Do the Brain Benefits of Exercise Last?

 

It is well established that exercise bolsters the structure and function of the brain. Multiple animal and human studies have shown that a few months of moderate exercise can create new neurons, lift mood and hone memory and thinking.

But few studies have gone on to examine what happens next. Are these desirable brain changes permanent? Or, if someone begins exercising but then stops, does the brain revert to its former state, much like unused muscles slacken?

The question may be particularly relevant at this time of year, when so many people start new exercise programs. Helpfully, two recent animal studies that were presented at the 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans have taken on the issue and may have relevance for people, though the results are disquieting.

Of the two experiments, the more dramatic looked at what happens to the brain’s memory center when exercise is stopped.

Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil began by allowing half of a group of healthy, adult rats to run at will on running wheels. Rats enjoy that activity and, for a week, they enthusiastically skittered on their wheels. The animals were also injected with a substance that marks newborn neurons in the hippocampus, or memory center of the brain, so that the scientists would be able to track how many cells had been created. Inactive animals, including people, create new brain cells, but exercise is known to spark the creation of two or three times as many new hippocampal neurons.

A separate control group was housed in cages with locked wheels, so that they remained sedentary. They were also monitored for new brain cell growth.

After a week, the runners’ wheels were locked and they, too, became inactive.

A week later, some of the exercised and control rats completed memory testing that required them to find, then remember, the location of a platform placed along the wall of a small swimming pool. (Rats aren’t fond of being in the water, and the platform allowed them to clamber out.) Those with better memories remembered and paddled to the platform more quickly.

The remaining animals completed the same memory test after either three weeks or six weeks of inactivity.

Afterward, the researchers compared the animals’ performance on the memory test, as well as the number of new brain cells in the hippocampus of each group of rats.

They found that, after only a week of inactivity, the rats that had run were much faster on the water maze test than the control animals. They also had at least twice as many newborn neurons in the hippocampus.

But those advantages faded after several more weeks of not running. The brains of the animals that had been inactive for three weeks contained far fewer newborn neurons than the brains of the animals that had rested for only one week. The brains of the animals that had been inactive for six weeks had fewer still.

The animals inactive for three or six weeks also performed far worse on the water maze test than the animals that had been inactive for only a single week. In fact, their memories were about as porous of those of the control animals, “indicating,” the authors write, “that the exercise-induced benefits may be transient.”

The other new study of exercise-induced brain changes found that they were similarly fragile, although this study explored the impacts of exercise on mood.

In earlier experiments by the same group of scientists, from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, rats given access to a running wheel, toys and other types of environmental enrichment were able to use serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in anxiety and other moods, more efficiently. After several months of exercise, the exercised animals became noticeably less anxious and more resilient to stress during behavioral testing. But that savoir-faire dissipated rapidly if they were removed from the cages with running wheels and toys.

In their latest experiment, also presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, the researchers reported that after 10 weeks of running, followed by three weeks of inactivity, the running rats’ brains were almost indistinguishable from those of animals that had never exercised. They had almost comparable levels of an enzyme in the brain that affects the synthesis and uptake of serotonin. It was as if they had never run.

In other words, the brain benefits “wear off quickly,” said Dr. Michael Mazurek, a professor of neurology at McMaster, who oversaw the study. “This is analogous to what happens to muscle bulk or heart rate following exercise withdrawal.”

Gilberto Xavier, a professor of psychology at the University of Sao Paulo and senior author of the study of hippocampal neurons, agrees. “Brain changes are not maintained when regular physical exercise is interrupted,” he said, adding that, “though our observations are restricted to rats, indirect evidence suggests that the same phenomenon occurs in human beings.”

Meaning that the lessons of both studies point in the same direction. For the ongoing health of our minds, as well as for the plentiful other health benefits of exercise, it might be wise to stick to those New Year’s exercise resolutions.

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How to Decrease Your Brain Age

 Edited by TheGreatDeciever, Jaysmomma, Krystle, Tipsy and 16 others

Steps

Part One: Testing Your Current Brain Age

1. 
   
   Check your reaction time. Ask another person to hold a 12" (30 cm) ruler in front of you.
   
