Powerful Exercises for the Brain that Improve Attention
This list is from Chapter 28 of 'Delivered from Distraction' by Hallowell and Ratey. (C)
It says if a person does these 10 minutes a day for 6 months, several kinds of dramatic improvements can occur. (I guess this may work quicker for children?) The key is to stimulate the cerebellum, which we have probably forgotten how to use since we moved indoors, and which constitutes half of our neurons.
1) Position one blank sheet of paper to your right and another to your left; then take a pencil in each hand. Simultaneously draw a vertical line on the right sheet and a circle on the left sheet. Repeat three times, alternating figures on the right and left sheets.
I tried this yesterday walking too, using my hands to draw in the air, but that didn't capture the difficulty of drawing circles left-handed. Also I tried patting my head and rubbing my tummy.
2) Draw a triangle on one sheet while drawing a square on the other. Then switch: draw the square on the first sheet and the triangle on the other.
I found it confusing so I started doing it using a sequence of dots instead of connected lines. I'm really bad at this so far but it's really fun. Also I do the circles in the other direction, or the lines in a different direction. I can do this over and over, it's going to take much more than ten minutes, but i'll have to remember to do it each day.
I paraphrase:
3) circle and triangle
4) two circles and one square
5) two squares and one triangle
6) a triangle on one sheet, a square on the other, and trace a circle on the floor with one leg.
7) one hand a circle, one hand a triangle, then a square with the leg.
8) Triangle with one hand, square with the other, circle with leg. Then switch all.
9) Triangle with one hand, Square with the other, Circle on floor, nod head twice forward and twice backward.
10) Triangle with one hand, square with the other, vertical line with leg on triangle side, horizontal line with leg on the square side.
Then switch all.
These seem incredibly tricky to think of doing
It says if a person does these 10 minutes a day for 6 months, several kinds of dramatic improvements can occur. (I guess this may work quicker for children?) The key is to stimulate the cerebellum, which we have probably forgotten how to use since we moved indoors, and which constitutes half of our neurons.
1) Position one blank sheet of paper to your right and another to your left; then take a pencil in each hand. Simultaneously draw a vertical line on the right sheet and a circle on the left sheet. Repeat three times, alternating figures on the right and left sheets.
I tried this yesterday walking too, using my hands to draw in the air, but that didn't capture the difficulty of drawing circles left-handed. Also I tried patting my head and rubbing my tummy.
2) Draw a triangle on one sheet while drawing a square on the other. Then switch: draw the square on the first sheet and the triangle on the other.
I found it confusing so I started doing it using a sequence of dots instead of connected lines. I'm really bad at this so far but it's really fun. Also I do the circles in the other direction, or the lines in a different direction. I can do this over and over, it's going to take much more than ten minutes, but i'll have to remember to do it each day.
I paraphrase:
3) circle and triangle
4) two circles and one square
5) two squares and one triangle
6) a triangle on one sheet, a square on the other, and trace a circle on the floor with one leg.
7) one hand a circle, one hand a triangle, then a square with the leg.
8) Triangle with one hand, square with the other, circle with leg. Then switch all.
9) Triangle with one hand, Square with the other, Circle on floor, nod head twice forward and twice backward.
10) Triangle with one hand, square with the other, vertical line with leg on triangle side, horizontal line with leg on the square side.
Then switch all.
These seem incredibly tricky to think of doing