Brain Exercises
Here is the article I read last year and referred to yesterday. Simple ways to make yourself far cleverer. It’s based on research at the BBC. Here are the steps involved in training your brain to be cleverer in seven days.
Saturday
Brush your teeth with your ‘wrong’ hand and take a shower with your eyes closed.
Sunday
Do the crossword or Sudoku puzzle in your Sunday paper and take a brisk walk.
Monday
Have oily fish for dinner, and either cycle, walk or take the bus into work.
Tuesday
Select unfamiliar words from the dictionary and work them into conversations.
Wednesday
Go to yoga, Pilates or a meditation class, and talk to someone you don’t know.
Thursday
Take a different route to work; watch Countdown or Brainteaser.
Friday
Avoid caffeine or alcohol; memorize your shopping list.
As you can see, Wednesday is the day you are suppose to talk to a stranger. I actually try to do as many of these as I can each day. Some of them aren’t possible (like the second half of Monday).
If you want to improve your character, read Ben Franklin’s – The Art of Virtue. Franklin had a daily checklist he used to keep track of thirteen different virtues with a focus on one specific virtue each week. Each day he reflected on his success.
Now you can use the Do It Yourself Planner to create your own check sheet.
May 10th, 2007 at 8:45 am
[...] Last night we went to an ice cream social at church. It was an end-of-the-year thing for one of the children’s programs. We have four different Sunday services, so there were a few people that I didn’t know. It was Wednesday; I had to talk to someone I didn’t know. I sat beside someone I knew was a teacher. I won’t go into it, but I can usually tell if someone is a teacher. I started the conversation with, “Where do you teach?” We were on our way. It didn’t take long for him to mention someone that I knew. I know his tech coordinator. [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
For everybody who wants to try out something new in sudoku, try shendoku, using the sudoku rules but playing two people, one against the other, like battleshipps. They have a free version to download at http://www.shendoku.com/sample.pdf . Anything else they are bringing out or they are working on you can find at http://www.shendoku.com or at they´r blog http://www.shendoku.blogspot.com . Have fun, I am. I specially like one slogan I heard about Shendoku: SUDOKU is like masturbation (one person)…. SHENDOKU is like sex (it takes two).