It may just me… But I truly enjoy those proud moments when I finally get to “OH!” or “AHA!” Those eureka moments definitely come with a little boost to the self-esteem and confidence. But getting there can be a long and strategic road of problem-solving to get across that threshold of uncertainty.

Gestalt theories to get to an “Aha!” moment it boils downs to a two-step process. To start, you must “represent” the problem in the mind. Then reorganize the representation you first created. This can involve, mentally forming and reforming different representations of a problem until the right form is chosen. Adding these mental pieces deciphering out the parts of the problem is the Gestalt process to problem solves the most reasonable way to you. Once this method is finally figured out it becomes an “AHA!” moment.

Cite:

Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 4th Edition. [CengageBrain Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://cengagebrain.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781305176997/

This past week I had every symptom of the horrendous head cold; body aches, fever, fatigue, cough, congestion, and memory loss. Yes, that is right, memory loss! Everything that has gone on around me seems to be now a lost memory in my brain fog! I now have a hard time remembering anything that had occurred during the (seemingly) endless sickness, which also includes where I placed my keys!

My infection surely was affecting my attention, which in our text is defined as “the ability to focus on specific stimuli or locations” (Goldstein, 2015, p. 86) and short-term memory, defined as “the system involved in storing small amounts of information for a brief period of time” (Goldstein, 2015, p. 126). I was in a haze or how my children described me, a walking zombie, only capable of maintaining the normal everyday routine tasks but nothing further. It seemed extremely difficult to acknowledge any new information or even remember my name. My poor family, who tried to keep their distance, never truly received a straightforward answer and constantly found random items in the oddest places, i.e., a milk gallon in the pantry. Dr. Andrew Smith has found when cytokines antibodies are doing their job to fight off the “ugly” infection, they can disrupt encoding new information, verbal reasoning, and semantic processing tasks, making short-term memory tasks difficult to remember (Smith, 2012), which surely describes me in my case.

After the flu symptoms started to subside about a week later, I could not believe that a little cold really affected my cognitive ability to remember small things. According to, University of Southampton’s U.K., the immune system’s defenses chemically alters the ability to retain any new information and memories during the duration of the illness. Thankfully, the research has shown that this lack of memory or mental fogginess will subside after the illness has passed (University of Southampton, U.K., 2008). Now, it is time to TRY and remember where my keys are!

Refferences:

Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Conitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experiece (4th Edition ed.). Cengage Learning.

Smith, A. P. (2012). Effects of the common cold on mood, psychomotor performance, the encoding of new information, speed of working memory and semantic processing. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity , 26 (7), pp. 1072-1076.

University of Southampton, U.K. (2008, March 22). Selective effects of upper respiratory tract infection on cognition, mood and emotion processing: a prospective study. The National Center for Biotechnology Information , 22 (3), pp. 399-407.

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Brainteasers, such as the one above, are exercises that are designed to stimulate your cognitive functions, and while brainteasers can be pretty tedious, complex, and entertaining, some all at the same time. They serve to exercise the brain’s cognitive functions.

The reason you were able to make sense of the above sentence was due to top-down processing. Top-down processing refers to how your brain can make use of information that has already been brought into the brain by either from past experiences or stored knowledge (Goldstein, 2015, p. 59). This sentence started to make more sense to you because you have a strong visual system and the knowledge you have in reading.

When you continue to use your cognitive abilities it stimulates your brain and can help improve your ability in executive functions such as problem-solving. This can benefit you long term by generating solutions to a problem much like everyday situations. Over the last 10 years scientists that have found some promising results when improving the cognitive abilities in older adults. By adding mental exercises to the participant’s routines they discovered an increase in their cognitive abilities (Lazer, 2014).

Brainteasers and cognitive exercises can also have a positive impact on attention skills. These particular skills help you focus on specific features and certain thoughts or activities (Goldstein, 2015, p. 402). Certain exercises such as saying the days of the week backwards, or finding the sum of dates, are actions to focus on building up your mental attentiveness and working memory. By working on improving your cognitive attention and focus abilities this can help manage environmental demands for long-term success.

As briefly mentioned before, brainteasers and cognitive exercises can increase your working memory, especially long-term memory. Since age decreases our long-term memory, exercising your brain with simple used of mnemonics can help prevent any delay in mental activity (Beselt, 2013). This tool incorporates verbal and visual memory improvement techniques to create a reference point to a name, title or objects. For example, can you state the planets? If you are like me, you would link what we may have learned in elementary to the order of the planets, “My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets” (yes, Pluto was still a planet when I was in school). This is a simple mnemonic that increases our memory for long-term purposes.

To conclude, continuing the use of the top-down processing in a brainteaser exercise can improve your cognitive ability throughout your life. By doing so, this can utilize your stored knowledge that could improve long-term awareness, and accessing past experiences might also enhance your memory, all of these techniques will provide a fit brain with a strong ability to continue cognitively longer in life.

References

Beselt, M. (2013). How To Improve Your Long Term Memory. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from Improve Memory: http://www.improve-memory-skills.com/long-term-memory.html

Goldstein, E. B. (2015). Conitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experiece (4th Edition ed.). Cengage Learning.

Lazer, K. (2014, January 13). Study finds long-lasting results from brain exercises. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from Boston Globe: http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/01/13/brain-training-can-help-older-adults-stave-off-aging-impairments-study-finds/QTrB2E6UsXB8hYIeMvbJII/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline