Tag: Problem Solving Skills

Better Your Brain Performance: Stop IQ Deficiency

You may have personally experienced, or just heard from other people, of the mental boost that they get from smoking. Perhaps, for a short period of time such boost may be true, however in the long run, the effect of the tobacco consumption may be more dangerous to your brain than what you have expected. If you want to better your brains well-being, you have to worry about what affects your IQ.

An Addiction Research Center conducted a research regarding the long-term effects of alcohol on an alcoholics brain functioning. As expected, alcohol was found to be associated with mental problems and lower IQ scores. And as an addition to their findings, they also found out that long-term smoking has an effect on decreased brain power.

The results showed that alcohol has more severe effects on the thinking skills of alcoholic men who have been smoking for quite some time already. It has an adverse effect on memory, problem-solving skills and even the IQ of these men.

Among these alcoholic subjects, cigarette smoking was seen to be related to reduced mental functioning. However, even though the cause and effect relationship between smoking and the decreased mental performance was not clearly established, there are still some things which point out to the fact that cigarettes are the cause to such effect. In order to prove this point, more studies will have to be conducted.

Aside from these bad vices, there are still other things which may cause the reduction of your brain power.

Other Short-term Causes for Poor Thinking Performance

According to some more studies, foods which include artificial food coloring and sweeteners may be bad for the brain, more especially if they are consumed in large quantities. Usually, the children are the ones more affected negatively by these artificial flavorings and colorings. Examples of these kinds of foods are colas, white bread and hydrogenated oils.

The hydrogenated oils may cause the clogging of the arteries, and thus may result to heart diseases. Because of the clogs, it would be harder for the blood to flow to the brain. Artificially sweetened foods are unhealthy as well because they can cause fluctuations in blood sugar levels. These fluctuations may cause short-term brain fogging and even diabetes. Thus, it would be wiser for you to stay away from excessive sugar products.

Aside from these foods, other intangible things are believed to cause decrease of brain power. Personal problems such as egotism may be a factor. Because of egotism, a person may limit his ideas into just one view, which is his own. Because of egotism, he becomes settled with just his original thought and he would think that since his thoughts are more important than others then there is no more need to look at the ideas that come from others.

As you may have noticed, the effects of the bad eating habits as well as the personal problems may just be temporary. Thus, if you stop eating all those junk foods and start eating healthy; and likewise stop being so egocentric, then your brain functioning may just return to its normal performance. Fortunately, these factors affect the brain efficiency temporarily; unlike with alcoholism and smoking wherein the effects really do affect the IQ.

However, despite the effects permanence, the fact still remains that you should take care of your brain. You should keep it healthy all the time by doing things beneficial to your mental health. Whether or not the efficiency of your brain is affected temporarily or permanently, the truth is that it is still harmed for a certain period of time. You should know better, your brain performance should always be at its prime.

Ways to Better Your Brain, Cognitively and Physiologically

When you start forgetting things, you blame your brain. When you don’t feel so good since you stayed up late and drank till 3am, you won’t be working in the office like a sharp instrument. When you don’t even notice what doesn’t work among the solutions you come up with and argue for during meetings, you have to do something about this. When you can relate to all these, you need to better your brain, both in sharpening your perceptions, in improving how you approach problems, in analyzing information, and in adjusting your health, sleeping, eating, and work out regimen.

Your brain is not only like a muscle. It’s also like a 10 year old. It could have started out curious and as you nourish that curiosity and savor the habit of learning more, of seeing relationships among things, of solving problems, you tend to improve the cognitive aspect of your brain.

Problem solving is a good way to keep your brain sharp. Once you get familiar with how your biases clog and impede your way of seeing things, and get some training on problem solving techniques, not only will your stress level go down, you will start to feel empowered. Most people try to avoid problems, but if you’re curious on how to generate solutions to things and to try them out, then problems become opportunities to make things better. The more empowered and capable you feel about your problem solving skills, the better you feel about yourself, the more you become capable of dealing with stress. Consequently, the more capable your observational and analytic skills become, the healthier your brain gets.

So it’s recommended to start researching on problem solving techniques, and see how the many strategies may apply to your various domestic, academic, and work scenarios.

On the other hand, your brain is like a muscle. It atrophies or welts when you don’t use it. Like a plant, It doesn’t grow well when it doesn’t receive the right nutrients. Like a dog underfed and eating trash, it limps and gets sick easily.

There is also a social and self-affirming positive outlook about trying to better your brain. It involves spending time enjoying the company of your friends and family, when you can be yourself, and just let it all hang. There’s something spiritually relieving about being yourself, and around the people you’re comfortable with, and whose company you enjoy. This kind of rest is good for your brain, too.

Get some sleep, a lot of sleep. The brain works better when your synapses are healthily firing and your subconscious has had time to sort itself out. This means rest physically and mentally. The more time away from a problem you get the more your mind has time to work on it, subconsciously. It’s always better to approach work problems after a long night’s sleep.

Work out, too, on a regular basis. The more your heart gets pumped and often the more blood circulates throughout your body, and to your brain, bringing fresh supplies of oxygen and nutrients to it. Also, working out brings about increased levels of release of endorphins that make you feel good. It’s no wonder some people become addicted to exercise. Your brain will like it, too. These are just some of the ways to better your brain.