6 Hobbies – Science Says – Will Make You Smarter

6 Hobbies – Science Says –  Will Make You Smarter

I am re-publishing this article from Entrepreneur.com.

Although some of the article is hogwash, these are good hobbies to cultivate to increase your use of your capacities. Just like Mr. Miyagi didn’t go and teach karate through karate, these hobbies train specific muscles, specific abilities that are going to be put to good use in a money earning activity later. You can’t effectively learn them then. It is too late to dig a well when you are thirsty.

We are all born with way more capacities than we can use in a lifetime. What makes them capacities that serve us is using them, cultivating them.

You won’t get more capacities this way, but you’ll get a lot happier and a lot better at living life to its fullest.

At the end of the article, I have added one hobby of my own… if you want to be well, physically and emotionally, I recommend that very much.

Here is a list of six hobbies that make you smarter and why.

Play a musical instrument.

Playing music helps with creativity, analytical skills, language, math, fine motor skills and more. While these are all great advantages, some people argue that playing team sports might do as many things. What playing musical instruments does that other activities don’t is strengthen the corpus callosum that links the hemispheres of the brain by creating new connections.

An improved corpus callosum helps with executive skills, memory, problem solving and overall brain function, regardless of how old you are.

Read anything.

The benefits of reading are the same whether you are enjoying Game of Thrones, Harry Potter or the latest issue of the Wall Street Journal. Reading reduces stress, which makes you feel better about yourself, and increases all three types of intelligence — crystallised, fluid and emotional. That helps with problem solving, putting different pieces of knowledge together to better navigate everyday life, detecting patterns, understanding processes and accurately interpreting and responding to other people’s feelings.

At work, this translates into better understanding how to make things happen and better managerial skills.

Exercise regularly.

Occasional exercise alone doesn’t do the trick. Regular exercise is much more effective than hard work-outs every now and then. When exercising regularly the cells are flooded with BDNF, a protein that helps with memory, learning, focus, concentration and understanding. This is also often referred to as mental acuity. It’s missing for most of you…

Some scientists speculate that sitting down for prolonged periods of time has the opposite affect and actually hinders our brain from working as well as it could.

Learn a new language

Forget solving puzzles to improve your memory and learn a foreign language instead. Research has shown that people who are bilingual are better at solving puzzles than people who speak only one language. Successfully learning new languages enables your brain to better perform any mentally demanding tasks. This includes the typical executive skills such as planning and problem-solving.

Additionally, speaking at least two languages positively affects your skill to monitor your environment and to better direct your attention to processes. Many people are told that because executives speak languages, they should learn Spanish or French if they want to move up the ranks. Based on how the brain reacts to learning languages, it might be the other way around. Learning another language might be the last missing link people need to get their brain ready to take on C-level jobs.

Test your cumulative learning.

Many intelligent students in high school and college “cram” for finals and seem to have mastered the topic the day of the big test. The trouble with that is we tend to forget these things quickly because we are rarely, if ever, required to repeat that knowledge in that same way. One reason studying a new language makes us smarter is because it requires cumulative learning. Because we need them over and over again, the grammar and vocabulary we learn is repeated countless times as we improve our foreign language skills.

Apply the concept of cumulative learning to every day life and your work place by keeping track of noteworthy bits of knowledge you acquire. Go through takeaways from recent books, observations during an important negotiation, or keep a small journal with anything that strikes your attention. Start integrating cumulative learning into your self-improvement program.

Work out your brain.

Sudoku, puzzles, riddles, board games, video games, card games, and similar activities increase neuroplasticity. This encompasses a wide variety of changes in neural pathways and synapses that is basically the ability of the brain to reorganize itself. When nerve cells respond in new ways, that increases neuroplasticity, which allows us more ability to see things from different points-of-view and understand cause and effect of behaviors and emotions. We become aware of new patterns and our cognitive abilities are improved.

Considering that neuroplasticity is involved in impairments such as tinnitus, an increased amount can help prevent certain conditions. For instance, people with high neuroplasticity are less prone to anxiety and depression while learning faster and memorizing more.

Meditate.

Take a basic cooking class.

I find that too many of my students don’t cook. But that means you subsist on salads, and restaurant food. Given that my number one recommendation is to stop eating grains, preferably completely, you will need to be able to cook side dishes to go with your protein… or you’ll continue eating bread, chips, all the things that got you dull, dumb, lazy, hazy, and sick. So, please take on cooking, cooking simple dishes. You don’t need to be a chef… just a simple bachelor-type cook, someone who can sautee, boil, stir-fry… Make sure you start with onions, how to chop, how to fry… and then garlic, and then vegetables. If you do it wrong, you won’t eat it. The purpose is to learn a new skill… meditative too.

Now, get busy. Get smarter, and get better. Put some life into your years.

More about changing… but not the mind

seeing the world and yourself differentlyYesterday’s article said that it’s futile to try to change the words, try to change the thought to change you or your life.

And yet, some of the time those programs work. Often? Not at all.

So why do they work, how do they work?

When I look at the examples where something shifted like in my first encounter with hypnosis, I see that the behavior changed. Dramatically.

