Personal development is a process of taking charge and taking care. On one hand, we have to take charge of our time and be responsible for our actions. On the other hand, we have to take care of our bodies and minds through renewal, recovery, and other activities to remain sharp. In order to assess yourself, you have to find activities that match your likes. The activities outlined in this report can help optimize your mind and provide you with a whole new outlook in life.
Problem Solving
Doing any type of problem-solving activity, such as puzzle, riddle or quiz, helps to stimulate your brain, keeping it active. When you engage in these brainteasers, you’re stretching your brain, making it do something that is a bit different from the normal everyday tasks that you take on, allowing it to expand and get some exercise. Don’t keep your brain cooped up forever! Although there is insufficient scientific evidence to suggest brainteasers can significantly improve overall cognitive ability, they can, however, significantly improve the specific activity being practiced. For example, playing a memory-based puzzle game improves your brain’s memory function but not all other brain functions. Just as physical activity keeps your body strong, active problem-solving and mental activity keeps your mind sharp and alert. Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York found that mentally active adults had 75 percent less risk of dementia compared to those who do not stimulate their minds. Like unused muscles, an unused brain can deteriorate, leading to a decline in cognitive capacities. The more you think, the better your brain function. The following are 6 trending brainteaser apps (or Sudoku Alternatives for lack of a better phrase) for you to try, and the best part is they are free.
•Move The Box: A puzzle game to enhance your logical reasoning skills. The concept is to move boxes either horizontally or vertically into groups of three within a limited number of moves.
•Clockwork Brain: This is a great alternative to Sudoku with a twist. You play through a series of puzzle games with time limits. It is a great game for memory and logical reasoning.
•7 Little Words: A puzzle word game that tests your word association skills and creativity. You are given 7 clues where you need to find one word to describe them.
•The Room Pocket: A mystery adventure first-person POV quiz/puzzle game where you need to solve open boxes to move on to the next level.
•Stupidness 2: A funny and unique puzzle game that stimulates your imagination and make you think out of the box.
•Knowledge Trainer: A game similar to Jeopardy. It tests your knowledge and memory on various topics such as science, art, history and much more.
Social Interaction
Socializing is a form of mental exercise that stimulates the brain, keeping you sharp, since the art of interacting with people can be pretty challenging. Scientists believe that the size of an animal brain is correlated with the size of the social groups it interacts with. The human brain evolved partly to engage and solve social problems in nature. Socializing provide opportunities to interact, communicate, and engage. Several scientific studies, including one published by the American Journal of Public Health, explored this concept further where participants were tested to measure cognitive performance and the ones who socialized scored highest in comparison to the isolated participants. The research also showed that participants who maintained large social networks prevented or delayed cognitive decline and reduced their risk of dementia. Having an inadequate social life or being lonely increases the stress hormone cortisol, causes sleep disorders, tissue inflammation, and high blood pressure, among many other side effects, which all affect brain functions in one way or another. Healthy social habits have been associated with longer life expectancies and lower blood pressure, and having no social ties is believed to be a major risk factor for cognitive decline. Several pieces of research found that social interactions improve memory, and are just as effective as traditional mental exercise in boosting memory and academic performance. Social interaction includes outside meetings or having phone chats with relatives, friends, and neighbors.
Travel
If you want to make socializing more exciting, traveling is a great social brain stimulant. Traveling allows you to see new places and explore different things. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “A mind, once expanded by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” You’re not only enriching yourself, but you’re allowing yourself to learn, first hand, what others parts of the world are like when you travel. Whether you’re going somewhere across the country, or in a different country, there is always somewhere that you can go to explore.
Create or Learn Something New
Being crafty not only helps the brain to grow and learn, but it is said that it can ward off ailments of old age such as dementia. By crafting or learning something, you’re letting yourself do whatever it is you want to do, with no limitations. You’re creating an extension of yourself through the projects that you put together. Many scientific pieces of research found individuals who learned music or another language rarely had any poor auditory or memory skills compared to individuals with no such skills.
