Mentalrobics®
Stay mentally fit with these daily brain exercises. You will learn how to flex your mind, improve your creativity and boost your memory. Pick your favorite exercises from our daily suggestions and repeat them as desired to enhance your mental capacity. Try to do some Mentalrobics every single day!
Mentalrobics Articles
Daily exercises and tips for improving memory, creativity, vocabulary and stress management.
Flash Cards
When you are trying to memorize something, flash cards can be a very effective way to improve your memory.
Vocab Builder
This vocabulary test is loaded with over 3000 of the most common words found on the SAT and GRE standardized tests.
Mentalrobics Articles
Icebreaker: Chair Swap
Icebreakers are little exercises that help relax tension and loosen up a formal atmosphere in a meeting where you want to have creative ideas and group participation.
Here is an icebreaker for you to try:
Have everyone sit in a circle with one person standing in the middle. There should be one less chair than people. The person in the middle asks a question like "who has a pet dog?" Everyone who does must stand up and switch seats. The person in the middle must also find a seat (sort of like musical chairs). The only rule is that when you stand up, you cannot return to your own chair, nor to a chair right next to you. This is a good way to learn interesting facts about people while having a little fun.
Word of the Day : Unwonted
un-wont-ed
adj. :: Uncommon; unusual; infrequent; rare
"...for though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering." -- Melville, Herman
Get Organized
One of the best ways to improve your memory for every day facts and avoid absentmindedness is to get organized. Disorganized people report more memory problems than people who can easily structure the information that comes to them.
Having a good organizational system in place will ensure that information will not be misplaced, because if you have a specific place for everything, the mind knows exactly where to go to retrieve that information. For example, a disorganized person might throw their keys anywhere in the house. This means that they must remember at all times where their keys are, otherwise the keys become lost. If you are organized and always place your keys on the hook next to the door, then your brain doesn't need to remember where they are because they are always in the same place.
For less tangible information such as phone numbers and dates, you could use a PDA or notebook to keep track of the information. This frees up some mental energy for more creative or productive uses. Once this stuff is written down, you no longer have to expend energy keeping it in your brain.
Tension Headaches
Tension headaches are the most common type of headaches. They usually appear as a dull throbbing pain that can radiate from the neck, back, eyes or head. The exact cause of tension headaches is still unknown, but a common theory is that it stems from muscle contractions around the head, neck and jaw. The brain may misinterpreted this tension as pain.
The most common cause of this type of muscle tension is stress. Many people respond to stress by clenching their teeth or hunching their shoulders. This tension can quickly spread to other nearby muscle groups and caused referred pain. It is not uncommon for back problems to originate in the jaw! The more muscles that tense up, the more likely it will be for a tension headache to develop.
Tension headaches can be treated with over the counter pain medications as well as relaxation techniques such as massage or meditation. Learning how to relax the muscles in your neck, back and shoulders will help your avoid getting tension headaches. The shoulder stretching exercise is one good way to accomplish this.
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