Were the words that changed? No. Something much deeper. If I want to go out on a limb, I could say that the picture of myself changed.
Continue reading “More about changing… but not the mind”

Conditioned patterns can be stubborn

1598273_1510684609157486_186667503_nI am re-learning to walk. It’s slow going, but muscletest said it would work, so I am practicing.

This morning I got this encouraging email

Hello, It’s Jonathan, just checking in to see how things are proceeding with your new ways of being.

Do you think it looks funny?

Does standing up feel like you’re leaning forward?
Continue reading “Conditioned patterns can be stubborn”

Are you adding good to the bad, hoping the bad will get better?

adding-water-to-the-seaIn almost any endeavor, removing what you don’t want makes more difference than adding something good to the mix.

And although this makes a lot of sense, in spite of it not being common knowledge in self-improvement, you keep on trying to add stuff to your anxiety, to your inability to breathe, to your fear, to your unwillingness or to your listlessness, expecting results, fast and furious.

You are quite stupid, forgive me for saying that. My only excuse for saying that is that I am like you.  I know this is what you do, because I have been observing myself doing the same thing. Continue reading “Are you adding good to the bad, hoping the bad will get better?”

If the twist aka dominant belief removal doesn’t seem to make any difference

you will have to wipe your ass someday

How you do anything is how you do everything!

A client writes:

Do you check to see if the attachment came back or is this something I have to ask to be done.

My answer: I will check everyone

Unless I didn’t remove an attachment properly (rare) it won’t come back.

yours didn’t come back.

He: Would the activators assist in taking action after you pull the dominant belief pattern if they would you could help match an activator to whatever you pulled from each person.

My answer: The activators could only assist in taking action after I pull the dominant belief pattern but wouldn’t do it for you… i.e. you have to wipe your own arse… the activators only make it easier.

Continue reading “If the twist aka dominant belief removal doesn’t seem to make any difference”

How to BE be with anything – the secret path to happiness and power

big-boy-pantiesA few days ago I wrote an article revealing to you that adhering to a “no negativity” concept, you are actually strengthening the ranks of the Dark Side.

At least one reader got the point, and is now attempting to increase her capacity to stay present, to not run away, to not hide, when ugly shows up. And by ugly, I mean all kinds of uglies, selfish, evil, cruel, rude, angry, vicious, terrifying… you know which ones you run most from, don’t you?

I also published an article a week or two ago about being astute. Astute is the ability and practice to tell one thing from another, with precision. To define something accurately. To see things for what they are.

Now, not surprisingly, the two issues are really one issue.

When you turn away, when you run away, when you avoid…

Continue reading “How to BE be with anything – the secret path to happiness and power”

Penetrating the mysteries of existence

ayahuasca offered by a "shaman"There are two kinds of thinkings… or really maybe three.

  1. You grab onto something about what you hear or see, attach it to what you already think you know… and then either go deeper, or not, but definitely not go wider. Most people “think” this way.
  2. This is really the third way: no thinking… lol
  3. This is what I want to talk about in this article… holographic thinking. This is an uncommon way of penetrating the mysteries of existence…

Let’s define what we are talking about.
Continue reading “Penetrating the mysteries of existence”

Osho: Baby, my whole work is to confuse you!

I want to confuse you. Confusion is a high state of consciousness.I haven’t had many people say that I confuse them, 1 probably because to say that is confrontational, and only about 4% of you is confrontational. Not that you don’t think that, but it takes courage and individuality to utter those words, and you don’t have it in you.

What would it take to say those words, without animosity, without anger, without pointing fingers? If you could solve that conundrum for yourself, life would be a lot better, wouldn’t it?

Until the age of about 40, my biggest issue was what to do with my anger. I made up a story, based on accidental coincidences, that my anger kills… and that I am a murderer. Obviously, with that cornerstone of a belief, it was impossible for me to express my anger in a socially acceptable way, so I suppressed, and then I exploded, and I repeated that pattern for 40 years, to my detriment.

I had ulcers, nervous breakdowns, depression, insomnia… not pleasant.

So, for me to learn to be confrontational, confronted and response, confronted and be well, calm and collected, was a huge shift in my being, in the right direction.

Anyway, here is a talk transcribed from Osho, that I think you’ll enjoy. 2

Baby, my whole work is to confuse you!

Click here to continue reading on my Osho blog

The Hammer And The Nail, Or What Is A Pattern-Interrupt?

The Hammer And The Nail, Or What Is A Pattern-Interrupt?

hammer and the nailThe Hammer And The Nail, Or What Is A Pattern-Interrupt?

Imagine yourself having a hammer, walking about in the world… you would have that hammer handy all the time, like a carpenter.

How would the world occur to you?

If you hadn’t gone into your head for an answer, you would have said: hey, I would be looking for nails, after all why carry a hammer around for nothing… right?

But, if you are like the 99% of humanity, you couldn’t resist going into your head, into what you already know, for an answer.

You would have gone for the Tree of Knowledge answer, the RIGHT ANSWER, am I correct? Continue reading “The Hammer And The Nail, Or What Is A Pattern-Interrupt?”