The Number One Way of Giving Yourself a Brain Upgrade

Do you ever feel like your thoughts seem to be stuck in the same patterns? Do you have trouble getting ideas or kick start your creativity? A lot of people feel this way and simply assume it's because their brain is not as effcient as it used to be. Somehow it has already peaked and from now on it's all down hill. You start concidering everything that can go wrong with it and start contemplating giving it a rest and simply accept that your greatest acheivements are behind you. It's not uncommon to hear people talk like this and it makes you wonder if that is the way of nature. I say no, if your brain is not as efficient as it used to be it is because you have let it reach that stage! I have good news for you - science is crushing the myth of stalling brain development and I'll share the number one way of giving yourself a brain upgrade!

What is your view of your brain? Have you ever thoguht about that lump in your head? For many years my view was that the brain evolves until a certain age and after that whatever you have is what you have got to work with. I now have a new image of my grey matter and I love that it has its roots in science!

My new viewr
A few years ago I felt very non-creative, very stuck in old patterns. I was trying to come up with new and brilliant ideas but I constantly fell flat on my face. The more and the harder I tried (and I'm a very persistent person), the worse it got. It was extremely frustrating and it almost made me give up on trying to be creative. This went on for months and sort of became the norm, until one day something had shifted. Suddenly I felt my creativity coming back, my ideas were fresher and somehow making odd combinations were self evident to me. At first I didn't think too much about it, I was just happy my creativity was back. But after a while I became very interested in why I was more creative. What had I done differently?

I started backtracking what I had been doing and what changes I had made. At first I couldn't see anything I thought could explain it. One thing was very different though, I had taken up playing guitar and harmonica again after almost not playing at all for a couple of years. I came to realize that somehow my new efforts in playing music was the source of my new inspiration and creativity. At first I thought it was just the joy of music that made me more creative, but I became very interested and started reading about how the brain works. What I found was that my musical activities were the reaso
I was more creative, but not for the reaso
I first thought. My musical efforts were changing my brain!

What we are talking about is brain plasticity and if you want the real science talk read the following article: The Plastic Human Brain Cortex ( http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144216?jou
alCode=neuro ).

Our brains consists of 10 billion neurons and the way the brain develops is by making new connections between neurons. Whenever you learn something, new networks are forming in your brain and every time you repeat something these connections and networks are strengthened. This is how habits are formed and the reason repetition is the mother of learning.

Branch outr
Oh no, big whoop, learning is upgrading? No, that is not quite where I'm going with this. Think about it, every time you learn something, new connections are made. However if you only learn new things within an area you are very familiar with you will strengthen those neuron networks and basically cement your thoughts and keep you where you are. Your brain is a bit lazy so it will only modify the neuron networks it needs to and that limits the overall benefits of the new knowledge.

Here's the secret - what you really want, if you are looking for a true upgrade, are new networks different from the ones you already have.

Creating these new networks will be more challenging for your brain as it needs to figure out how to connect new neurons with each other to store the new knowledge. You need to give your brain a butt kick and force it to change.

The upgrader
Does it sound like a big task? It can be but it doesn't have to be, and it can be fun too. For the sake of argument I am going to assume that you are not a musician and that you are right handed. Here is how you can begin challenging your brain and get the upgrade:

Learn to play a musical instrument. You don't have to become good but connecting your ear, your eyes and your motor skills is a great basis for forming new neuron networks in your brain.
Practice writing with your left hand. Most of you know how challenging this is and that is exactly why it is such a great exercise.
Did you notice that I didn't ask you to practice anything related to what you normally do (hence my assumptions)? This is the most important aspect of this. You want completely new networks because what will happen is that your old networks will benefit from these new connections and networks, and this leads to you becoming better at what you normally do. More connection, more networks leads to more and better ideas and productivity. It's like you are adding a new co-processor with dedicated buses to your already powerful CPU.

Conclusionr
So, now it's your turn. Choose at least one thing to learn unrelated to what you normally do. My two suggestions above are a good starting point but you can go wild. Practice until you can do it, or at least have improved significantly and you will start noticing improvements in other areas as well. More ideas, more cretivity, more precise movements, greater understanding, the exact benefits are hard to predict but belive me, they will come.

Tell me, what will be your new skill? What benefits are you seeing?