   
   • Place your open hand under the ruler and have your tester drop the ruler without letting you know. Catch it when you can.
   • See where you rate (distance passed when caught):
     • Less than 4" (10 cm) = age 20
     • 6" (15 cm) = age 25
     • 8" (20 cm) = age 30
     • 10" (25 cm) = age 35
     • 12" (30 cm) or a complete miss = age 40+
2. Test your balance. Stand up. Raise one leg to the front with your knee bent at a right angle and hold your arms out to the sides.
   • Close your eyes and see how long you can hold this position. Just make sure, especially if you're older, that you have someone there to catch you if you fall or that you have a soft place to land.
   • Check your results (time passed before having to return leg to floor):
     • Over 30 seconds = age 20
     • 20 to 30 seconds = age 30
     • 15 to 20 seconds = age 40
     • 10 to 15 seconds = age 50
     • Less than 10 seconds = age 60.
3. Evaluate your memory. You'll need a partner for this test.
   • Write out a list of 6 different sentences. Have someone else place 2 mixed up letters (and/or symbols) on Line 1, 4 on Line 2, 6 on Line 3, 8 on Line 4, 10 on Line 5, and 12 on Line 6.
   • Read a line and then cover that line up. Write down what you have remember next to the covered up line. Repeat this step until you've gone through each line.
   • Calculate how much of each sentence you remembered correctly and write it down as a percentage. Add all 6 percentages and then divide that number by a total of 6 to get an average.
   • Rate yourself (by percentage correct):
     • 100% = age 20
     • 90% = age 30
     • 80% = age 40
     • 70% = age 50
     • 60% = age 60
     • 50% = age 70
     • 40% = age 80
     • 30% or below = age 90^[2]

Part Two: Sharpening Your Brain With Healthy Habits

1. Pick out foods that feed your brain. Find a balance between food types, keeping processed foods to a minimum and choosing healthy fats, proteins and carbohydrates to fuel your brain.
   
   
2. Choose healthy fats. Here are some things that you can do to increase your intake of good fats:
   • Cook with healthy oils like olive oil and canola oil
   • Add more omega 3 fats by eating foods such as salmon, walnuts and flax seeds.
   • Take a PS supplement. Phosphatidylserine (PS) is a phospholipid found in abundance in your brain cells. Taking supplements of PS and other phospholipids may boost your mood, memory and concentration.^[3][4]
3. Try other supplements. Lecithin granules, ginkgo biloba, niacin, B12, the amino acid pyroglutamate and B5 are also helpful brain boosters.^[5]
4. Eat foods containing B vitamins and Vitamin E. Leafy greens and lean meats are good choices.^[6]
5. 
   
   Eat more plant foods. When you eat a meal, half of your plate should contain either fruits or vegetables.
   • Choose a variety of colorful fruits. For example, combine strawberries, plums, bananas and kiwi. You can also make a fruit salad to serve with a meal or as a meal in itself.^[7]
   • Vary your colors when you eat vegetables. Mix it up by eating sweet potatoes, spinach, black beans and green peas.
   • Fruits and vegetables are good sources of antioxidants. Foods that contain a lot of antioxidants and phenols help to both prevent cell damage and break down special fats that are important to your brain.^[8]
6. Drink more water Your brain consists of 85 percent water. Therefore, for the health of your brain as well as the rest of your body, drink 8 8-ounce (240 ml) of water every day.
7. Avoid foods that age your brain. These include:
   • Baked goods containing white flour and processed sugar including doughnuts, cakes, cookies, pies and pastries
   • Alcohol^[9]
   • Hard cheeses and processed dairy products
   • Sugary foods like soft drinks, fruit drinks and sugary breakfast cereals
   • Creamy sauces
   • Hydrogenated oils and trans fats
   • Mayonnaise
   • Packaged convenience foods and fast food^[10]
8. Exercise your body. After age 25, our taken-for-granted physical health begins to decline, helped along by inactive lifestyles. Physical exercise is important for your brain because it provides much needed oxygen; improved blood flow to the brain helps the growth of new brain cell "branches" (dendrites).^[11]
   • People who exercise have been shown to have denser brains than those who do not. Loss of brain density and volume becomes more prevalent as we age and is a major factor in mental decline.^[12]
   • Weight bearing exercise has been shown to improve levels of serotonin and dopamine in adults, which are two brain chemicals related directly to brain aging.^[13]
9. Practice good sleeping habits. Sleep is a powerful way to combat aging.
   • Research has shown that a regular 8-hour sleep pattern slows age decline and protects people against chronic age-related memory loss.^[14]
   • Go to bed at the same time every night and rise at the same time every morning. Make sure to get 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Your brain will be grateful — and younger — for the much needed consistent and regular recharging.

Part Three: Sharpen Your Brain With Mental Exercises

1. Solve puzzles. Puzzles such as crosswords, Sudoku, trivia games, brainteasers, mazes and word puzzles^[15] are all superb mental workouts.
   
