This week is Creative Brain Week which celebrates how brain science and creativity collide to seed new ideas in social development, technology, entrepreneurship, wellbeing and physical, mental and brain health across the life cycle.
To celebrate the week, we look at 5 Creative Brain Exercises that will nourish your brain, fill you with well being, and enrich your life delivering a mental healthy cocktail of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin.
Learn a Musical Instrument
Why not introduce the joy of music into your life. Most of us spend so much of our lives listening to music. It is something all of us love and plays such an important role in our lives. So why not learn it! Maybe you want to take your singing out of the shower and into a choir! Perhaps it’s time to replace that air guitar with a real one. Or do you want to impress your neighbours and take up the drums? No matter what it is, introducing a musical instrument into your life is a great way to promote well-being, enhance learning, stimulate cognitive function, improve quality of life, and induce happiness.
Learn a Language
Why not introduce a new language into your life? Maybe you have the cupla focal from school and you’d like to speak it more. Or perhaps you’re planning a holiday to Spain and you’d love to do more than say “Ola” and “Gracias and point at things. Whatever the reason learning a new language is a great way to engage your brain creatively
In fact studies have shown that learning languages has numerous cognitive advantages including increased intelligence, enhanced decision-making and problem-solving and can help in the fight against degenerative cognitive ailments such as dementia.
Learn to Paint
Are you the next Van Gogh? Probably not, but why not unleash your inner artist and take painting lessons. Learning the skills of a paintbrush is a great way to boost your brain and explore the world through different eyes. Painting fosters creative growth, sharpens the mind through conceptual visualization and implementation and relieves stress. Also you get to control the world and re-create it in any way you see fit – what else can give you that sort of power?!!
Learn Creative Writing
In the beginning was the word. Learning creative writing is a great way to exercise your brain. Contemplation and curiosity are vital skills to engage with in creative writing and both are things that can help you engage with the world around you. At its core, creative writing deals with the human experience and there is no higher plane for the brain to explore.
Learn Pottery
There is a tremendous joy to crafting something yourself from raw materials and pottery is a great way to bring an object to life. Pottery has been proved to be of terrific therapeutic potential and can boost and benefit one’s mental health. Moving your hands over the clay, shaping its form can result in a state of bliss, of joy, and discovery.
And yes finally you can get to recreate that scene from Ghost.
In a study published in Art Therapy earlier this year, a group of men and women aged 18-59 had their stress levels measured before and after 45-minutes of self-directed artistic activities. The results revealed that stress levels decreased in 75% of participants after engaging in artistic production.
So take your brain for a walk and get creative!!
Creative Brain Week, a Global Brain Health Institute initiative, kicks off online and in person at Trinity College Dublin from 12 – 16 March 2022. Attend events online or in-person at the Naughton Institute in Trinity College Dublin and hear from Irish and international experts on the subject. Hosted by the Global Brain Health Institute.
Book your free tickets and find out more here.
