We hear quite frequently that it is possible to help maintain your memory by doing such things as work on crossword puzzles and fill in Sudoku grids. However, there are not a lot of college students doing the crossword in the paper. Instead, more and more, people are far more likely to be online, looking for amusement via the Internet.

The good news is that online games do not necessarily mean brain decay. Indeed, you could actually get a little help boosting your brain power for your university assignments with a little help from the casual games you play online and via Facebook. Recent studies suggest that casual games can actually make you smarter.

A recent study from East Carolina University suggests that casual games could actually enhance your cognitive ability. The study was presented at the Games for Health Conference, held in Boston. After six months, researchers came to the conclusion that casual games were actually helping to increase the smarts of participants. If you want to boost your brain power, here are 10 casual web and facebook games you can play:

1. Bejeweled Blitz: This fun Facebook game is a favorite for many. The idea is to line up jewels, swapping them to make patterns. If you line up three, you get points, and you get even more for lining up four and five in a row. When the jewels are lined up, they disappear, and jewels above fall into the vacated slots, and can make new rows. The real trick is that you have to see how many points you can get in one minute. On Facebook, you can share your scores with your friends, and even have friendly competitions. The game requires you to think quickly, and engage in problem solving. A great game for improving your thought reflexes.
2. Snood: “Fire” blocks adorned with different faces and attempt to make groups of three or more. With Snood, when you hit a face with a matching face, everything that’s touching it disappears, meaning that you can clear out quite a few Snoods in one go. Snoods build up on the bottom, so you have to be careful to make sure that you are clearing them out. Otherwise, you end losing as the wall falls lower. Progressive levels make it more difficult, and the wall lowers faster. Engages problem solving skills and requires analytical thinking. As it progresses, you also need to be able to think faster and faster.
3. Minesweeper: A time sucking classic, Minesweeper requires that you carefully problem solve to avoid hitting a mine and being blown up. Your first couple of moves are always a crap shoot, but once you get beyond that, reasoning skills are needed. You uncover a number on a grid, which tells you how many mines there are surrounding touching that particular square. You have to figure out where the mines are not, and click on those, eventually clearing the area without clicking on a mine. It’s nice to know that this time waster has value for your brain, helping you make significant improvements to your deductive powers.
4. Word Challenge: If you are a wordsmith, you can boost your brain power with help from this fun Facebook game. The object of the game is to see how many words of three or more letters you can form using the letters provided. You get bonus points for using all the letters. You can play against your friends, and compare scores. Includes fun bonus round opportunities to allow you to guess friends names (and see their pictures). A great way to spend some time brushing up on your word skills. Requires fast thinking, creative thinking, and an ability to recognize words. A great way to improve your vocabulary, since you can see the meanings of words you do not know.
5. Blocks With Letters On: A fun anagram puzzle, designed to challenge your ability to make words, and solve problems. select a letter, and then move it to the left or the right. You can’t just drop it in place, though. You have to think about what order to use when creating the word from the give letters. There is a lot of sliding as you work to position the letters so that you can slide them into place to make a word. This game require you to think ahead, and solve problems. On top of that, you need to be able to unscramble the letters to make a word. A fascinating puzzle that can help you increase your thinking ability.
6. Tetris: Another classic favorite, Tetris can actually help you improve your brain. Tetris is one of the most popular casual games out there, an arcade style game that has provided entertainment for years. Now you can play it online. It is possible to play for free. The idea is to adjust shapes so that they fit together to complete rows. You can see what’s next, so it helps you figure out how to place things most efficiently. A great game for problem solving, spatial recognition, geometry skills and thinking ahead. Also, since the falling bricks speed up, it helps to be able to think fast as the game progresses.
7. Factory Balls: With factory balls, you are problem solving in a major way. A box appears, with a picture of the type of ball you need to make. There are pictures of different actions, and you drag the ball to the action, transforming it. Sometimes you need to complete multiple actions in order to properly get the ball to look like it should. Once you have completed your task, and the ball is properly transformed, it goes into the box and you get a new ball to change. Try to empty out your supply of balls as quickly as possible, changing them with precision and skill.
8. Space Invaders: Blow up nasty aliens in order to save Earth — and get a little brain boost. You get points for shooting certain aliens, and for shooting their ships. But you have to be able to avoid getting shot yourself. If you are worried, you can hide beneath barricades, but once they are destroyed, you are out of places to hide. And, of course, you can’t hit any of the invaders if you are hiding behind a barricade. Work quickly to get all the invaders before they get you. A classic game that is simple, yet forces you to think faster as the invaders speed up.
9. Pickies: Build these cute little guys by joining four different parts, with matching colors. You can use bombs to remove parts you do not want. You get extra points for getting more of the same colors. You only have a limited time, though since once the jars with the parts in them reach the top, you are done. Keep making the little guys, until you can’t make any more. A fun one for all ages, it is a good game for kids to play as well. This game requires puzzle solving skills and some creativity. A fun way to challenge your brain, and get a little smarter.
10. Perfect Balance: Stack different shapes on top of each other so that they balance. You can change their position. The idea is to get all of the shapes to remain on the screen, without falling off. The “Harmony” trial includes soothing music, meant to be relaxing. Just listening to the music, and meditating, can help you improve your ability to learn. But, when you stack the objects, you are exercising problem solving skills, since you can decide which order you stack them in. A great game that requires some serious thought.