   
2. Memorize sequences of numbers, letters, words or symbols. Do this with a friend so that you can both improve your memory.
3. Play memory games. For example, place different objects on a tray, try to memorize them and then cover them up and repeat what they are. Continuously increase the number of objects you're trying to remember.
4. Play games on your computer. The best games require you to solve mathematical problems quickly. Puzzles that require you to race against the clock are also helpful.^[16]
5. Take advantage of down time. Try to remember chunks of text, phone numbers, lines of printed letters or anything else that you can spot around you.
   • Try to remember things about people sitting near you. Close your eyes and try to remember things about them and check if you got it right (take care not to stare).
   • You can also do this with pictures in a magazine that are filled with action or elements. Stare at a picture for 10 seconds. Then, write down as many things as possible that you can remember about it and compare your recall after.^[17]
   • Become a good storyteller. This is a great way to keep your memories alive and helps you to perceive past events in a positive light, by using the storyteller's technique of finding a moral, a lesson, or a confirmation within the past experience.
6. Read lots of good books. Reading has long been a guaranteed way to keep your brain alert and attuned to new ideas and perspectives.
7. Try something new. "Neuroplasticity" is the term used to explain the brain's ability to reorganize its neural pathways based on a new experiences.^[18]
   • Try a new way of doing something that you've always done. This is a really good way to create new patterns in your brain.
   • Learn a new skill. Learning new skills will continuously push your brain and will give you opportunities to meet new people, sample new experiences and introduce variety into your life. Trying something new can actually help you to "declutter" your brain and remove irrelevant information and replace it with useful information. ^[19]
8. 
   
   Learn a new language. Teaching yourself a new language is one of the most rewarding mental workouts. When you're proficient, you can plan a trip to a country that speaks that language to give yourself a rewarding new experience.
9. 
   
   Try tutoring. When you teach others, you draw on past experiences and apply them in a different way. You will also draw on many problem-solving skills when teaching or tutoring.

Part Four: Decrease Your Brain's Age With Good Mental Health Practices

1. 
   
   Cope with stress. Stress is good for you in small doses because it keeps you on your toes and it helps to remind you that you're alive and need to be careful in certain situations. Excess, pronounced, and never-ending stress typical of our modern way of living, however, kills brains cells and ages your brain faster. To decrease your brain age, reduce your exposure to and intolerance of stress by finding ways that minimize it, ways that work for you. Some ideas include:
   
   
   • Meditating. Meditation is one of the more effective methods for reducing stress in your life and it can be done at home, at work and even while traveling.
   • Taking up a physical activity that releases stress, such as yoga, martial arts, kickboxing or tennis.
   • Learning to be more assertive and to express yourself. Assertive people are better able to state their needs and wants politely but firmly. Expressing yourself clearly and refusing to allow yourself to be used or swayed by others is a good way of keeping stress at bay.
   • Exercising more. Exercise wards off the effects of stress by burning off the stress hormones and chasing away the cortisol that destroys brain cells. Mood improves with exercise too, as noradrenaline is secreted and endorphins enter the bloodstream. These substances give you a lift and help to ward off depression.^[20][21]
2. 
   
   Improve your attitude. Your attitude affects brain activity and influences your mood and emotional state. A positive outlook that allows you to maintain a belief in your value and self-worth will allow you to live a fulfilled life in which your brain remains open to new possibilities. On the other hand, constant negative thinking can easily shut you off from continued learning and growth, which will cause your brain to age faster.
   • Learn to control negative thinking. The first step is to recognize negative thoughts. The second step is to change the thoughts to something more realistic and positive. Changing negative thinking is the same as changing any other bad habit. The more you practice positive thinking, the more your brain will respond.
   • Work on your emotional intelligence. When you have emotional intelligence, you can recognize your emotions, reason with them and use them to enhance thought.^[22] You will be more creative, make better decisions and implement positive solutions to problems. The better you get at mastering your own emotions, the better you'll become at enabling constructive emotions in others as well, which will create more fruitful connections in your life.^[23]
   • Reframe the Past in your mind. While you cannot change the past, you can change your attitude toward it and avoid slipping into a victim mentality. Re-examine events that brought you shame, guilt, humiliation, sadness and fear so that you can let them go and move forward.^[24] You'll decrease your brain age with a better attitude because you'll remove useless, energy-sapping thoughts and replace them with healthier, forward-looking and self-forgiving thoughts that will energize you.
3. 
   
   Do What You Love. People who love what they're doing in life tend to experience a greater sense of purpose and happiness. You may not be in your dream job, activity or relationship, but you can find things to be grateful for in the life you're leading. Mix up work tasks every day and pursue plenty of other activities to add playfulness, interest and fun into your life.
4. 
   
