I regularly get asked questions about how to think faster. This question is not correct. There are different types of thinking, and their speed varies greatly.
The fastest thinking is visual thinking . It uses our brain's ability to pre-process visual information.
Visual thinking does not work according to the principle: “I thought - I decided”, but according to the principle: “I saw - I realized.”
This is important for all animals. When an animal jumps out from behind the bushes, you need to instantly decide: it is an attacking tiger or a fleeing hare. Therefore, visual thinking works instantly.
No wonder they say: “It’s better to see once than to hear a hundred times.” Therefore, it is recommended to start analyzing the situation with visual analysis. This will dramatically increase your thinking speed.
Let's look at the speed of other types of thinking.
Reaction: what is it and what affects it?
What affects the speed of the reaction?
On the decline:
- Fatigue
- Alcohol and drugs
- Negative emotions
- Visual appearance of the stimulus
To increase:
- Positive emotions
- Tactile and sound stimuli
People with the fastest reaction speed:
- Japanese secretary Miit makes 100 stamps in one minute.
- The fastest shooter in the world, J. Mikulek, fires 5 shots from a revolver in half a second.
- The Japanese Maximum solves a Rubik's cube in 12.5 seconds.
How to think faster - an effective technique
Have you ever had moments when you thought very quickly and easily? When did a solution or answer practically come to mind without any effort? I think yes, everyone knows this feeling. There are other situations when the head is overloaded, and you don’t want to think about anything, and thoughts drag on very slowly, as if they were stuck in a cobweb.
These two different states are familiar to everyone. The first is when your brain is alert, and your mind is full of energy, trained to think correctly, and free from unnecessary noise and unnecessary thoughts. At this point, you acquire the ability to think quickly. The second state is when the brain is tired and the mind is cluttered and lazy.
In the first state, you can solve any questions at all, come up with a solution to any problem in one fell swoop, write a book or a painting, create a new miracle of technology, instantly come up with the right answers in an important conversation, and you can do anything. But the second state is completely unproductive and needs to be gotten rid of. How often do you experience this very first state? Do you want it to be with you always? Do you want to learn to think quickly not only in moments of inspiration, but every time you need it? Let's figure out how to think faster.
How to learn to think quickly
Preparation
First you need to understand how everything works. The speed of our thinking and decision-making depends on the brain and the state of the nervous system. From here we conclude that in order to think very quickly, we must first put our body and psyche in order.
What does it mean?
- We should feel cheerful and full of energy. After all, the brain consumes 1/3 of the total energy of our body for its work. Where can I get it? Healthy sleep , at least 8 hours a day, will help you here Moreover, it is advisable to create the correct daily routine, go to bed and wake up at the same time. Generally speaking, you need to go to bed before 24 hours (from about 22 to 24 hours the brain rests best).
- Next you need to pay attention to proper nutrition . Your diet should consist of foods that actively nourish the brain with useful substances and the body with energy (calories). Healthy food for the brain and exercises for its development can be found in this article.
- Now regarding the psyche . If you are anxious, tense, irritable, you don’t have to think about any speed of thinking. Imagine a surface of water. When it is calm, signals in your brain are transmitted as quickly and clearly as possible, without loss of information. When a storm or a storm begins on the water, the passage of signals is very difficult. Therefore you must be calm. Nowadays, of course, this is not an easy task, but it is a prerequisite.
Useful skills to learn to think quickly
No extra noise
Now let's talk about the skills that you need to develop if you want to learn to think quickly. And the first thing is to turn off the internal dialogue and, in general, the mental noise in your head. I think there is no need to give many examples. Every person already knows the state when there are a lot of thoughts in the head. They jump from branch to branch like monkeys.
You need to learn to turn off all unnecessary noise. To do this, you can practice meditation. Or simply by an effort of will, pay attention to your thoughts and calm your mind. Turn it into a quiet sea surface. Every time you do this, you are training. And every time it will turn out faster.
Full concentration
The next skill is the ability to concentrate. When you have completed the first stage and got rid of unnecessary noise, you should learn to instantly direct all your attention to the desired object, to the task at hand. It’s easy to learn; the techniques are described in this article.
Planning / modeling the situation
Another useful skill is planning or modeling a situation. For example, if you know that you are about to have a business conversation, then try to put yourself in the shoes of your interlocutor and think about what he might say to you. After that, figure out what you will answer to each of his phrases. And what will you answer if he says something for which you are not ready and you need time to think about how you will behave in this situation.
This approach is very similar to preparing for any job, you simply lay out all the necessary tools in front of you in advance and you don’t need to spend a lot of time searching for them, you can instantly navigate any situation.