This post is written by Miranda for The Knowledge MavenTop.

Meditation helps. Meditation heals. And we all know that. But the problem arises when we realize we must meditate but don’t have time enough for that. Get up at seven, quick bath, get ready, breakfast, run for job, return late, parties with friends – everything tires us, and by the end of the day we’re too tired to concentrate on anything. We know meditation will help us relax more, but we don’t have time for that.

This meditation technique is a very simple and easy technique and is subtly a part of almost all types of traditional and ‘commercial’ meditation systems like ‘Art of Living’ and ‘Transcendental Meditation’. You just need to separate twenty minutes from your daily schedule – at a fixed time every day. These twenty minutes must be ‘reserved’ for meditation. No phone calls, no unwanted guests at home, and no worries about works you’ve to do yet. Just meditation.

How to Proceed :

1. Seclude yourself. No one should disturb you for 20-30 minutes. If you are at home or have some roomies, make them responsible to preserve your peace.
2. Sit or lie comfortably in any easy posture.
3. Close your eyes, and take a long-deep breath.
4. Exhale as much as you can – exhale enough to kill yourself – keep breathing out till at least five seconds.
5. Let the air flow in naturally without any applied pressure.
6. Now control your breath. Keep eyes closed and notice how relaxed you are.
7. Now follow following breathing pattern:-
   1. Take a long, deep and controlled breath in counting to four in mind [Inhale]
   2. Hold breath, count to four again [Hold]
   3. Exhale with same count [Exhale]
   4. Hold breath for half the count – here, two counts [Hold]

One count may be somewhere around a second. Keep counting till you can keep track of. Repeat three-four times. Let all other thoughts come and go – they themselves won’t engage you when your concentration would be in controlling your breath.

1. Now increment the counting limit, say five. Repeat the pattern with same count three-four times, and keep incrementing the count limit.
2. Once you feel breath is saturated, stop at the limit. Say, you keep going up till seven (7), and you realize it’s getting harder to hold the breath, decrement it to 6 and continue. Let the process be all natural, and you’ll be guided by your mind itself.

10.  After ten-fifteen minutes, stop counting and let the breathing be instinctive. Your closed eyes will start seeing some soothing color in the dark, which will spread and give you a strange feeling. Notice that, but don’t try to think. Yes, everything will be instinctive.