   Give mental exercises 100 percent of your effort. When undertaking mental workouts, be sure to focus and concentrate properly. You won't get benefits from simply going through the motions – you must really throw yourself into doing the mental workout activities with full attention.^[25]

Part Five: Other Tips for Decreasing Your Brain's Age

1. 
   
   Nurture your spiritual self. Whatever your beliefs or lack of them, nurturing your spiritual self or connecting to the awe and wonder of life is an important aspect of keeping your brain young.^[26]
   
   
   • Our brains are wired for spiritual experiences, such as times that we take a holistic approach to our place in the world and seek complete well-being and a sense of purpose.^[27]
   • Practice prayer, meditation, reflection, taking time out or whatever allows you to focus on your spiritual self. This will give your brain the space to make connections and to seek "the flow" of life in which heart, mind, and body all work as one.
   • Nurturing your spiritual self increases your compassion for both yourself and for others, allowing you to connect better with others and thereby enhance your brain functioning.^[28]
2. 
   
   Choose purple to boost your brain. Purple, including shades of violet and lavender, may improve your ability to think and achieve.^[29] Purple is associated with memory, imagination, creativity, wisdom, and strategic problem-solving, so adding more of this color into your life can help focus your brain.^[30]
   • Buy some purple supplies. Buy purple picture frames, office supplies or even a purple cell phone.
   • Surround yourself with purple. Paint your walls purple. Wear purple clothes or accessories and put purple furniture in your thinking zones in your home.
   • Construct a purple visualization board to help you prioritize the most important things in your life.
   • Hang a map of the world inside a purple frame. Stick purple stick-pins into the places around the world that you'd like to visit or revisit.
3. 
   
   Be a social butterfly and build social support networks. A lonely brain tends to age faster and while you don't need to be the life and soul of the party, you do need the lift that regular connection with other people can provide you.
   • Don't just hang people of your own age group, especially if you're older. People tend to think similarly to those they spend time with and "feeling old" is catching
   • Older people tend to prefer to be around people they're most familiar with while younger people tend to enjoy meeting new people and getting to know a wider variety of people.^[31] If you're going to keep your brain younger, think young by mixing up your social contacts and spending time with people in all age groups.
4. 
   
   Go back in time. Thinking about your youth, and of memories you had when you were young, can keep your brain young.
   • In 1979, a Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer created an experiment in which elderly people were sent to live in a house set up as if it were 1959, 20 years earlier. They had to watch 1950s TV, wear clothing from the era and act as if they were living in the '50s. Those who participated in the study displayed improved recall, intelligence and even eyesight. They even appeared younger when before and after photos of them were compared.^[32]
   • A study by John Bargh showed that people who thought about words related to aging slowed down after they did the test.^[33] Aim to think mostly of words relating to youth, vitality, energy, and pep whenever you consider your own age.
   • Seek to see yourself as younger than your biological age. How you think about your age is as important as what you eat and how much you exercise. Much aging is in the mind. If you live and think like a younger person and your brain will definitely cooperate.
5. 
   
   Avoid multi-tasking. Multi-tasking reduces your brain's effectiveness and can cause you stress.^[34] Instead, complete single tasks with greater focus.
6. 
   
   Reduce the time you spend watching TV. Instead, choose pastimes that are more interactive and require brain input. Only use TV viewing as an occasional treat.

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Brainstorming

What this handout is about

This handout discusses techniques that will help you start writing a paper and continue writing through the challenges of the revising process. Brainstorming can help you choose a topic, develop an approach to a topic, or deepen your understanding of the topic’s potential.

Introduction

If you consciously take advantage of your natural thinking processes by gathering your brain’s energies into a “storm,” you can transform these energies into written words or diagrams that will lead to lively, vibrant writing. Below you will find a brief discussion of what brainstorming is, why you might brainstorm, and suggestions for how you might brainstorm.

Whether you are starting with too much information or not enough, brainstorming can help you to put a new writing task in motion or revive a project that hasn’t reached completion. Let’s take a look at each case:

When you’ve got nothing: You might need a storm to approach when you feel “blank” about the topic, devoid of inspiration, full of anxiety about the topic, or just too tired to craft an orderly outline. In this case, brainstorming stirs up the dust, whips some air into our stilled pools of thought, and gets the breeze of inspiration moving again.

When you’ve got too much: There are times when you have too much chaos in your brain and need to bring in some conscious order. In this case, brainstorming forces the mental chaos and random thoughts to rain out onto the page, giving you some concrete words or schemas that you can then arrange according to their logical relations.

