Feed Your Brain
According to recent research from the University of Virginia (reported at BBC online and mentioned by Steve Gillman on The Brain Power Pages), a great deal of our mental abilities can reach their top potential by the age of 22, and begin to deteriorate at the age of 27… Bad news.
But all’s not lost. Gillman himself has provided tons of advice on maximizing mental capabilities through his website devoted to teaching people how to better use their brains, stimulate their minds as much as possible and more.
We’ve talked before about how learning another languages helps us keep our neurons in good shape. Yes! We’re already on the right track!)
The expert’s “tip of the month” is useful for a lot of people, including translators who frequently spend eight, ten, twelve hours seated in front of the computer… and it never hurts to sharpen our mental abilities.
Sit up Straight!
Posture affects the thought process. You can check this yourself next time right from your chair. Try and perform some math problems in your head while slouched in your chair, head drooped and mouth hanging open. Now, do some mental math while sitting up straight, with your mouth closed and your eyes pointed straight ahead or slightly above your plane of vision. Gillman is a firm believer that it’s much easier the second way and says that if you need to concentrate, you should “close your mouth and sit up straight!”
In my next couple of blogs I’m going to pass along some of Gillman’s tips on improving your memory (if I remember to do so…)