11.  You’ll observe relaxation and serenity of mind. Let it be. Everything will come naturally.

12.  Once you feel saturated, open your eyes. Don’t get up immediately. Keep sitting quiet and calm. Hold for two minutes and then get up to get back to your chores with more vigor and joy.

Benefits of this Meditation:

This meditation is actually standard traditional Indian method of meditation for beginners and intermediates. It begins with initial states of sitting in postures, and then combines ‘pranayama’ and ‘meditation’. Let us discuss major benefits you’ll encounter.

1. You can reduce your breathing rate from about fifteen breaths a minute to 5-6 breaths a minute, which amounts to reducing the breathing rate by one third
2. Heart rate slows down as more oxygen can be pumped even with less number of breaths. Your blood pressure will be controlled.
3. Body tensions are relaxed and nerves are quieted.
4. Blood circulation improves because of better performance of breathing mechanisms and heart, and lead to improvement in health of inner organs.
5. Functioning of autonomic system improves.
6. Lethargy, fatigue and tiredness vanish.

vii.  Anger, depression and mental evils diminish.

Benefits are too many to point out. In this meditation, there is no one external to guide you. You do it all by yourself and inspiration from inner voice. You can perform it easily whenever you wish.

Last Words

It’d be beneficial if you meditate regularly at a same place at same time every day. Don’t repeat this exercise more than two times a day in the beginning. Keep meditating, stay healthy.

Aditya Joshi is an independent meditation and motivation trainer and controls a facebook page called ‘Personal Guidance’. Join the page to connect Aditya, receive motivational messages, meditation techniques and discuss on related topics with other minds like you.

Let me tell you the story about a single mother with blond hair, let’s call her JR for now. Now JR was at one point on welfare and struggling to raise her daughter. At that point, most people would have told her to give up on her dream of being a writer. But thankfully she did not, and today we know her as J.K. Rowling, author of the famous Harry Potter series. If you’re like me, you love a good success story. We enjoy hearing about people like J.K. Rowling who stayed motivated to achieve their dream.

Of course, you’re not J.K. Rowling.

You’re just some man or woman off the street plugging away quietly at your goals. So let me ask you a question. On a scale of one to ten (with ten being “motivated like a hungry wolf on a piece of steak”), on average, how motivated would you say you feel to do something for your goals on a daily basis? Do you feel like a 10? Or is it more like a 1 (as in, “it’s just too hard”)? If your motivation level feels like it’s being flushed down the toilet, you may be dealing with the crap factor.

What is this crap factor?

I define the crap factor as the things you have to deal with in any endeavor that you would rather not have anything to do with. For example, if you’re training for a marathon and you need to fit in an 8 mile run on Wednesday at 5:30 am before work, there are probably some mornings an 8 mile run will be a part of the crap factor of marathon training. Or if you’re a parent trying your best to ensure your baby grows up into a healthy human being, changing those poopy diapers can quite literally be your crap factor. After all, who wants to change diapers?

And yet realistically, life is not perfect. Life has challenges. Life has a “crap factor” built right into it. But unless you were just born, you probably already know that. So what are some ways to deal with the crap factor? If you can’t eliminate it, how do you at least minimize it so that it doesn’t knock you off the path, especially when you know it’s going to take a while for you to achieve your goal?

Keeping the crap factor in check.

1. Your ultimate objective should be something that you must have. Going back to the parenting example, raising your kid successfully is something every parent “needs” or “must” do. For the most part, no parent ever quit when the going got too tough. Now not everyone is a parent, but you should ask yourself about every long-term goal you set from the get-go, do I really have a burning desire to make this happen? Otherwise, the crap factor may overwhelm you.
2. Prepare for your crap factor. Moms carry extra diapers for their babies. When I was training for a marathon, I always carried a change of clothes and a pair of running shoes in my car so I could head directly to the track after work to fit in a training run. My crap factor was that if I went home, I knew might be too tired or too relaxed to feel like heading out the door again.
3. Surround yourself with the positive on a daily basis. I listen to a motivational speaker every morning at some point – whether I’m in the shower or driving along. When you listen to positive messages consistently, I find it’s much easier to stay motivated. Conversely, when I stopped listening to positive speakers in the morning, I found it harder to stay focused on the positive.
4. Avoid burnout. Rest as you need to. If you live in Western society, the tendency is to have the pedal pushed to the medal all the time. Try to take some time to do something you enjoy that is not related to your goal. This can help refresh you a bit. Even God took the seventh day off after creating the world.

