Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential.
- Solve puzzles and brainteasers.
- Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.
- Embrace ambiguity. Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.
- Learn mind mapping.
- Block one or more senses. Eat blindfolded, wear earplugs, shower with your eyes closed.
- Develop comparative tasting. Learn to properly taste wine, chocolate, beer, cheese or anything else.
- Find intersections between seemingly unrelated topics.
- Learn to use different keyboard layouts. Try Colemak or Dvorak for a full mind twist!
- Find novel uses for common objects. How many different uses can you find for a nail? 10? 100?
- Reverse your assumptions.
- Learn creativity techniques.
- Go beyond the first, ‘right’ answer.
- Transpose reality. Ask “What if?” questions.
- SCAMPER!
- Turn pictures or the desktop wallpaper upside down.
- Become a critical thinker. Learn to spot common fallacies.
- Learn logic. Solve logic puzzles.
- Get familiar with the scientific method.
- Draw. Doodle. You don’t need to be an artist.
- Think positive.
- Engage in arts — sculpt, paint, play music — or any other artistic endeavor.
- Learn to juggle.
- Eat ‘brain foods’.
- Be slightly hungry.
- Exercise!
- Sit up straight.
- Drink lots of water.
- Deep-breathe.
- Laugh!
- Vary activities. Get a hobby.
- Sleep well.
- Power nap.
- Listen to music.
- Conquer procrastination.
- Go technology-less.
- Look for brain resources in the web.
- Change clothes. Go barefoot.
- Master self-talk.
- Simplify!
- Play chess or other board games. Play via Internet (particularly interesting is to play an ongoing game by e-mail).
- Play ‘brain’ games. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or countless others.
- Be childish!
- Play video games.
- Be humorous! Write or create a joke.
- Create a List of 100.
- Have an Idea Quota.
- Capture every idea. Keep an idea bank.
- Incubate ideas. Let ideas percolate. Return to them at regular intervals.
- Engage in ‘theme observation’. Try to spot the color red as many times as possible in a day. Find cars of a particular make. Invent a theme and focus on it.
- Keep a journal.
- Learn a foreign language.
- Eat at different restaurants – ethnic restaurants specially.
- Learn how to program a computer.
- Spell long words backwards. !gnignellahC
- Change your environment. Change the placement of objects or furniture — or go somewhere else.
- Write! Write a story, poetry, start a blog.
- Learn sign language.
- Learn a musical instrument.
- Visit a museum.
- Study how the brain works.
- Learn to speed-read.
- Find out your learning style.
- Dump the calendar!
- Try to mentally estimate the passage of time.
- “Guesstimate”. Are there more leaves in the Amazon rainforest or neuron connections in your brain? (answer).
- Make friends with math. Fight ‘innumeracy’.
- Build a Memory Palace.
- Learn a peg system for memory.
- Have sex! (sorry, no links for this one!
) - Memorize people’s names.
- Meditate. Cultivate mindfulness and an empty mind.
- Watch movies from different genres.
- Turn off the TV.
- Improve your concentration.
- Get in touch with nature.
- Do mental math.
- Have a half-speed day.
- Change the speed of certain activities. Go either super-slow or super-fast deliberately.
- Do one thing at a time.
- Be aware of cognitive biases.
- Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. How would different people think or solve your problems? How would a fool tackle it?
- Adopt an attitude of contemplation.
- Take time for solitude and relaxation.
- Commit yourself to lifelong learning.
- Travel abroad. Learn about different lifestyles.
- Adopt a genius. (Leonardo is excellent company!)
- Have a network of supportive friends.
- Get competitive.
- Don’t stick with only like-minded people. Have people around that disagree with you.
- Brainstorm!
- Change your perspective. Short/long-term, individual/collective.
- Go to the root of the problems.
- Collect quotes.
- Change the media you’re working on. Use paper instead of the computer; voice recording instead of writing.
- Read the classics.
- Develop your reading skill. Reading effectively is a skill. Master it.
- Summarize books.
- Develop self-awareness.
- Say your problems out loud.
- Describe one experience in painstaking detail.
- Learn Braille. You can start learning the floor numbers while going up or down the elevator.
- Buy a piece of art that disturbs you. Stimulate your senses in thought-provoking ways.
- Try different perfumes and scents.
- Mix your senses. How much does the color pink weigh? How does lavender scent sound?
