I Need Stimulation!

Your brain wants to play. It needs more activity or else it starts rotting. It will grow stagnant and your brain cells start dying of deprivation of stimulation. It needs stimulation to stay alive. Simple mental tasks can help the brain a lot.

"Simple brain exercise can boost IQ" - NewScientist.

By stimulation it doesn't mean any stimulation. And it is different from entertainment. An activity can be entertaining but not stimulating. For example, when you sit down watching TV, your mind is passive and it is doing nothing. Meanwhile, listening to the radio is more beneficial. Through listening only you need to visualise the situation described, not being spoonfed details by the TV. Here are a few things you should do instead of leaving your brain idle when you are not doing anything.

1. Active Daydreaming (also a form a visualization) - What makes this different from ordinary daydreaming is that you engage all of the possible senses in your daydream. Make them as vivid as possible and include extra senses into the image such as touch, sound, taste and also emotions. This connects different areas of brain which trains your brain more than thinking in abstract and vague images.
2. Active Listening - Listen to music or the ambient surrounding by noticing the layers of sound as well as the tones and rhythm, if possible. This trains your listening skill and it requires only minimum effort. Just relax and actively participate in the environment.
3. Mental Silence - When you are in this state, you have no thoughts in your mind. You are still and have a heightened sense of awareness. This brings a relaxed focus which can recharge the brain very efficiently. You don' t have to meditate to do this. One powerful way of experiencing this is through living in the moment.
4. Singing - Either aloud, humming or just playing songs in your mind, singing is a good way of accessing the memory portion of your brain effortlessly. Not only you trigger the verbal part of you brain as you mutter the words, you are performing a type of memory retrieval. This amount of activity is beneficial to your brain than letting it doing nothing.