Math and
Memory

In Dr Ryuta Kawashima's "Train your brain: 60 days to a Better Brain," you train your brain by working as fast as you can on simple math equations. Ideally with simple math equations you've already learned the answer in the distant or not so distant past. Rather than figuring our the answers you are using your ability to recall the answers.

For myself I found that I did best when I focused on looking ahead to the next question while allowing my hand to write the answer to the previous question. Rather than "thinking" about the answer I was trusting my subconscious to know the answer so that my hand could write it down.

Looking
Ahead

I came across this "looking ahead" technique because in order to reach the book's gold standard I found that I would have to write continuously without stopping, (the gold standard was something like 90 seconds while silver was 120 seconds...) hence "Looking Ahead" and also hence the conclusion that in this book we aren't so much trying to solve problems as we are trying to recall answers really quickly. The faster we try to do this the more we train the brain.

Flowing

When I looked ahead I got into "a Flow" and afterwards I felt alert and refreshed. Part of flowing was finding a rhythm of looking and doing where each time I felt myself finish writing the previous answer I would advance eyes and hand to the next respective question. "Doing the math" in this way I found that the number of answers I got wrong was pretty similar to when I was taking the time to "think" about the answers.

Put another way either I knew the answers or I didn't. And for those questions where I consistently got the answer wrong I could remedy that by practicing those questions until the answer was a part of me.

Noticing
Patterns

In another brain training program by Martin G. Walker called Brain Fitness Pro, brain training involves noticing visual and aural patterns and when they repeat. Repetition can occur over two intervals, three intervals or more.

This brain training trains short term memory and also challenges the brains ability to filter two channels of information at the same time. You have to use your eyes and your ears.

This is purely a challenge for short term memory and as a way of practicing I've been focused on one channel at a time. I'll practice just listening to the audio clues and then afterwards I try just the visual cues. Suprisingly, I now find that the visual patterns are hard to remember which when I think about it makes sense. When we talk we always "hold" the last few words in our head so that we can "assemble them" meaningfully. So now I'm finding ways to making memorizing the visual sequences easier. And then I'll try to do both at the same time.

An Intellingent
Approach

One of the reasons that I'm going through the above mentioned trouble is because I believe that whether training the brain or training the body we do can approach both "intelligently."

If the idea is to train our brain then why not use the brain to come up with a way to train the brain intelligently. When faced with a challenge, the intelligent thing to do is to break the challenging task down into meaningful components that are easy to tackle. Then once the small parts have been learned individually learn to put them together.

Another aspect of an intelligent or conscious approach is to realize that there are options or that we can create options for training the brain. When we know what those options are we can choose from among them.

Speaking of options, Lumosity also offers online brain training games of different sorts. They even give you a free seven day trial.

Train your Brain
and your Body

The common factor in all of these brain training games is that they only use the brain and not the body. In all of them you need either your computer or in Kawashima's case a book although he also offer's a nintendo version.

What if you could train your brain without needing a computer or a book?

What if you could train your coordination, your proprioception (your ability to feel your body,) your ability to use the left and right sides of your brain, short term memory and long term memory, and also exercise your ability to sense inputs and respond with different outputs all at the same time. What if you could increase your creativity, your ability to think outside of the box or even to create the box that you think within. What if you could develop your ability to sense potential, the ways to do things rather than the reasons to stop, and what if you could balance the sides of your upper body. And what if you could train yourself to think from right to left as well as from left to right and learn how to think from "another point of view."

The Dance of Shiva offers all of these advantages, while exercising the brain and the body at the same time.

For more detailed information on how the Dance of Shiva provides these benefits sign up to the Dance of Shiva email list and learn more. The form is below. You'll get a chance to try out the Dance of Shiva for yourself and you'll also receive a free preview of: "Understanding Consciousness"

You can also click here to check out an introductory video of the dance of shiva.