Brain Fitness: Keeping Sharp at Work

You can’t expect yourself to perform well on the job unless you pay attention to brain fitness. If you’re starting to wonder about forgetting things, there’s good news. It might not be “senior moments” at all.

Stress and job pressure can cause you to lose or forget things, but you can actually do a few things to prevent brain fog. Our brains are sensitive to many things, and they respond when you take good care of them. Don’t take your brain for granted. Here are three things you need to respect if you rely on your thinking skills in your career.

Use your whole brain
Sharpen your focus
Maintain your motivation

Whole Brain Exercises

While a lot has been exaggerated about right and left-brain people, the truth is we all use both sides of the brain. Only successful colleagues use more of both sides; they don’t ignore one side simply because they prefer the other. Just as we all have problem-solving thinking styles, we all have habitual ways of using our brains.

The right hemisphere of the brain provides more creative and flexible visual and spatial processing. The left is used more in structured, analytical thought processing and focuses on language and symbols. The two sides of the brain are connected by a wide band of cells that passes information to the two sides.

Whole brain thinking uses both processes. To develop whole brain thinking, you can do a number of things:

Try using mind mapping tools
Engage in both mental and physical exercises
Try certain sports like tennis, golf, and dance

When you combine physical movements with structure such as in a dance routine, you engage both linear and non-linear thinking. This will help you boost both your powers of perception and your creative visualization.

In business, whole brain thinking will greatly increase your entrepreneurial potential.” ~ Dr. Jill Ammon-Wexler, How Successful People Think Smart

This makes sense to me. As a golfer, I’ve noticed the combination of creative and perceptive thinking that goes into some of my shots, more or less successfully! I haven’t used mind mapping in a while but I know there are many free mind mapping tools online to help people explore ideas and solve problems.

What about you? What do you do to keep your brain sharp? I’d love to hear from you. You can contact me here or on LinkedIn.