Get your brain going and get smart, fast

It all started with talk show host Oprah Winfrey. In an appearance on The Ellen Show in 2020, she revealed a well-kept industry secret and revealed how she – and many of her colleagues – manage to easily remember names and facts for their on-camera interviews. She confessed to practising brain doping.

Small pills, she said, help her concentrate better, improve stress resistance and thinking speed. In addition to gingko, the product she uses also contains vinpocetine, a natural substance found in the small periwinkle. When used as a drug, vinpocetine dilates the blood vessels in the brain. It’s already been tested as a drug for dementia. Thanks in part to Oprah’s advertising on TV, brain boosters like these, also known as nootropics, cognitive enhancers or smart drugs, are now a billion-dollar business.

Yet these anything-but-cheap remedies haven’t been sufficiently scientifically researched or proven. Side effects such as headaches and insomnia are also quite common – as Oprah herself found out. That’s why she swears by another brain-boosting strategy: she has her own brain trainer, Jim Kwik. He not only gives her nutrition and lifestyle tips, but also shows her brain exercises. His services cost upwards of 400 dollars for the average person – and: a lot of time. His programmes last seven to 31 days. It could well be that this is simply a rather expensive placebo effect.

But with the following hacks you can simply put together your own brain booster programme too. They’re free and can be implemented in just a few seconds.

Brain booster 1: laugh more

Laughter has a positive effect on your brain. Laughing doesn’t just relieve the stress that often blocks your thinking by releasing neurotransmitters in the brain. It also redirects your attention away from annoying things that otherwise paralyse you and impair your ability to learn.

Studies show that even the simple act of smiling increases attention and the ability to look at problems holistically. The effect is even stronger with laughter: «In contrast to other emotional reactions, which are limited to certain areas of the brain, laughter activates several regions of the entire brain. People think more broadly and associate more freely and therefore approach problems in a more creative and solution-oriented way,» says Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence.

Brain booster 2: focus on targeted multitasking

Generally speaking, multitasking has a rather modest reputation, because in reality it’s not possible. People admire those who seem to be able to do several things at the same time. However, people often doubt whether they were really fully focused and «on the ball» – and rightly so.

But it’s worth looking at multitasking in a different way. For example, in terms of learning. In the past the prevailing opinion was that people were either right-brained or left-brained but we now know that the dominance of the brain hemispheres depends on the task and not on the person. When you read a book, for example, your left brain hemisphere is very busy with abstract thinking. If you’re painting a watercolour, on the other hand, the right one is active because it’s responsible for spatial thinking and pictorial connections.

In 2013, a research project discovered that one of the main differences between Albert Einstein’s brain and that of your average person was an unusually large corpus callosum. This is the name given to the nerve tract that connects the two hemispheres. Einstein was therefore able to use his entire brain at once to «see» and understand complex scientific and mathematical concepts.

You may not be Einstein, but you can also activate your entire brain: «It’s not just neurofeedback training that works. Targeted, low-threshold multitasking in between everyday activities is a quick solution too,» says Theo Marins, biomedical scientist at the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR). You involve your right brain whilst doing tasks which use the left brain. For example, the next time you’re working on a spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation, put on some music, doodle something or dance some samba with your feet under the table.

Brain booster 3: eat Indian food

There are a lot of foods that help the brain to produce important neurotransmitters and as a result have a positive effect on mental performance. The «brain food lists» on the consumer portal of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection alone range from nuts to blueberries to chickpeas and from vitamin A to iron to sufficient water.

However, turmeric, a spice found in many Indian curry dishes, stands out in particular. «It has been proven to improve memory and cognitive abilities – in just one hour,» says Dr Michelle Schoffro Cook, nutrition expert and author of the bestseller «Boost your Brain Power in 60 Seconds». Her statement is based on several research projects, including a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The double-blind study investigated the effects of curcumin, one of the active ingredients in turmeric, on adults. Just one hour after taking the corresponding dietary supplement, the test subjects showed a significant increase in performance in memory and attention tasks compared to the placebo group.

Brain booster 4: write by hand

With digitisation, handwritten notes are increasingly going out of fashion. The keyboard and display are practical, but you’re not doing your memory any favours by typing instead of writing. Researchers at Indiana University were the first to discover this. You remember content better if you read it on paper and, above all, if you’ve written it by hand beforehand. Since then, their results have been confirmed in other studies many times.

«Taking notes by hand stimulates 'visual note-taking'. Instead of typing blindly, the writer has to think about what is important to write down. And then the key words can be interlinked by boxes, and arrows, and supplemented by small drawings,» says Norwegian neuropsychologist Audrey van der Meer, who led one of the studies on writing by hand. Her test subjects were schoolchildren, «but there are similar effects for adults.»

Writing also requires different cognitive processes than typing. «The complicated movements activate several areas of the brain and this increased brain activity gives the brain more 'hooks' to hang your memories on,» explains van der Meer. «As a side effect, these processes seem to open up the brain for learning.»

Brain booster 5: love your mistakes

At number 15, high up on the list of the 100 most common phobias is: Atychiphobia, the fear of failing and making mistakes. It’s not just unpleasant having this fear, it’s also one of the biggest obstacles to intellectual growth. Avoiding mistakes inevitably leads to people not leaving their comfort zone and therefore not learning anything new.

So it’s time to rethink and learn to love mistakes. Because: «Mistakes are essential for the learning process and failure is valuable. By dealing with it constructively, we achieve intellectual breakthroughs and internalise experiences deeply and permanently,» says William Westney, author of The Perfect Wrong Note.

His tip: «Instead of seeing every mistake as a step towards failure, we should see it on an intellectual level as productive learning. A saying attributed to Thomas Edison helps here: «I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.» Let’s make it our mantra.