Concentration problems? Poor language? Memory stumbling? We would all like more effective and efficient mental performance, always ready to support us in every situation. But the brain is like any muscle: if it is not exercised, in all its parts, even the least used ones, it ends up weakening and be less efficient.
FIRST online from next weekend it will launch one new initiative for its readers in collaboration with Assomensana, offering innovative products every week mental gymnastics exercises. These are not common games, even if they are fun, but rather one real gym to maintain agility, flexibility and performance at an optimal level brain performance. At the base are the methods developed by the professor Giuseppe Alfredo Iannoccari, neuropsychologisto, professor at the State University of Milan and president of Assomensana,association for the development and strengthening of mental activities.
“Having an efficient mind in terms of mental abilities is like having updated and powerful tools. Especially now that Artificial Intelligence has become our real competitor" says Iannoccari. And as with a PC, mental skills can also be upgraded if the right tools are used.
It will be our brain break, like the coffee break
So, just as you go to the gym at the weekend, Firstonline offers its readers the opportunity to train their brain. As? They will be offered from time to time different types of exercises. “For example, they can also be distributed in 2-3 sessions over the course of the day: a brain break in practice, just like you do coffee breaks” says Iannoccari. “But the great thing is that every time, to develop our skills, they will be enough even just 5 minutes, just long enough to turn on the brain and arouse his interest: then he himself will remain active and continue working in the following hours, in the background, even while we do other things.
A real gym for cognitive skills
“The objective of these exercises is to stimulate, from time to time, all the different areas of the brain” says Iannoccari, “and therefore all the cognitive abilities that they express. So, just like for a gym for the mind, we will go to work on all the districts: we will stimulate caution, concentration, memory (we have more than 20 different types), reasoning, logic, creativity, speed of speech, the speed in processing information, lateral thinking (the ability to solve a problem by breaking out of logical patterns and making both parts of the brain act together), the cognitive flexibility necessary to move quickly from one theme to another, or the ability to abandon a scheme that is not functional and adopt another perspective, the ability to organize and plan.
Skills that everyone has, but which are only partially used. With these exercises we have the opportunity to "improve not only the mental abilities that we are already used to using (for example with our profession), but also those that we do not use normally and which therefore remain behind, thus hindering full efficiency of the brain as a whole” says the professor.
We will obtain a brain that responds better and in less time to various tasks
The exercises, that is culture free (therefore they are totally independent of the level of education) will each time offer a basic scheme to which some variations or "complications" can be applied, so as to have the opportunity to try a simple level first and then try more complex and demanding tasks. “The result is to have a more efficient and successful brain because he answers better and in less time to the various tasks we have to carry out during the day" says Iannoccari who explored the topic in depth in the book "Strategically. Practical exercises for a winning brain”.
They're as fun as regular games, but they're not games
This is something very different and innovative compared to common games out there. The exercises are taken from the Assomensana method, which has a precise scientific basis, developed by Iannoccari. “This method develops and stimulates in a clinical and scientific way the various brain functions that we want to train and therefore differ from common games: the scientific basis of cognitive training also guarantees a good final result, as we have already experienced in many areas, from the corporate one, to the scholastic one, to the clinical one.