Brainstorming techniques

What follows are great ideas on how to brainstorm—ideas from professional writers, novice writers, people who would rather avoid writing, and people who spend a lot of time brainstorming about…well, how to brainstorm.

Try out several of these options and challenge yourself to vary the techniques you rely on; some techniques might suit a particular writer, academic discipline, or assignment better than others. If the technique you try first doesn’t seem to help you, move right along and try some others.

Freewriting

When you freewrite, you let your thoughts flow as they will, putting pen to paper and writing down whatever comes into your mind. You don’t judge the quality of what you write and you don’t worry about style or any surface-level issues, like spelling, grammar, or punctuation. If you can’t think of what to say, you write that down—really. The advantage of this technique is that you free up your internal critic and allow yourself to write things you might not write if you were being too self-conscious.

When you freewrite you can set a time limit (“I’ll write for 15 minutes!”) and even use a kitchen timer or alarm clock or you can set a space limit (“I’ll write until I fill four full notebook pages, no matter what tries to interrupt me!”) and just write until you reach that goal. You might do this on the computer or on paper, and you can even try it with your eyes shut or the monitor off, which encourages speed and freedom of thought.

The crucial point is that you keep on writing even if you believe you are saying nothing. Word must follow word, no matter the relevance. Your freewriting might even look like this:

“This paper is supposed to be on the politics of tobacco production but even though I went to all the lectures and read the book I can’t think of what to say and I’ve felt this way for four minutes now and I have 11 minutes left and I wonder if I’ll keep thinking nothing during every minute but I’m not sure if it matters that I am babbling and I don’t know what else to say about this topic and it is rainy today and I never noticed the number of cracks in that wall before and those cracks remind me of the walls in my grandfather’s study and he smoked and he farmed and I wonder why he didn’t farm tobacco…”

When you’re done with your set number of minutes or have reached your page goal, read back over the text. Yes, there will be a lot of filler and unusable thoughts but there also will be little gems, discoveries, and insights. When you find these gems, highlight them or cut and paste them into your draft or onto an “ideas” sheet so you can use them in your paper. Even if you don’t find any diamonds in there, you will have either quieted some of the noisy chaos or greased the writing gears so that you can now face the assigned paper topic.

Break down the topic into levels

Once you have a course assignment in front of you, you might brainstorm:

• the general topic, like “The relationship between tropical fruits and colonial powers”
• a specific subtopic or required question, like “How did the availability of multiple tropical fruits influence competition amongst colonial powers trading from the larger Caribbean islands during the 19th century?”
• a single term or phrase that you sense you’re overusing in the paper. For example: If you see that you’ve written “increased the competition” about a dozen times in your “tropical fruits” paper, you could brainstorm variations on the phrase itself or on each of the main terms: “increased” and “competition.”

Listing/bulleting

In this technique you jot down lists of words or phrases under a particular topic. Try this one by basing your list either

• on the general topic
• on one or more words from your particular thesis claim, or
• on a word or idea that is the complete opposite of your original word or idea.

For example, if your general assignment is to write about the changes in inventions over time, and your specific thesis claims that “the 20th century presented a large number of inventions to advance US society by improving upon the status of 19th-century society,” you could brainstorm two different lists to ensure you are covering the topic thoroughly and that your thesis will be easy to prove.

The first list might be based on your thesis; you would jot down as many 20th-century inventions as you could, as long as you know of their positive effects on society. The second list might be based on the opposite claim and you would instead jot down inventions that you associate with a decline in that society’s quality. You could do the same two lists for 19th-century inventions and then compare the evidence from all four lists.

Using multiple lists will help you to gather more perspective on the topic and ensure that, sure enough, your thesis is solid as a rock, or, …uh oh, your thesis is full of holes and you’d better alter your claim to one you can prove.

3 perspectives

Looking at something from different perspectives helps you see it more completely—or at least in a completely different way, sort of like laying on the floor makes your desk look very different to you. To use this strategy, answer the questions for each of the three perspectives, then look for interesting relationships or mismatches you can explore.

1. Describe it: Describe your subject in detail. What is your topic? What are its components? What are its interesting and distinguishing features? What are its puzzles? Distinguish your subject from those that are similar to it. How is your subject unlike others?
2. Trace it: What is the history of your subject? How has it changed over time? Why? What are the significant events that have influenced your subject?
3. Map it: What is your subject related to? What is it influenced by? How? What does it influence? How? Who has a stake in your topic? Why? What fields do you draw on for the study of your subject? Why? How has your subject been approached by others? How is their work related to yours?

