Sharpen Your Brain

I picked this up from Minda Super website.

 

4 Exercises To Sharpen Your Brain

Think of your brain as a muscle: It gets stronger with exercise. Your everyday mental tasks are like walking, but how about a real workout? Try these simple exercises to boost your brain power and clear away the fog of forgetfulness.   1. Use your non-dominant hand Tackling new tasks improves brain capacity in younger people and has a restorative effect on mental faculties that are declining. Boost your brain power right now by performing everyday activities with your non-dominant hand. If you’re right-handed, use your left hand to eat, drink, comb your hair, and brush your teeth. Try writing your name with your non-dominant hand or put your mouse pad on the other side of the keyboard. Why does this work? The human brain starts declining after the age of 30 especially in women with each successive pregnancy. By exercising your brain through the use of non-dominant hand, you are stimulating the opposite side of the brain and activating blood flow, which slows down the brain aging process and improves mental capacity. Evidence from functional brain imaging shows that the process of neuroplasticity — the brain’s natural ability to form new connections — can be enhanced by studying new things, especially hand-eye coordinated exercises like developing the use of your non-dominant hand and practicing visualization meditation. For an effective guided visualization that will also increase your years, check out Meditations to Live to Be 100. Stimulating communication between the two hemispheres even helps physical balance. Mind-body exercises like tai chi coach people to use the right and left side of the body equally. Try switching it up in sports. For instance, in tennis, switch the racquet to your non-dominant side and play. 2. Work out your brain You have to use it or lose it! You can work out your mind just like you work out your body. Mental exercises that will keep your brain fit include doing crossword puzzles, playing chess, or memorizing names, shopping lists, and phone numbers. When I was a young boy, to keep my brain function strong, my father had me memorize Tang Dynasty poetry. Every day I had to memorize a new poem and recite it back. Learn the words to a poem or a new song and repeat them back from memory. Set aside the calculator and add manually instead. Keep challenging yourself with tasks that are new to you. Whatever mental exercise you choose, the key to success is to practice every day at the same time; you are developing and activating new neural pathways, and consistent cycles will keep the brain on track. 3. Move your fingers to improve your brain Many people marvel that Asian children seem so intelligent. It could be because they use their fingers more frequently. They eat with chopsticks and at one time, they used to compute with an abacus in school. In fact, some studies have been done with children who use an abacus daily, and findings show that engaging the fingers stimulates nerve endings that go directly to the brain, increasing circulation. Take advantage of this by practicing motor activities that use your fingertips, like crocheting, knitting, and other arts and crafts where you are manipulating small parts. Try playing the piano or a stringed instrument. Here is an exercise you can do anywhere, at any time. Put one finger on top of the one next to it, then try to stack the next finger on top of that. Or hold a pencil or pen between your index and middle fingers, roll it over until it’s balanced between the middle and ring fingers, then again to between the ring finger and pinky. This exercise has a beneficial impact on brain health for anyone at any age, but especially for people in their 40s, 50s and beyond — when signs of brain aging starts to set in. Why does this work? A map of the brain shows that the nerve endings on your fingertips correspond to more areas of the brain than any other body area, except perhaps the tongue and lips. Therefore, finger exercise and movements can be useful in stimulating the neurons in the brain. The National Institute of Mental Health conducted experiments that showed finger exercises enlarged the capacity of the participants’ brains, increased connections between neurons, forged new neural pathways, and increased circulation to the brain areas. The researchers concluded that finger exercise contributed significantly to brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to renew itself. Increased circulation means more oxygen and nutrients for the brain cells and decreased waste products that clog up the brain.   4. Stimulate brain acuity with self-massage To improve concentration and memory try this self-massage that stimulates two easy-to-find acupressure points on your neck at the base of the skull. Cross your hands behind you with the palms cradling the back of your head, your thumbs in the grooves on each side of your neck, and your index fingers crossing one another below the skull, just above the thumbs. Sit in a chair, lean your head back, and let it rest against the pressure of your thumbs and index fingers. Slowly inhale deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth, letting your whole body relax. Do this for three to five minutes. You’ll increase blood flow to the brain and at the same time relax the neck muscles, which often tense up in response to stress, constricting blood vessels in the area. You can find these, and many other brain boosting tips in my new book, Second Spring. I invite you to visit often and share your own personal health and longevity tips with me. May you live long, live strong, and live happy! –Dr. Mao From: http://health.yahoo.com/experts/drmao/

Positive Attitude

     A colleague of mind is retiring tomorrow at the age of 60. He is a Service Delivery Manager and has earned the respect from the people all around. He manages client and meeting with excellent and is always passionate about work. For us, he is the source of inspiration on how to lead life in this ever-changing and high pressured work world. Yesterday, he shared with us his experience in his career for the last 40 years and how he manages to conduct himself in such an excellent manner.

     1) Choose a mentor who you can look up to for guidance and inspiration

     2) Aim high

     3) Learn something new everyday. If you are not able to learn something new, share your knowledge with others so that the education process still takes place

     4) You cannot change history. Don’t regret of what has happened. Whatever happened, has happened. So, you can only learn from history and learn from it.

    5) Treat others the same way you would like to be treated.

    6) In the morning when you wake up, you decide what you want to be today. Maintain positive attitude.

    7) From 7 habits of highly effective people, “Everything is important but nothing is urgent”.

    8) Do the best of what you can in everything you do.

    9) Manage your time properly. Use calendar in outlook effectively to plan on what you want to do that day. So, you get the job done and not distrupted by too many meeting invites.

  10) Life is about growth.

Law of Attraction

    Much has been said about the law of attraction. My favorite law of attraction guru is Joe Vitale. I read his books and his article. In the nutshell, what it says is that like attracts like. What you think, what you wish, what you do,  is what you get. So, if you want people to say good things about you, you must say good things about people. If you want good things to happen in your life, you must think good. Think, be and do in such a manner that you want to be.

       That’s why it is utmost important that you try to get rid of low level energy like anger, sad and frustration. Focus on positive energy and you will attract positive energy. As a result, the outcomes in your life will be good as what you think, be and do. You can virtually attract anything in your life. This sounds like having the genie in the bottle, whatever your command and your wish will come true as a result of the work of the genie. Life in real life is like that (minus the genie) whatever weird it may sound to you.

      Last few weeks, my maid decided to go back to her home country. Her last day at work would be end of June. I needed to look for a maid to replace her, otherwise, I need to send my kids to the day-care center everyday since both my wife and myself are working.  Sending the kids to the day care center is not a good option since it costs us a lot more and when we get home we have to do all the household works.

        I kept saying to my wife that we will get the replacement maid when the time comes. My wife had been busy asking around and looking around frantically but the result wasn’t fruitful. It was either the cost was not right or the prospects turned down the offer after a few communications. She scolded me for not doing anything. I said of course I am doing something, it’s just that I am doing it in my mind. 

       A few days prior to the due date we had not got the replacement maid and my wife was ready for the alternative solution and that is to send the kids to the day care center. I however maintain my focus of getting the replacement maid. I don’t know how to say it but I just knew the new maid would come any other way.

      On the final day which was yesterday, I witnessed one of the best law of attractions at work. In the morning somebody called my wife and said that there is a maid and she is ready to work for us. In fact, she sounded so urgent and asked my wife to come now which was impossible since she was working.

   So, in the evening we went to pick up the maid. So, we finally got the maid that we’ve been waiting for. On top of that, this maid is legal, she fits description of a good maid and it doesn’t cost us a thing. I was extremely happy to see the event unfolded even though at some point it looks like all the hope was gone.  But that’s how the law of attraction works. You maintain your focus and it will come to you effortlessly.