CREATIVITY and MEMORY

Exercising Your Brain

Nancy Anderson, a neuroscientist at the Iowa Carver School of Medicine, suggests that to build a more creative brain, do one or more of the following for at least 30 minutes a day (my suggestions in italics):

1) Explore an unfamiliar area of knowledge.

For example if you are creative or “right-brain” oriented, explore logical information such as math or science; if you are “logical”, listen to music or explore art

2) Spend time each day thinking.

Sounds like a mute point as people would offer that they spend most of their day thinking. This suggestion refers to building thinking pathways that may not be currently related to your career. It’s much like those people who would say that they get exercise everyday walking around the office. Thinking, like exercise, needs its own time and focus.

3) Practice the art of paying attention.

Too many things distract us these days from cell phones to family. As a result, we miss things that could be important or at least helpful. Read the adventures of Sherlock Holmes or watch classic “who-dunnit” dramas. It will refresh your mind’s eye and sharpen your powers of observation. Leonardo da Vinci is remembered centuries after his death because of his powers of observation.

4) Use your imagination.

We have allowed ourselves to become passive recipients of entertainment. Buy some kid’s toys like Leggos or board games like Stratego to practice imagination.

Anderson suggestions for nurturing creativity in children include:

1) Read with your child everyday

2) Emphasize diverse topics of study

3) Encourage curiosity

4) Get children interested in music

Creativity and thinking are skills that need “exercise.” They don’t respond well to “turn-on immediately” demands. For learning to occur, new skills and information must be integrated into everyday use. Just like learning a new word everyday: if you don’t use it, you lose it.

(For more from Anderson, read USA Today, 08/29/06)

Memory

Turning off the TV and reading or doing puzzles are the keys to better memory say researchers in Australia and reported in USA Today. Over 30,000 people were studied and it was concluded that people who watch one (1) hour or less of TV per day, performed significantly better on memory tests. In addition, those people who reported doing puzzles scored higher on tests such as memorizing shopping lists and recalling names.

It will be interesting in the future to see how these results compare to Internet use instead of TV. You would suspect that as the Internet is becoming a passive entertainment medium that the results will be the same. But, gaming is popular and interactive requiring skills such as strategy and decision-making, so future generations may have better memory.

For now, turn off the TV and refer to the suggestions above to stimulate creativity and thinking. The collateral benefit will be better memory!

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