Cubing

Cubing enables you to consider your topic from six different directions; just as a cube is six-sided, your cubing brainstorming will result in six “sides” or approaches to the topic. Take a sheet of paper, consider your topic, and respond to these six commands.

1. Describe it.
2. Compare it.
3. Associate it.
4. Analyze it.
5. Apply it.
6. Argue for and against it.

Look over what you’ve written. Do any of the responses suggest anything new about your topic? What interactions do you notice among the “sides”? That is, do you see patterns repeating, or a theme emerging that you could use to approach the topic or draft a thesis? Does one side seem particularly fruitful in getting your brain moving? Could that one side help you draft your thesis statement? Use this technique in a way that serves your topic. It should, at least, give you a broader awareness of the topic’s complexities, if not a sharper focus on what you will do with it.

Similes

In this technique, complete the following sentence:

____________________ is/was/are/were like _____________________.

In the first blank put one of the terms or concepts your paper centers on. Then try to brainstorm as many answers as possible for the second blank, writing them down as you come up with them.

After you have produced a list of options, look over your ideas. What kinds of ideas come forward? What patterns or associations do you find?

Clustering/mapping/webbing:

The general idea:

This technique has three (or more) different names, according to how you describe the activity itself or what the end product looks like. In short, you will write a lot of different terms and phrases onto a sheet of paper in a random fashion and later go back to link the words together into a sort of “map” or “web” that forms groups from the separate parts. Allow yourself to start with chaos. After the chaos subsides, you will be able to create some order out of it.

To really let yourself go in this brainstorming technique, use a large piece of paper or tape two pieces together. You could also use a blackboard if you are working with a group of people. This big vertical space allows all members room to “storm” at the same time, but you might have to copy down the results onto paper later. If you don’t have big paper at the moment, don’t worry. You can do this on an 8 ½ by 11 as well.

How to do it:

1. Take your sheet(s) of paper and write your main topic in the center, using a word or two or three.
2. Moving out from the center and filling in the open space any way you are driven to fill it, start to write down, fast, as many related concepts or terms as you can associate with the central topic. Jot them quickly, move into another space, jot some more down, move to another blank, and just keep moving around and jotting. If you run out of similar concepts, jot down opposites, jot down things that are only slightly related, or jot down your grandpa’s name, but try to keep moving and associating. Don’t worry about the (lack of) sense of what you write, for you can chose to keep or toss out these ideas when the activity is over.
3. Once the storm has subsided and you are faced with a hail of terms and phrases, you can start to cluster. Circle terms that seem related and then draw a line connecting the circles. Find some more and circle them and draw more lines to connect them with what you think is closely related. When you run out of terms that associate, start with another term. Look for concepts and terms that might relate to that term. Circle them and then link them with a connecting line. Continue this process until you have found all the associated terms. Some of the terms might end up uncircled, but these “loners” can also be useful to you. (Note: You can use different colored pens/pencils/chalk for this part, if you like. If that’s not possible, try to vary the kind of line you use to encircle the topics; use a wavy line, a straight line, a dashed line, a dotted line, a zigzaggy line, etc. in order to see what goes with what.)
4. There! When you stand back and survey your work, you should see a set of clusters, or a big web, or a sort of map: hence the names for this activity. At this point you can start to form conclusions about how to approach your topic. There are about as many possible results to this activity as there are stars in the night sky, so what you do from here will depend on your particular results. Let’s take an example or two in order to illustrate how you might form some logical relationships between the clusters and loners you’ve decided to keep. At the end of the day, what you do with the particular “map” or “cluster set” or “web” that you produce depends on what you need. What does this map or web tell you to do? Explore an option or two and get your draft going!

Relationship between the parts

In this technique, begin by writing the following pairs of terms on opposite margins of one sheet of paper:

Whole		Parts
Part		Parts of Parts
Part		Parts of Parts
Part		Parts of Parts

Looking over these four groups of pairs, start to fill in your ideas below each heading. Keep going down through as many levels as you can. Now, look at the various parts that comprise the parts of your whole concept. What sorts of conclusions can you draw according to the patterns, or lack of patterns, that you see?

Journalistic questions

In this technique you would use the “big six” questions that journalists rely on to thoroughly research a story. The six are: Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?. Write each question word on a sheet of paper, leaving space between them. Then, write out some sentences or phrases in answer, as they fit your particular topic. You might also answer into a tape recorder if you’d rather talk out your ideas.

