Writing For Mind Expanding

By Samantha Anderson

Did you know that there are ways in which you can expand your mind? You can improve your attention span, your memory, learn faster, improve creativity or even increase your IQ! Our brains are like a sponge always ready to take in more information and learn something new. So why not help our brains get better through some simple techniques that we can do every day?

Writing
When was the last time when you use pen and paper to write something? Technology is slowly taking control over our lives, and unfortunately, this is not necessarily a good thing. Even schools view typing courses as being of utmost importance to their curricula. So many would think that there is nothing wrong if we stop using handwriting. Scientists would disagree.

Some researchers from the Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles did an experiment and showed the differences between the students who wrote and those who typed their notes during a lecture. They were tested on the material half an hour later and a week later. Although all the students did well on the test, there was a difference between the two groups. Those who use writing were able to remember and still explain the overall concept one week after the lecture.

There are so many ways in which handwriting boosts your brain that it would be a pity to give up on the pen and paper. It coordinates the right and left sides of the brain, it boosts cognitive skills, inspires creativity, sharpens aging minds, improves memory and uses more of your brain. So, next time when you have a task of essay writing, for example, use the traditional way instead of your laptop.

Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is an amazing way to organize information especially when you are studying. You place the main idea in the center, and then you draw lines which spread from the main idea. This way you will see the connection between things that you never thought they could be linked. Using this method, you will store information in the long-term memory. Those who used mind mapping said that the method helped them organize their thoughts, better understand their problems and find solutions, better communicate with other people and make new connections that they did not see before.

Brain games
Games are fun, challenging and their boost your brain power. The frontal, temporal and parietal lobes are related to different kinds of mental tasks. Through games, you can improve these areas and lead to faster and better thinking. Your brain is like a muscle, that is why you have to train it every day. If you do not use your neuron network, your brain will think that it is not needed anymore and it will shut it down. As a result, your mind power will start to decline.

When it comes to games to improve your mind power, you have many options such as doing a crossword, jigsaw puzzles, Sudoku, chess, brain yoga or board games with your friends and family.

Thinking and observation
If you observe people's behavior, reactions, and body movements, you will be able, in the end, to observe their mindset as a whole. You will start to find similarities in the way people think and after some time you will start to have an intuitive feeling about the emotional states and thoughts of the people around you. This is called emotional intelligence. You will also improve your psychological skills and be able to detect intentions and lies.

Critical thinking is the ability to judge correctly when you find yourself in a situation when you have to agree or disagree with an action, argument or belief. Critical thinking involves logic, fairness, clarity and other skills. If critical thinking is connected to logic, so the left side of your brain, lateral thinking is connected to creativity, which is the right side of your brain. Lateral thinking is also called thinking outside the box, which means solving problems creatively and finding solutions which are not visible from the beginning.

As you can see, there are many ways to boost your mind and improve it. You can use all these techniques every day, without any effort. No matter if it's writing, games, thinking or observing, they all have their benefits on your mind.