Even the successful have dealt with the crap factor.

I’m going to make the case that every successful person has had to deal with the crap factor at some point along their path. For example, during the Winter 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, American speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno had a slip during a 1000 meter race as he tried to push up to second place. Talk about the crap factor in real-time! But did he give up? No, his mindset was such that he “really had to fight” and he ended up with a bronze medal, making him the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian with seven career medals.

Don’t forget parents. Each year, millions of babies are born across the globe and that’s a whole lot of poopy diapers to change. But children must get raised, so this crap factor must be disposed of, no pun intended.

But let’s say you’ve tried the above four tips and you’re still fighting to stay motivated.

In that case, you can try two things. The first is to take a week off. Yup, that’s right. Don’t think about or do anything related to your goal. Chill out. Relax. Play a round of golf. Then come back to it. I’ve often found that sometimes I’m really just feeling burned out, and I need to dial it back a bit. The second thing to try is to change your strategy. You may just be feeling frustrated at the results you’re seeing or what you’re having to do to reach your goal. Ask yourself – is there a quicker, easier way to achieve this goal? For instance, when I was training for a marathon, I found that trying to run 70 miles in one week was absolutely killing my shins. So I dialed it back to 40-50 miles a week and I still crossed the finish line. In J.K. Rowling’s case, she once got fired from a job that was supporting her and her daughter so she ended up on welfare and continued writing. Her strategy was a forced change, but a change nonetheless. It worked out well, because that book she was writing was the first Harry Potter book, a series which went on to make Rowling millions and millions of dollars.

The good news is you don’t have to be on welfare in order to deal with the crap factor. You may not have achieved as much as J.K. Rowling today, but there’s no reason why you can’t over the long run, especially if you learn how to deal with the crap factor.

Adam Appleson is the founder of ZenTactics, a website that helps child abuse survivors develop practical personal development skills with articles like:

• 7 Tips On How To Motivate Yourself To Achieve Your Own Long-Term Linear Goal So You Don’t Burn Out
• Why Healing the Inner Child Feels Like Ridding Yourself of a 100-Hour Work Week If You’re a Child Abuse Survivor.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

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10 Secrets To Success

The Language of Success

"Glitch" courtesy of Luiza O.S @Flickr

Chances are you've got success on the brain if you're reading this article.  You've set your goals, you're on your way to achieving your dreams.  But they're not coming as fast as you would like.  You're ready for it to all come true right now.  You set a deadline to reach your goal, but it just didn't happen in that timeframe.  And now you feel a little deflated.  Maybe you've even allowed a little doubt to creep in, as you're not sure when (or if) it will ever happen.

You know what a missed deadline tells you?
It's just a feedback mechanism to tell you that your plans and execution of them weren't correct for the timeline you set.  You're not a failure.  You've just produced a result.  It may not be the result you wanted, but don't fret, because sometimes our greatest lessons come from when we get what we didn't want.  Maybe the deadline was too tight.  Maybe your plans weren't sound.

You're not the only one to not reach a goal or hit a bump in the road.
Michael Jordan didn't make his high school basketball team.  Famous author J.K. Rowling was living on welfare when she wrote the first Harry Potter book, the start of a series that went on to make her spectacularly rich.

So what do the champions do during the process of making their dreams come true?

