright side, it will certainly increase your productivity.

An effective workout for the brain is the solving of puzzles, crosswords, word games, which in the case of illness even help restore damaged cognitive abilities.

Many people not without reason believe that TV dulls the mind. But if you do not watch all the stupid shows and serials and choose TV programs wisely, then you can learn a lot of informative things.

There are many studies that confirm that the process of looking for relevant information online makes brain work the same or even more than when reading a book. So do it more often, and do not forget to ask the right questions.

The surest way to clear the mind and is the well-known “healthy diet” consisting of vegetables and fruits. And, of course, sometimes you can treat yourself to sweets. However, the fact that the human brain needs glucose does not mean you have to eat much sweet.

Herbs known today to the official medicine and not only, such as ginseng, significantly improve the cognitive abilities of the person and increase stress tolerance.

If even the most capable and talented brain is not actively used, it will quickly lose its capabilities. Therefore it is necessary to constantly make the brain work, which can be achieved by doing the following activities: learning foreign languages, painting, cooking, etc. 15-minute cognitive activity every day will be more effective in preventing the degradation of the brain than any medications.

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7 Optical Illusions That Will Blow Your Mind

 

This optical illusion was created by Chris Westall. There is a tea cup on the table, next to which there is a cube with a small cup. However, on closer inspection, we can see that in fact the cube is drawn, and the cups are of the same size.

 

Here are two images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At first glance, it appears that the tower on the right leans more than the one on the left, but in reality, these two pictures are the same. The reason lies in the fact that the information from the left and the right sides of the image is processed by different hemispheres of the brain, which “does not like” symmetry.

 

Does the face on the left show more angry than the one on the right? Well, step 5-6 meters away and you will see the angry face turn into the kind one and vice versa.

 

When you are looking at these two people you think the one on the left is female and the one on the right is male, right? In fact, it is exactly the same person. This is the famous illusion by Richard Russell from Harvard called “The illusion of sex”.

The created illusion is very simple: the contrast in the image with the seemingly male face was reduced. More contrast face looks feminine, less contrast – masculine. That is why women use cosmetics: to increase the contrast of their face.

 

There is no animation in this picture. It is nothing but an optical illusion.

 

Which way do you see the wheel turning? It is a brain-teasing illusion similar to the famous “spinning girl”. If the wheel is turning clockwise, your left hemisphere is more active at the moment and vice versa. See more about brain hemispheres here.

Stare at the picture for about 10-20 seconds (not more, otherwise you will have a headache) and then look at someone’s face or simply around you.

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How to Make Your Wishes Come True with the Power of Thought

What is a wish? It is your thoughts that arise in your mind, and that can become a reality, thanks to you and that inner power that you possess. Researchers have long studied the human subconscious and made the following discovery: any thought just like a magnet attracts and transforms the outside world.

And it is very joyful discovery, since it gives a person the tremendous power and creative energy and makes the fulfillment of wishes possible for everyone.

In order to enhance this power of thought you need to train your mind and increase energy every day, because one’s wishes become a reality much faster if they are supported by a large supply of inner strength and a positive attitude.

All sorts of negative thinking – fears, doubts, disturbing thoughts – take away your energy, so your mind should be exempt from such beliefs. Try to think positively, switching to the thoughts full of positive energy and light.

Anger is a powerful destroyer of your energy. So learn to forgive and release negative emotions, and the power of thought will attract the desired event many times faster.

Pessimism and eternal dissatisfaction also harm our energy. Learn to enjoy life, feel gratitude for every moment of your life.

Passive lifestyle and bad habits also have a negative impact on your supply of internal energy. Engage in physical exercise, yoga, spend more time in the fresh air and your power of thought and energy will increase significantly. Instead of watching news on TV or films with a lot of aggression, prefer reading books on self-development and spend time with positive people.

Once you get rid of negative thoughts, emotions and feelings, your energy will increase, and you will be able to implement any of your wishes.

There are many techniques for wish fulfillment. In this article, we will focus on one of the most powerful ones – the visualization.

The first thing you should do is to articulate your wish. It should cause you pleasant feelings such as joy, happiness and pleasure. Positive emotions make your wishes stronger and bring closer the moment when you reach your dream.

Then you need to enter into a state of relaxation. Choose the time when you will not be disturbed, take a comfortable position, close your eyes and relax. Let your body become light and weightless as a feather, trying to keep your mind calm.

Once you reach a state of relaxation, think of the happiest episode in your life. “Tune in” to the wave of joy and positivity. This will fill your thoughts with the necessary energy.

Now imagine your dream as if it has already come true. You’ve got what you want. Feel the joy and gratitude, and the whole range of positive emotions. Stay in this beautiful state for some time, enjoy it, and then open your eyes.

Congratulations! Your dream is already on the way to implementation. Now let it go easily and freely. Your “order” has already been received by the universe, so let it find the way to implement it.

Your wish must not harm people or the world. If the power of thought will be used for destructive plans, nothing good will come of this.After using this technique, you shouldn’t just sit and wait. Help the higher powers, act and get active in the real world.If you have a big dream to make come true, you should do this exercise more than once. The more creative energy you will manage to give to your wish, the faster it will turn into reality.

View the original article here