This is how to increase your brain power

Your brain is your ultimate Weapon. It’s the only weapon that you have with you for all kinds of situation you may find yourself in. So, it’s only natural to have the desire to sharpen it and make it as powerful as possible. As our brain is the only tool that we have available 24/7 to deal with life’s challenges, empowering the brain through various activities sounds like a good idea.

Let’s say you want to improve upon the current condition of your brain. How do you approach it? To answer that question, first let’s talk a little about the brain itself.

Necessary Information about the Brain

The brain is a relatively tiny part of the body. It only weighs like 3 pounds, but it uses 20% of our total energy consumption.

Therefore, our body is very cautious about making it as efficient as possible. As a Child we are born with many different faculties of the brain, but they wither away as we become adults because, to increase efficiency our brain shuts down or limits resources to the parts of it that we don’t use as often.

Another thing we need to know about the brain is that it’s made solely with fats. And its preferred source of fuel is from ketones.

Okay, now that we have learned a little bit about the brain itself, let us discuss about how to improve its day-to-day functionalities, i.e. focus and cognition.

Foods for a Healthier Brain

Let’s first talk about the foods you need to intake to grow your brain. The old convention was that you are born with a set number of neurons and that you cannot generate any more. But this idea has been debunked and now we know that new neurons grow all the time. Your diet can influence it. The diets that support a healthy brain the most consist mostly of fats; as the brain itself is made from fats. You may want to eat salmon fish oil and nuts and fish rows. Also, a balanced diet where you get all kinds of nutrition is helpful.

The Importance of Sleep

Now let’s talk about the rituals that will boost your brain. These are habits that will enhance your brain’s performance. The first thing you want to ensure is good sleep. Make sure you have a good amount of uninterrupted sleep every day. If you couldn’t sleep one night, then don’t sleep for Two or three hours in the morning. Rather skip sleep completely for that day and get an uninterrupted longer sleep later. Because, when you interrupt your sleep midway, it’s harsh for the brain and the brain thrives when you let it complete its sleep uninterrupted.

How Exercise Boosts Brain Power

The next ritual you may want to incorporate in your daily life is to exercise. Exercise feeds your neurons, helps to grow novel synapses and makes them stronger. Working out will also make you more focused and energetic. Your ability to concentrate and your willpower will also increase. So, it’s a good idea to start your day with a workout regimen.

The Power of Meditation

The next daily ritual you may want to incorporate in your everyday life is to meditate. Meditation detaches you from your monkey brain and lets you see it as is.When you focus in the present moment, it releases unnecessary burden from your brain and lets you think more clearly and see things more clearly.

Tips and Tricks to Enhance your Brain

Okay, now there are some tips and tricks that you can use to help your brain retain all its potential faculties that usually wither away as we don’t use them. One way to do that is to use your left hand as often as you can. Another way to do that would be to learn dancing. And the best and the most holistic way to do that is to think about difficult stuff and take new challenges.

How Ketosis helps your Brain

The last thing I want to introduce is the importance of ketones. We can take our fuel from food in two ways: from glucose with the help of the insulin that our body produces, or from fats through ketosis. Our brain’s preferred mode of getting its fuel is through ketones. And that’s why it’s a good idea to introduce intermittent fasting or ketogenic diets in your life. People with intermittent fasting have reported to have higher focus and concentration and overall better mood.

So, there you go. I hope these are some helpful pointers for you to start building a healthier brain and nurture it properly.

(I must acknowledge the hard work of Dr. Rahul Jandial, What I’ve learned, Barbara Oakley, Impact Theory and Sam Harris. I wouldn’t have the slightest clue about all this if I hadn’t been following them.)

3 Ideas to Make Learning Fun and for Topics to Stick to Your Brain Forever

My Journey Towards Better Learning

(Here’s my video on the Feynman Technique)
Let me start with a story. Couple of month ago, I started to get really interested in learning. So, I went to ‘Coursera’ through their mobile app and enrolled in some courses that I thought I would like to attend. The initial ones were about Finance, Public Speaking, Presentation and Microsoft Excel.