Need more knowledge
Grandfather Lenin also said - study, study and study again! These are zloty words. An intelligent person is, first of all, a knowledgeable person. A baggage of knowledge will never burden you, but on the contrary, it will allow you to understand any matter or give you a wonderful skill - the ability to learn quickly, because you have done this more than once. Therefore, read a lot about everything that interests you, you never know what knowledge will be useful tomorrow.
Brain training
As you know, we think with our brains, which means that the better trained our brain is, the faster it thinks. Therefore, set aside at least 5-10 minutes a day for training and do the exercises described in this article.
So we figured out how to think quickly. All these methods and exercises should be repeated daily and become a way of life. Then you will notice that the speed and clarity of your thinking has improved significantly, and this is a very pleasant and extremely useful quality. Good luck!
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What else can you do to develop your thinking speed?
- Try something new every day. Let it be an aroma or taste, a method of action or a change in the usual route. When the brain works, becoming familiar with a new environment, this has a positive effect on the speed of thinking.
- The oil contained in nuts has a positive effect on the brain. In the process of eating walnuts, more oxygen is produced in the cells, they are better nourished and their functions improve.
- Eat balanced and according to your needs. Do not overload the stomach and liver, give preference to plant foods.
- Solve riddles and crosswords, this is a great way to train your thinking.
- Listen to classical music. It has been proven that the vibrations of classical works have a positive effect on a person’s intellectual abilities. This is taken advantage of by caring parents who play Mozart or Bach for their children instead of lullabies. Music is a specific stimulant for genes that transmit signals to the brain.
- Try not to abuse alcohol. The negative impact of strong drinks on brain activity has been proven.
- Keep a diary (write by hand or choose an online resource for this). Analyzing your own thoughts helps you concentrate and think faster and more efficiently.
- Use scents to stimulate brain activity. Try surrounding your workspace with mint, lemon or cypress - these are the most famous invigorating scents. At the end of the day, take a bath with aromatic rose oil.
No matter how old you are, brain training is always beneficial. Visit the “Tasks” section on our website, solve interesting problems, play games, and your thinking will always be fast and effective
Know the "materiel"
In order to think effectively, mere desire, perseverance and the desire for excellence are not enough. All these qualities will be useful, but to thoroughly improve your thinking abilities, as in the case of other skills, you need a systematic approach.
The first thing we would suggest getting acquainted with is cognitive distortions. They are a “product” of evolutionarily formed behavior and in some cases even help to adapt to different living conditions. But this is not always the case - the result largely depends on what distortions we notice, how we work with them, and whether we are aware of the very fact of their presence during the thought process.
As Bill Gates says: “The more you study a topic, the stronger the foundation for new knowledge becomes, plus the coherence of existing information increases.”
It is also worth knowing and understanding cognitive distortions [CI] because in advanced situations they can lead to unpleasant effects - for example, imperceptibly rearranging our memories in favor of a particular problem of an emotional or other nature and destabilizing the psyche [cognitive psychologists deal with such cases psychotherapists].
In general, it is very important to remember that you will not be able to cover all the distortions in one sitting. Their study should be measured, done regularly, and as you get acquainted with individual types of CIs, remember and analyze your own life experience.
The most well-known CIs are the Dunning-Kruger effect, which illustrates the inability of low-skilled specialists to realize their mistakes; “curse of knowledge” is a close CI that explains why more informed people are likely to be unable to accurately predict the actions of less informed people; and “foot in the door,” which is often, but very ineptly, used by telephone spammers.
Photo: Phil Desforges.
Source: Unsplash.com On the opposite side are mental models. They help you make sense of the world, prioritize tasks, weigh arguments in your deliberations, and resist cognitive biases. Studying existing and developing your own mental models is a process that actually continues throughout life, so it is important to understand the degree of their balance and be able to select them according to the situation.
NASA matrix for assessing risks depending on the possible consequences and likelihood of events occurring; GOFER and DECIDE frameworks, which describe basic algorithms for decision making; and reverse engineering of likely problems in a pre-mortem format are some of the most notable examples of mental models.
How to develop intelligence?
A savvy person quickly processes information and produces results. Various human organs are involved in this process. You don't have to have a high IQ to make lightning-fast decisions. Therefore, speed of thinking and good physical condition of a person are important. If ingenuity is not your thing, then train your brain and play sports.
How to develop intelligence?