Now look over your batch of responses. Do you see that you have more to say about one or two of the questions? Or, are your answers for each question pretty well balanced in depth and content? Was there one question that you had absolutely no answer for? How might this awareness help you to decide how to frame your thesis claim or to organize your paper? Or, how might it reveal what you must work on further, doing library research or interviews or further note-taking?

For example, if your answers reveal that you know a lot more about “where” and “why” something happened than you know about “what” and “when,” how could you use this lack of balance to direct your research or to shape your paper? How might you organize your paper so that it emphasizes the known versus the unknown aspects of evidence in the field of study? What else might you do with your results?

Thinking outside the box

Even when you are writing within a particular academic discipline, you can take advantage of your semesters of experience in other courses from other departments. Let’s say you are writing a paper for an English course. You could ask yourself, “Hmmm, if I were writing about this very same topic in a biology course or using this term in a history course, how might I see or understand it differently? Are there varying definitions for this concept within, say, philosophy or physics, that might encourage me to think about this term from a new, richer point of view?”

For example, when discussing “culture” in your English 101, communications, or cultural studies course, you could incorporate the definition of “culture” that is frequently used in the biological sciences. Remember those little Petri dishes from your lab experiments in high school? Those dishes are used to “culture” substances for bacterial growth and analysis, right? How might it help you write your paper if you thought of “culture” as a medium upon which certain things will grow, will develop in new ways or will even flourish beyond expectations, but upon which the growth of other things might be retarded, significantly altered, or stopped altogether?

Using charts or shapes

If you are more visually inclined, you might create charts, graphs, or tables in lieu of word lists or phrases as you try to shape or explore an idea. You could use the same phrases or words that are central to your topic and try different ways to arrange them spatially, say in a graph, on a grid, or in a table or chart. You might even try the trusty old flow chart. The important thing here is to get out of the realm of words alone and see how different spatial representations might help you see the relationships among your ideas. If you can’t imagine the shape of a chart at first, just put down the words on the page and then draw lines between or around them. Or think of a shape. Do your ideas most easily form a triangle? square? umbrella? Can you put some ideas in parallel formation? In a line?

Consider purpose and audience

Think about the parts of communication involved in any writing or speaking event act: purpose and audience.

What is your purpose? What are you trying to do? What verb captures your intent? Are you trying to inform? Convince? Describe? Each purpose will lead you to a different set of information and help you shape material to include and exclude in a draft. Write about why you are writing this draft in this form.

Who is your audience? Who are you communicating with beyond the grader? What does that audience need to know? What do they already know? What information does that audience need first, second, third? Write about who you are writing to and what they need.

Dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias

When all else fails…this is a tried and true method, loved for centuries by writers of all stripe. Visit the library reference areas or stop by the Writing Center to browse various dictionaries, thesauruses (or other guide books and reference texts), encyclopedias or surf their online counterparts. Sometimes these basic steps are the best ones. It is almost guaranteed that you’ll learn several things you did not know.

If you’re looking at a hard copy reference, turn to your most important terms and see what sort of variety you find in the definitions. The obscure or archaic definition might help you to appreciate the term’s breadth or realize how much its meaning has changed as the language changed. Could that realization be built into your paper somehow?

If you go to online sources, use their own search functions to find your key terms and see what suggestions they offer. For example, if you plug “good” into a thesaurus search, you will be given 14 different entries. Whew! If you were analyzing the film Good Will Hunting, imagine how you could enrich your paper by addressed the six or seven ways that “good” could be interpreted according to how the scenes, lighting, editing, music, etc., emphasized various aspects of “good.”

An encyclopedia is sometimes a valuable resource if you need to clarify facts, get quick background, or get a broader context for an event or item. If you are stuck because you have a vague sense of a seemingly important issue, do a quick check with this reference and you may be able to move forward with your ideas.

Closing

Armed with a full quiver of brainstorming techniques and facing sheets of jotted ideas, bulleted subtopics, or spidery webs relating to your paper, what do you do now?

Take the next step and start to write your first draft, or fill in those gaps you’ve been brainstorming about to complete your “almost ready” paper. If you’re a fan of outlining, prepare one that incorporates as much of your brainstorming data as seems logical to you. If you’re not a fan, don’t make one. Instead, start to write out some larger chunks (large groups of sentences or full paragraphs) to expand upon your smaller clusters and phrases. Keep building from there into larger sections of your paper. You don’t have to start at the beginning of the draft. Start writing the section that comes together most easily. You can always go back to write the introduction later.

We also have helpful handouts on some of the next steps in your writing process, such as organization and argument.

Remember, once you’ve begun the paper, you can stop and try another brainstorming technique whenever you feel stuck. Keep the energy moving and try several techniques to find what suits you or the particular project you are working on.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial.