- Debate! Defend an argument. Try taking the opposite side, too.
- Use time boxing.
- Allocate time for brain development.
- Have your own mental sanctuary.
- Be curious!
- Challenge yourself.
- Develop your visualization skills. Use it at least 5 minutes a day.
- Take notes of your dreams. Keep a notebook by your bedside and record your dreams first thing in the morning or as you wake up from them.
- Learn to lucid dream.
- Keep a lexicon of interesting words. Invent your own words.
- Find metaphors. Connect abstract and specific concepts.
- Manage stress.
- Get random input. Write about a random word in a magazine. Read random sites using StumbleUpon or Wikipedia.
- Take different routes each day. Change the streets you follow to work, jog or go back home.
- Install a different operating system on your computer.
- Improve your vocabulary.
- Deliver more than what’s expected.
Readers’ Contributions
- Dance! (by Shanel Yang)
- Study Philoshophy and the writings of great thinkers. (by ZHereford)
- Be around people that are smarter than you. (by Angel Cuala)
- Use ‘brain fitness’ software. (by Eric Blue)
- Read text upside down (the text, not you… well, you can try that, too). (by Thales)
- Act in a stageplay. (by Thales)
- Practice ‘environmental creativity’. Keep asking yourself questions like “What does this mean?” and “How can I use this?”. (by Chuck Frey)
- Use a reverse clock. You can buy one or make your own. (by Brendan Dunphy)
- Take an improvisation class. (by Patricia Ryan Madson)
- Pun! Play with words. (by David Lurey)
- Do It Yourself: Create or repair things without the aid of paid professionals. Repair, sew, cook, build, weave, paint, etc. (by b.honey)
- Teach someone something you know. (by Usiku)
- Help a child with their homework. (by Usiku)
- Provide thoughtful comments on blogs and websites. (by Usiku)
- Discuss religion and politics, even with friends. (by Usiku)
- Teach yourself origami. (by Pamela)
- Learn to knit or crochet. (by Pamela)
- Shop at a market different from the usual. (by Pamela)
- Think of something you fear. Work to conquer it. (by Pamela)
- Play bridge (or other card games). (by millie)
- Practice Yoga. (by Rajesh)
- Learn martial arts. (by Chirou)
- Study the concepts of Relativity (both General and Special). (by Tim)
- Practice echolocation (sense objects by hearing echoes from those objects). (by Tim)
- Help and immigrant learn your language. (by Ray)
- Translate articles (by Remigiusz Durka).
Note: Thanks to everybody who translated this article! Caruso (Spanish), Tommaso (Italian), Eylos (Turkish) and Remigiusz (Polish). (Anyone else I’m missing?) - Eat raw foods. (by Carlos Caridad)
- Remember childhood and imagine living it with your current experience. (by Janine)
- Imagine how would you survice in a different epoch (say, 5000 years go). (by Mel Smith)
- Play role-playing games (RPG) (by FreeMasons)
- Treat life’s challenges as social experiments (by Michael Gaudet)
- Eat with chopsticks. (by Tore)
- Crawl backwards, walk up steps backwards. (by Meribela)
- Make mistakes! (by Marc)
Contribute your own tip!
There are many, many ways to keep our brains sharp. I’m sure you have your own personal favorite, so please share it in the comments! I’ll regularly compile the best tips and add them to this list (giving full credit, with a link to your site, if you have one). Thanks!
THE most amazing article ever.
Thanks, Great article. Well done.
Thank you for the tips on how to increase our mental efficiency to perform work, in my years of experimenting on the mental performance, i have noticed your mental performance is also contributed to the type of environment you stay, and it’s something that you do everyday, if you don’t use it you lose it!
Thank you!
great article! i’ve also found he new pzizz product to be very
helpful with sleep and a great nights sleep really helps me
out a lot throughout the day, check it out at
http://www.pzizz.com
I think brain storming or developing creative skills enhances your mind power. I am an educator and one of my subject is teaching drawing, art and crafts to children of age 4 to 5 years. I have experienced that learning or teaching origami/ paper craft is a unique and effective way of developing creativity and definitely it helps you boost your mind power. Those who are interested in developing creativity, can check my posts about the topic at:
http://alearnersdiary.blogspot.....creativity
unleashed your brainpower by doing these every day. give a good time or best preparing time.
