Ever had one of those days where it seemed everything was running in slow motion, you felt constantly behind schedule, and your brain just couldn’t keep up with the demand? I’ve heard the dog days of summer are like that and leave us with a feeling of malaise, but a lot of times it is really a matter of slower brain function known as processing speed. Everyone wants that fastest phone, computer, upload speed, but not many people are willing to put in the time and effort it takes to boost the old cognition. Processing speed is defined as the speed at which the brain maximizes the learning processes for both new and old information flow. How quick are you at remembering details such as your grandmother’s maiden name? The brain has to do several processes to get that information out of “Ye old filing cabinet” of long term memory and access that data for a full load. Are you having trouble remembering passwords quickly or accessing names to link to faces of people you know at a rapid speed? These are all signs of aging and the processing speed slowing down. As the brain ages, the load of information it carries becomes burdensome, and it takes a little longer to think through processes than it did when we were young whippersnappers! So what can be done?
Boosting processing speed is much like preparing for a marathon. You know how to run or ride that bike, but you must train and gradually increase your ability to handle load and speed by practicing that direct skill. You don’t learn to ride a bike and participate in a 50K bike race on the same day. This requires repetitive skill training and endurance training. The same is true for building processing speed in the brain. First, you must know your starting place and then you must train to boost the skill. Getting a starting place can be done quite easily both formally and informally. Formally, getting a measure of your processing speed can be done by getting a cognitive assessment done by LearningRx either digitally or in person, or you can go to a psychologist to have formal testing/diagnostics. Informally, you can measure your own basal skill by a couple of simple tasks. One such task is card sorting. Take a deck of cards and sort into black/red as quickly as you can and time yourself. Another quick measure is by using a listing technique such as naming as many colors as you can in one minute. Then try with another category like naming all the foods you can think of or as many people as you can name. Take an average of these to get your basal, and then divide that by 12. That’s how many items your basal level of rapid naming recall in five seconds is to start. That’s the number you want to beat by naming things in five seconds.
So now, we have our starting point, let’s race against time.
Name five fruits that start with P. ***** Now what’s the third one you said.
Count backwards from 100 by 3s….97, 94, 91….faster now….
Now that I’ve gotten you started, continue working those skills with games like Five Second Rule, Scattergories, Scrabble Slam and apps like Chain of Thought… those are just a few fun ones to add. Enjoy the learning experience and keep challenging your brain. For a super fun time, come join us at LearningRx with our private workouts. We have group events once a month and private individualized sessions of brain boosting power training daily. Give us a call to get your game on!
LearningRx of Shreveport-Bossier 318.797.8523 Come join us in the fun!
Written By Donesa Walker, M.Ed,
Owner of LearningRx of Shreveport-Bossier