If you can’t relate yet, good for you, and I hope you never do! This article is meant to inspire you to avoid such mental collapse.
No matter what your age, you can benefit from a better brain. And I don’t mean trading your brain in for a new one, although that could be awesome. I mean growing your brain to function better, make new connections and think up creative new ideas constantly. Like there’s weight training and cardio for the body, there must be ways to improve how your brain functions so that everyday tasks like running your online business and finding new ways to make it profitable become like child’s play. At least, that’s what I was hoping to find.
So I started researching the brain, how it works, and what a person can do to improve it. And you know what? You have to be a brain scientist to understand all that stuff. So I took a shortcut – I bought a book by a brain researcher with 20+ years of experience in actively building or growing his brain. The book is called Whole Brain Power, and the exercises he recommends are not what I expected.
The first discovery I made – the brain does grow from nurturing and training it. Second discovery – left-handed people have more brain mass and a more flexible brain structure than right-handed people. You might wonder how they know that: UCLA did a study of 70 pairs of identical twins where one twin was right-handed, the other left-handed, with an average age of 70. The lefties almost invariably had better brains.
Put these two pieces of information together, along with a lot of scientific data I won’t get into, and you find that by using your non-dominant hand to do things like write and play sports, you are growing your brain. Plus, memorization can work wonders, too.
Here’s a tangible example of brain growth: London’s famous black-cab cabbie drivers must store a mental map of London, including 25,000 street names and the locations of all major tourist attractions. Passing the test takes three years of intensive study, and three-quarters of the applicants drop out. When they studied the brains of these cabbies, they found their hippocampus had grown. The longer they spend on the job, the bigger their brains. This and other studies prove you can physically improve your brain if you work at it.
Doing these exercises have side benefits as well. Within 3 to 4 weeks of consistent training, you’ll notice you’re more alert, have greater focus, and improve your attention span. Work will become more accessible, you’ll write blog posts faster, and you’ll begin seeing possibilities in your business that were invisible to you. Plus, your memory will get better; you’ll experience more energy, your chance of getting Alzheimer’s decreases, and other benefits.
So what are the prescribed exercises for growing your brain? I’ll go over some of them briefly.
For explanation, I’m going to assume you’re right-handed. If you’re left-handed, reverse what I say.
Anything that you usually do with your right hand, like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, eating with a fork, etc., try doing with your left hand every day.
Write with your left hand. Get a notebook and write something on the right page with your right hand. Then write that same thing on the left page with your left hand. Using this method, your right hand (left brain) is training your left hand (right brain). If you like, use mirror writing when writing with your left hand. Write from right to left, making the report legible when viewed in a mirror. Leonardo Da Vinci did this, and he was no intellectual slouch.
By the way, it’s no coincidence that Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth were all ambidextrous.
Memorize and recite things forwards and backward. For example, learn to say the alphabet as fastback as forwards. Memorize states or countries in reverse alphabetical order. Memorize long poems, speeches, or monologues. While you’re at it, learn a new language. And memorize number sequences such as the powers of 2 up to 30 or beyond (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, etc.)
Do hammer drills. To start, get a lightweight (1 pound or so) rubber mallet and bounce a tennis ball on it using your right hand. Bounce once and catch, bounce once and catch. When you get good, jump twice and see, then three times, working your way to jumping five times and catching the ball. Now transfer the mallet to your left hand and repeat. Be patient; your brain wants to learn this new skill. Move up to using a golf ball and increase the number of reps. When you can do 100-300 on either hand, place a mallet in both hands and bounce the ball from right to left and back again. Once you can do this successfully for 100 reps or more, get a heavier hammer. It sounds crazy, but the benefits – both to the brain and the body – are enormous. Here’s a helpful video on hammer drills:
Avoid passive stress from television and video games. Do you know how your mom said those things would rot your brain? It turns out she was right.
There’s a lot more, like games you can play and the science behind all of this. I highly recommend you get a copy of the book. It’s called Whole Brain Power: The Fountain of Youth for the Mind and Body by Michael Lavery.
If you’re wondering if all this stuff works, go to chapter 5 and look at the before and after photos of the artwork done by C. Ryan Walsh for the documentary film Brain Dead: The Resurrection of a Video Game Junkie. In 45 days, his artwork went from what I would describe as a 2nd or 3rd-grade level to a 12th-grade level, assuming the 12th-grader had practiced art for 12 years. Mind-boggling.
One last thing – what could you accomplish in your Internet business if you were more intelligent? If your memory was better? If you were more creative? If you had more energy? If you had more concentration and focus?
What couldn’t you accomplish??
No comments yet.