Get involved in physical activity. When you exercise, blood flows to the brain. As a result, a person thinks faster. Do your workouts outdoors. This way you will get a double effect. Not only get your brain active, but also saturate your body with oxygen. If you can’t go to fitness or sign up for a gym, then just take a walk every day. It has been proven that a person leading a sedentary lifestyle is inferior in level of intelligence to active people. Pay attention to nutrition. Intellectual development and memory of a person depend on the presence of certain vitamins and substances in the body. The brain works better when saturated with folic acid and B vitamins. Introduce fish, dairy products, fruits and vegetables into your diet. Serotonin is needed to activate brain activity. To produce hormones, fill your breakfast with proteins and your lunch with carbohydrates. Remember to drink enough water throughout the day. Get enough sleep. On average, a person fully recovers in 8 hours of sleep. If you regularly devote less time to rest, you will feel tired and weak. A sleep-deprived person is slow to think and processes information poorly. Indicators such as IQ level, concentration, and performance decrease. The person becomes absent-minded and makes annoying mistakes. Get creative. Hobbies related to needlework develop fine motor skills. Movements made by the hands and arms are under the auspices of one of the parts of the brain. Therefore, knitting, modeling, drawing, playing musical instruments help improve brain function.
Modern technologies reduce human ingenuity. Many solutions are found with the help of smart machines. To spark a creative approach to the situation, try going technology-free.
The described actions help stimulate brain function, improve memory, teach you to concentrate and make decisions. Most importantly, you will gain the ability to control your acumen. And this is an excellent weapon for achieving your goals.
List of exercises
So, here is a list of sample activities in your free time that will allow you to increase your thinking speed in a fairly short period of time. True, you will have to do them constantly.
1) There are special exercises for quick thinking. As a rule, these are all kinds of tasks on the selection of words, arithmetic calculations, tasks with figures in space. If you are just starting out, you can choose the entry level with easy tasks, but keep in mind that the tasks will gradually become more difficult. All of them are completed on time.
2) Solving crossword puzzles. Do not think that this is an activity for older people and those who do not know how to use a computer. In fact, solving crossword puzzles, especially difficult ones, allows you to learn a lot of new information. Of course, it does not directly develop a broad horizons of thinking speed, but it greatly activates the functioning of neurons in the brain.
3) Solving charades and puzzles. This method of developing quick thinking is more suitable for creative individuals. They are known to be not particularly strong in the exact sciences, and quick thinking is inseparable from correct logical conclusions.
4) Learning foreign languages. This method is more suitable for those who are not good at the humanities, that is, “physicists”. It has been proven that knowing two or more foreign languages dramatically increases the functioning of neural connections in the brain and even slows down the aging process.
5) Development of left hand functions. As a rule, most of us are right-handed. If a person begins to intentionally train his left hand to perform simple daily movements (writing, drawing, brushing teeth), then after some time his thinking speed will improve. Remember, most creative people are left-handed.
6) Sensory development. For faster thinking, the ability to navigate in space and intuition also play an important role. It is very simple to develop it: when no one is home, move around the apartment blindfolded, examine objects by touch, try to collect a broken cup, placing it, for example, in a bag.
If you follow these recommendations or find special tasks on the Internet or even entire sites dedicated to the development of erudition and thinking, and complete all the tasks, you will very soon find that you have become much smarter, more productive in the workplace, and more interesting in communication.
You can check how successful you are in developing quick thinking using a special psychological method for studying quick thinking, which is somewhat reminiscent of an intelligence test (IQ).
Such different thinking
People often don’t think, and then they think: why didn’t they think when they should have thought...
In second place in terms of speed is bodily thinking - this is the body’s ability to react to external circumstances. When you slip on a banana peel, it is your bodily thinking that will allow you to regroup so that you don’t damage anything when you fall.
This same type of thinking allows a cat to somersault in flight to land on its feet.
Injuries, bruises and fractures are suffered by people who have poorly developed bodily thinking. And vice versa: among acrobats, jugglers, and wrestlers, this type of thinking is very developed.
It is recommended to use bodily thinking to solve problems with material objects. For example, if a mechanical thing breaks down, it is recommended to disassemble it and twirl the parts in your hands. Body thinking will quickly suggest a solution.
Body thinking works very well in personal relationships. I touched a loved one and immediately felt him.
Next comes intuitive thinking - this is an automatic reaction to repeating circumstances. For example, an experienced driver changes gears without conscious participation. Although for a novice driver, changing gears is so difficult that a novice often throws the steering wheel and starts changing gears with both hands.
Intuition works well in cases where a person has a lot of experience. So, the grandmaster starts the game almost without thinking. All typical openings have long been worked out and do not require thinking. Therefore, in the game of grandmasters, at the beginning of the game, the pieces move so quickly that the beginner does not even have time to understand what is happening on the board. The only noise is the sound of the chess clock switching.
But intuition is only good in familiar situations. As soon as the chess players have reached the end of the opening, then there is a pause, and they begin to creak their brains - the time has come for slow types of thinking: strategic and logical.
