Optimize Your Brain: Exercises that Can Help You Learn Faster

In comparison, your brain and your personal computer is very alike. Like a computer, you can tweak its hardware to optimize it's performance. The technique of accelerating the speed of a computer's processor, known as overclocking, can also be applied to your brain. How'd you like to optimize the power of your brain and be able to listen better, read faster, learn quicker, solve problems more efficiently, and more? Here are 4 exercises that you can do to obtain these skills and achieve better brain performance.

Increase the Speed You Interpret Speech

Ever had those times where you were listening to someone who was talking so fast that you couldn't understand them? Have you ever been to lectures and felt that you couldn't fully absorb the information given because the fast pace that the lecturer was speaking at? There's a simple (and even quite passive) way you can solve this common problem. It can be quite fun too.

This exercise will require a music player (either an mp3/CD player or your computer) and a set of headphones. Though you can use your speakers, headphones can be a bit more effective and prevent you from bothering the people around you. You will also need something to listen to. Something with lots of speech or vocals is best. I find that recorded stand-up comedy works the best because there's little to no music in it to distract you and it's entertaining enough that it makes you actually want to do this exercise.

Many mp3 players come with speed settings on them that you can toggle. I own an iPod, which doesn't have the speed setting toggle on it, but if you change the genre of your songs in iTunes to Audiobook mode then you will be able to adjust the speed. Otherwise, you can use the speed changing feature on Windows Media Player and use that to increase the speed.