The rise of the coronavirus pandemic nowadays has been unprecedented. The last time a pandemic of this nature occurred about 100 years ago. The advice from almost all public health officials has suggested that people stay inside their homes to try and slow down the virus.
The recommended social distancing has increased stress and anxiety since we are social beings by nature and love to socialize with one another. Hence, why it is just as important to keep our mind busy and active just as it is to keep our body physically active during this difficult time.
We all have all heard the common term “use it or lose” this saying is true when it comes to the cognitive action that happens in our brain. It is said that most people who engage in cognitively challenging activities such as education or learning new skills have more resilient thinking and memory skills.
During work and general social activities, these cognitive activities required to keep our minds sharp are widespread, however, with the lifestyle change due to this pandemic more deliberate actions are required to exercise one’s brain.
Exercise Your Mind By Playing Games And Doing Math
One of the best ways to keep our mind active and sharp is by playing what you can call “brain games”. These sorts of games will stimulate your brain and help it to recall all types of knowledge it has been trained to learn over the years. By doing this we keep our brain involved and active.
Here are some other general games or exercises to keep our minds active:
- Crosswords: These games exercise our memory recall function by trying to fit letters to complete words by using pre-described clues and number of letters. One must ensure that the word properly fits within the number of spaces allowed.
- Sudoku: These puzzles are some of the most popular ones out there that exercise the numbers part of our brain. The goal is to use the existing pattern of boxes to fill in the blank numbers from 1 to 9. This can be good for improving concentration and the ability to carry out tasks quickly.
- Scrabble: Playing scrabble improves memory function since you have to recall words and place them on the board. Scrabble is more relaxing than the previous games because every once in a while you might run into funny situations where people put down funny words or words that do not make sense. Scrabble can be played online with many friends enabling one to still enjoy a social aspect from it.
- Math Games: Math games focus on getting the numbers part of your brain working. The professionals behind SigFigCalculator.org state that Math has always been one of the best brain exercises as there is almost no end to how challenging the problems can be. The best part, there are now tools online in the form of abstract calculators that quickly help us graph or figure out even the toughest mathematics problems fairly quickly. These are extremely useful if you ever find yourself in a pickle, or just want to check if you solved one right. Try to open up an old mathematics textbook where you can perform those difficult calculus or algebra exercises in the past, or simply go through several online math games available such as Shaving Equations.
- Chess: Modern chess has been played for hundreds of years, it can help one use their brain to strategize and try to be one step ahead in terms of their thinking. Chess requires high concentration and planning and engaging our most logical side of the brain.
Learn New Skills
With the lockdown that has occurred, a lot of us are forced to stay home for many hours. Now is the best time to be active and learn something new that will help us achieve our overall goals.
Just imagine all the opportunities that you have at your disposal from online courses available through websites like Coursera, Udacity, and Lynda to keep your brain active and always learning. You can choose to learn various skills such as photography, cooking, publishing a book, marketing, project management, programming, design software, or different languages, amongst other things.
Additionally, if you feel that you have time in your hands and are an expert at a certain skill, these programs will also allow you to be connected with thousands of people trying to learn that skill in which you are an expert in and will allow you to teach a skill to other people. These activities will surely keep your brain functioning during the large amount of downtime that you have as a result of the lockdown.
Final Words
The bottom line is that focusing on your brain health is one of the best things one can do to improve their memory, focus, concentration, and mental capacity no matter their age. By incorporating different brain exercises from simple things like playing familiar games such as crosswords to solving challenging math problems your cognitive skills will be sharpened.
It is very important that you establish a general routine and always keep busy from the time that you wake up to the time that you go to sleep. It is also very important that you incorporate fun activities along with at-home physical exercise because and wherever possible if allowed to go out you should be going out for daily runs or walks. All of these will surely provide an enriching experience for your mind.