1. Grin and bear it.  You probably didn't want to hear this.  You want to hear me say "you can have it all right now."  Sorry, good self help isn't like a fast food restaurant slogan.  Sometimes there will be times when your energy levels are off or something else happens in your life forcing you to put your dreams on hold for a just a bit.  It's for those challenging times that you have to do your best and tackle all the challenges in front of you.  Yes, you'll have failures along the way but when Michael Jordan he bore the rejection by practicing even more.
2. Take a time-out. You're saying, "what do you mean relax?  How can I relax when I've done everything I can and my dreams still aren't coming true."  Remember, throughout history, the great men and women who changed our world have found their greatest ideas when they were away from their usual routines.  For instance, when he was a teenager, Albert Einstein spent some time in Italy with his parents enjoying the beauty of Italy's Apennine mountains.  It was during this time he contemplated what would happen if a ray of light became imprisoned.  This idea was to be the foundation of his life's work.  So relax.  You never when the idea you need to bridge the gap between your current reality and your dreams will be found.  But sometimes you need to give yourself the space to find it.
3. Assess whether your current plans are realistic. If you've got 4 kids, a full-time job, and a mortgage, it may be hard to start your own business on the side and have it succeed within a month.  Maybe your dreams aren't coming true by the deadlines you set because your deadlines were unrealistic to begin with.   So make new plans and get underway!
4. Get support. If you're starting your own business, is there someone you know who's been down this road who can give you some advice?  Or, if you're trying to fix your life in some way – overcoming an addiction, healing from a painful past, or getting over an ex-lover – maybe you should consider getting a therapist.  Often times, having a sounding board and a supportive ear can make us feel better and even more motivated to recommit to achieving our goals.
5. Play a game called "15 Ways…" This is a little game I like to play whenever I get stuck on how to break through barriers in achieving goals.  Grab a sheet of paper and brainstorm 15 ways you can overcome whatever obstacle is standing in between you and your goals.  For instance, if you feel it's a lack of time, then brainstorm 15 ways you can create more time in your life.  I like using the number fifteen because I find the first five are usually pretty obvious, but the next 10 are usually a bit harder to come up with.  These are where the novel solutions you didn't think about usually reveal themselves.
6. Pick a hero.  Who in your mind is a noteworthy person you would like to emulate in life?  Are they extremely motivated?  Did they overcome tremendous odds to get where they are today?  Tack a picture of them on your wall.  Everytime you feel like it's too hard or you just can't do it, learn to ask yourself what your hero would do.  Now go do it.
7. Go out and execute every day. If you're done with your time out, then commit to doing one thing for your dreams everyday, no matter how small it is.  Taking action keeps you motivated and gives you momentum in achieving your goals.  Well-worn clichés like "genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" still hold water today.

A missed deadline is just a chance for growth.  And it makes for a great story about how you overcame obstacles along the way. Every success story has them.  So why shouldn't you?

Are you a child abuse survivor wondering why you're unhappy?  Then get this free report, Why Are You Unhappy? (How To Create Happiness Through Friendship If You're An Abuse Survivor), written especially for child abuse survivors trying to create happiness in their lives.

Adam Appleson is the founder of ZenTactics, a website that helps abuse survivors develop practical personal development skills with articles like One of the Best Free Natural Remedies for Depression That You Can Do In 10 Minutes Or Less. ]]> http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-use-failure-to-trigger-success/feed/ 18 http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/a-simple-sticky-secret-for-motivation/ http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/a-simple-sticky-secret-for-motivation/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:10:20 +0000 Adam Appleson http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/a-simple-sticky-secret-for-motivation/  

Have you ever had one of those days where it feels tough just to get out of bed?  Now if you’re reading Pick the Brain, it’s a safe bet you already have goals in place, and you’re probably fairly motivated.  But still, you are draaaaaaaagging. 

You get up, head over to the kitchen counter and grab a cup of coffee because you just needed a bit more sleep before the alarm went off.  You accidentally pour too much milk into your cereal and you wonder how you’re going to summon the motivation…