1. faith in Jesus Christ with inferiority to Him.kneel n adore Him in faith
2. praise n pray n ask for that talents
3. read Gospel, n try to understand it (especially newtestament, psalm n proverb)
4.keep faith n do right life
5. then learn n do what book said like: Tony Buzan Book n prescription above.
Here’s what I do:
Ask a child a question, then think about the answer.
Really neat stuff. This ought t5o be taught in elementary school.
Benjamin Koshkin
You are right!!
I wholeheartedly agree, Benjamin!
Actually, there’s a lot of things that should be taught in school, a couple of them quickly come to my mind: financial education, relationships education, visual thinking, and oh so many others!
It seems that the most useful skills in life are just ignored by school — it’s a shame!
My upcoming book, Concise Learning, tries to address this need by capturing the 13 essential skills of success as easily read mind maps for students. Check it out at http://conciselearning.com/sos.html (click on the SOS boxes to get a preview of the skill components).
Hey Toni,
That book of yours looks very interesting! Would you give us a shout back here when the book is available? I’m sure many Litemind readers will be interested in it once it comes out!
My best advice for releasing your innate brain power is doing physical excercises on a regular basis. I realized it when I did not do such things and it really hampered my performance at work.
Great list.
I’d add: become a self-directed learner. We all need to take control of our learning and make it a lifelong priority.
multitask.
Think about two different things at once. Many people are used to thinking about only thing/issue at once. Frequently thinking about two different issues without letting one train of thought affecting the other wires up uor brain in that way and makes it easier eventually.
Also,
The quality of our sleep is probably one of the most important factors. Drinking tea/coffee or taking other stimulants like cigarettes/gum 5-6 hrs before going to bed makes us take longer time to fall sleep and also decreases the quality of deep sleep which is the most important phase of the sleep cycle.
Alcohol also affects the quality of deep sleep.
I stressed on sleep because no matter how many things we do to improve brain power
if our sleep is bad it ruins everything.
And a person should fill his stomach only upto 80% while eating, no matter how hungry one is. A full stomach diverts more blood away from the brain to the digestive system.
An article listing foods which help mental performance and foods which affect mental performance should also be featured.
MyWay will Boost Your Brain Power…….
Brain is most power full thing we have… I don’t think so these ideas will work completely…b’coz it is very complicated…
Tips:
Keep peace full mind: sit at floor…your back should be straight and see a burning candle in peace full room. You will that you are getting power then your brain boosted.
Get a pet. Try to teach it some tricks.
This list could easily be reduced to one principle: Do constructive things that you normally don’t do.
The ability to reduce a list of 121 things down to one: now that’s brainpower.
If people really had the ability to do that, then these tips wouldnt have been necessary in the first place
This list is nothing but those constructive things….
Thanks for posting this, I really need it. Really great tips to boost your brains memory.
Practice Image Streaming invented by Win Wenger. It is documented that Image Streaming can improve IQ with practise.
Use brainwave entrainment to train brainwaves to specific frequencies in order to inhabit specific states like the peak performance state.
Also dual n-back exercises are very helpful, many consider them the best.
And listen/read good jokes…. as laughter makes us alert…..kinda like coffee
Set your digital watch to military /24 hr time.
Something that has always increased my brain functionality is working with Programming as a hobby and doing anything with science it has vastly increased my way of thinking not to mention my math aptitude in general went from a C student in Advance algebra to straight A student in Pre-Calc thanks to learning a little logic from working with programming.
1. Learn English and Arabic (Simple) Calligraphy.
2. Learn annotating skills & standards.
3. Learn proofreading skills & standards.
4. Learn more about your religion.
5. If your religious, memorize your holy book (i know many religions do this).
I’ve seen a lot of similar articles recently but this is really one of the best.
So, in a nutshell what this article is saying to do is things out of the norm to oneself so that their brain is stimulated?
Yes.
Are 19 and 32 not the same?
Are 19 and 32 not the same? (Of the “Readers’ Contributions”)
Yes — I removed the second item now. Thanks for letting me know!
these are really good ideas, and thanks for sharing …
I,d follow them..
and more than all, there are more ideas from the readers, this page makes the readers to think and unleash the power of their brain. Good job.
Just reading this post will increase your brainpower.
I heard when I was younger, you get a wrinkle in your brain when you learn something new. Thanks for 120 new wrinkles!
Keep being a blessing,
Ron