I started a to take all of them in the same time.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve forgot what I learned in the public speaking course. I can barely remember more than 20% of the course. But contrast that to the other three courses where I can easily remember at least 80% of what I’ve learnt.

Can you bear with me for another little anecdote please? Alright. At the same time, I started to study the books assigned by my college. It was fun. The fun part was a big surprise, because I am not much of a student. It’s my 5th semester and this is the first one where I am sitting down everyday to study. I used to not study because it was hard and boring. But now I can learn anything new (even dry topics like Maths and cases related to NPV, WACC etc) and have fun! And also recall them after 2 months without revisions!

What changed? How was I able to do it?

Well, it all started with a lecture from Marty Lobdell as far as I remember. The title of the lecture was- Study less, study smart. “Kind of a click-baity title”- I thought when I first came across it in YouTube. But I was on a mission to learn new tactics about learning itself, so I clicked anyway. And boy did Marty deliver on his promise! These were some of the best advices I had come across in a long time.

Then I came across Barbara Oakley. I listened to her talk at TED and also at Google. Then I saw a lecture of Dr. Jordan Peterson where he explores the idea of more effective learning.

Psychology of Learning: The One Secret That Matters Most

This one tip was endorsed by all the 3 celebrity teachers above. But first all of them go on to create a contrast on recognition vs recollection. You have to understand the difference between them first to understand the secret I’m going to share.

We are naturally good at recognition but not recollection. We can see something today and recognize it after years later. Problem is, this function of our brain doesn’t really serve us. What does serve us is- ‘recollection’. It’s the ability to remember from within. And the way we usually learn makes us suck at it.

What’s worse is we would get to know something, comeback to it after a while and recognize it and be tricked into thinking that we truly know the topic. No. You haven’t truly mastered a topic or skill unless you can recreate it from scratch.

Practice Recollection: The Secret

Don’t use boring and tedious forms of learning anymore. Please. Having multiple skills or acing in all your exam sounds like a fun and worthwhile idea. Then why do we sabotage this by making the acquiring process boring and hard? It’s because we haven’t been taught any better. We know some really bad tricks that barely work and are obviously sub-optimal.

The Better Way

Let me introduce you to the better way. Please try the ideas I present to you for at least a week first. And then decide on their merit. I am telling you this because I’ve given the same suggestion to one of my students and he never tried it. That makes me sad. He keeps trying to memorize the hard way and he forgets often. Which is a pity because I, his teacher, have transcended these limitations that used to bother me so much. Now I can learn having fun and also remember stuff so much more. So don’t make the mistake my student is making. Please try the ideas:

Idea 1: For concepts-

This was also suggested by Nobel prize winner physicist Richard Feynman, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Marty Lobdel and many others.

Just after reading a certain paragraph or topic, shut the book and write what you read, without getting help from any external sources, in your own words. This part is important. you have to write this in your own words. Because that makes your existing thoughts to connect with the new knowledge you’re trying to acquire, and when we can successfully make new thoughts connected to old thoughts, they stick.

Idea 2: For Studying Differences

When studying differences between two topics- imagine in 3D two of your favorite villain and hero (or rivals or teams etc).

I imagine Goku and Vegeta vs Freiza . You must imagine them in 3D and then assign the topics you want to study to them. Then make the subsequent points into their minions, or friends.

For example, I memorized reformulated balance sheet (Balance sheet with a twist for finance students, it’s called reformulated statement of positions) using this technique. I imagined that Frieza was assets, Goku was common stockholders equity and Vegeta was liabilities.

Then I imagined Krillin and Gohan Behind vegeta and assigned Gohan with financial obligations and Krillin with operating liabilities.

Then, I imagined Zarbon and Dodoria as financial and operating assets just behind Freiza.

Goku was on the opposing side of Frieza (assets) and in the same team as Vegeta (liabilities) but Goku was alone and didn’t have any partners.

Remember, You must make them 3D and make the scene believable .. good luck! 🙂

Idea 3: Teach Your Table

Yeah literally. Just after learning a topic .. teach it to someone. If no one is available, teach it to the chair or table in front of you. Teaching makes you find the deficiencies in your understanding and also makes ideas stick.

So Use these 3 tricks next time you study. And let me know how they are working for you! Peace 🙂