Allen, Roberta, and Marcia Mascolini. The Process of Writing: Composing through Critical Thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice. 1997.

Cameron, Julia. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. New York: Putnam, 1995.

Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Boston: Shambhala, 1986.

Rosen, Leonard J., and Laurence Behrens. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. 3rd ed. Boston: Allyn, 1992.

University of Richmond Writing Center. “Writer’s Web.” 1 Apr. 2003. <http://writing.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html>.

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Left Brain Exercises

Looking out for some exercises to improve your logical and analytical skills? Then the left brain exercises given in this article are all you need. Have fun!

 

The human brain consists of two parts, the left brain and the right brain. Scientists believe that each part of the brain is associated with different skills and abilities. The left brain is considered to be the side associated with logic, reasoning, numerical skills, writing, and speech. On the other hand, the right brain is associated with drawing, painting, sculpting, and music. In short, the right brain makes you creative and imaginative. Have you heard of terms such as 'left brain people' and 'right brain people'? Well, these terms are used for people with a certain set of skills that are associated with a particular part of the brain. For example, in left brain people, the left brain is dominant and such people are good at activities associated with the left brain. While creativity is mostly inborn, the left brain skills can be acquired with practice. Just go through the left brain exercises given below to know how.

Exercises for the Left Brain

Before we move on to the activities for strengthening the left brain, let us understand how the left brain works and what are the characteristics of people with a dominant left brain. It has been observed that people who have a dominant left brain are logical and consider things as 'part of a whole'. These people have an eye for detail and a strong memory which helps them outshine in professions that require them to think logically and use their memory. Thus, while right brain exercises aim at enhancing your creative skills, the exercises for the left brain, as given below, help improve your linguistic, logical thinking and analytical skills. Meant for kids as well as adults, they are a fun way to exercise your brain cells. So get going!

Write, Write and Write!
This is the best exercise your left brain can get and believe me, it's gonna thank you for it! Writing keeps the gray cells in the left part of the brain working, and the more you write, the better you'll be at it. Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what to write but in case you want me to, then let me tell you that you can begin by writing your very own personal diary in which you can jot down the interesting (and even the not so interesting) events of the day. Reminds you of the new year resolution you made but failed to keep? Never mind, for it's never too late to begin! If jotting down just a few lines everyday leaves you wanting for more, then there's more "territory" to explore. Blogging is one of them and is very popular today, especially microblogging. All you need to do is find a blog on your subject of interest and then pour your heart out! Once you get a hang of it, you can also write for the local print media and receive acclaim for your work.

Solve Puzzles
This is another way to exercise your gray cells and keep them healthy for years. Ever came across people addicted to crossword puzzles? Well, they may not know but they are doing immense favor to their brains. If crossword puzzles puzzle you, then worry not! Simply try your hand at mathematical puzzles such as Sudoku. Begin with the easy ones and once you are able to crack them, move to the higher levels. Also, explore books and other sources for more puzzles. You can work on them in times of boredom and when you feel you deserve a break.

Try Something New
Have you always wanted to learn strumming the guitar but never quite found time to do so? Or, wanted to know how to use a smartphone? Then go ahead and engage yourself in learning all about it. It has been proven that learning a new skill improves brain cell activity in the left part of the brain. You can even go a step ahead and learn an entirely new language. This will provide you with opportunities to learn each aspect of the language, starting with its spelling and vocabulary to its grammar and sentence structure. Just try doing things that are entirely new to you, and challenge your brain. Trust me, your brain simply loves challenges!

Read More and More
Since the left brain is associated with vocabulary and spelling, reading will not only improve and inculcate these skills in you, but also keep your brain cells active. You can read from newspapers, books, magazines or even different websites on the Internet. Reading improves your knowledge on different subjects and makes you more aware of the world around you. Reading fiction is helpful for the right brain as well, because it requires you to use your imagination. The very fact that you are in the midst of reading this article, speaks up for your love of reading. Kudos to you!

Enjoy Playing Word Games
This is one more interesting way to keep your left brain cells from "sitting" idle and engaging them in some fruitful activity. Games like Scrabble help you build your vocabulary and improve your word building skills. Play games that require you to make new words from an existing word or from a definite set of letters. You can make it even more challenging by setting up a time limit for each turn you get to make words. Play the game with your friends for a fun-filled evening!

Now that you are aware of some effective exercises for the left brain, you must have observed that they aren't difficult. So, what are you waiting for? Make time for these simple left brain exercises and try involving your family as well. After all, that's what you need to do for a healthy brain!

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