Strategic thinking is choosing a path under conditions of uncertainty. For strategic thinking to work, a person needs a vision of how events will develop and a choice of his place in these events.
For strategic thinking to work, you need to have a lot of information about how certain processes occur. A chess player needs to know a lot about how chess games usually develop, a military strategist needs to know a lot about how wars happen, etc.
And finally, logical thinking is a type of thinking that comes down to three steps:
- Collect facts.
- Group them.
- Find the cause of the problem.
Logic is the slowest and most labor-intensive type of thinking. For a chess player, this is arranging moves: “He’s like this, I’m like that. And then he’s like this, and then I’m like this...”
Logic requires serious mental effort, but the result is worth it - logical thinking solves any problem. Therefore, all scientific knowledge is based precisely on logical thinking.
The inclusion of logical thinking is carried out according to certain rules: we ask a question and build a logical chain to obtain an answer. As they taught in school: “Tell me, children, what is three hundred and forty-one multiplied by two hundred and fifty-six? We solve by column. Vasya, to the board!”
When a solution method already exists, the problem can be easily solved. Unfortunately, in life there is rarely a ready-made method. Problems in relationships cannot be solved with a stick.
Logical thinking begins with collecting facts and grouping them, and then finding the cause of the phenomenon. For example:
- Why did I get sick?
- Why did sales fall?
- Why did my girlfriend leave me?
There cannot be a strict algorithm here, but there are some techniques that can help you reach a solution.
Now let's see how we can speed up each type of thinking.
Spirit of Speed
To improve and make running more comfortable, there are the following recommendations:
choose a more inspiring place to train. Let it be more interesting than the previous one, so new exercises will be performed more easily, as if in a familiar place
Due to the change of environment, it is easier to set yourself up for a better result;
jogging with a friend. It doesn’t matter whether you run together or not, the main thing is that you feel the presence of a partner, and therefore you can evaluate yourself from the outside, which will give you a chance to think about what you should strive for;
run with your opponent. This does not mean that you must run with a real person; come up with the image of a runner who will train at a certain distance at a speed you set.. When the situation is favorable and you are psychologically ready for high-speed running and developing speed qualities, then success guaranteed, because self-confidence plays an important role
When the situation is conducive and you are psychologically ready for speed running and developing speed qualities, then success is guaranteed, because faith in yourself
plays an important role.
Some tips on how to improve your memory
Memory is a person’s ability to remember and reproduce information and accumulate knowledge. A very important process is the development of memory, working to improve it, because at some point it may seem that this ability has begun to deteriorate a little. How can you learn to remember more information, so that it remains in memory for a long time? Less stress Memory performance depends on various factors, one of which is a person’s stressful state, irritability and tension. Day after day, you need to make an effort on yourself and try to receive as many positive emotions as possible. Physical activity Sports, dancing and any other activity will help you concentrate, develop the substances necessary for memory and improve it. Therefore, you need to choose what you like and start doing this business. Association method To better remember a new complex word or large number, you can come up with an association. For example, compare the number with some important dates, remember what was so interesting and unforgettable on that day. In general, you can imagine any number in the form of any object: two is a swan, eight can mean an infinity sign. It's the same with complex words. Handicrafts Any creative activity with your hands will help improve the functioning of not only memory, but also the entire brain. Anything will do: embroidery, knitting, braiding, making jewelry. Drawing can also be added to this list. This is no less painstaking and complex work. However, it allows you to unleash your creativity even more. Training Memory training can be a fun process for anyone. The main thing is to do this regularly. When reading fiction, we must not forget to write down important events that occur in the book on a piece of paper or in notes. Learn more poems and, of course, learn foreign languages. These two things are one of the most effective ways to develop your memory.
Structuring Arguments
What skills does it train: the ability to check information, think logically and reasonedly.
There are two types of content: informational and persuasive. The first one simply states the facts. For example, the article says that water is wet and the sun is hot. The second type tries to convince you that wet water is healthy or that you should buy sunscreen.
Persuasive content globally consists of three parts: thesis, premises and conclusions. A thesis is a statement, for example: “Drink water - it is good for your health.” Premises are various arguments in favor of the thesis, and conclusions are a logical conclusion from the arguments that confirm the initial statement.
Your task is to learn to identify these persuasive components in any content and check their reliability.
Read the article or watch the video. Find the thesis, premises and conclusions in them. Check the truth of the premises and the logic of the conclusions. If the text claims that water is good for health, then it should contain references to research as premises, and the conclusion should indicate exactly why it is useful, based on the work of scientists.
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Improving acquired skills
Of course, our lives are full of familiar and ordinary activities. Among them you can find sewing, drawing, and cooking. But I will advise you to diversify your leisure time by complicating household chores and acquired skills.
This will help stimulate neural connections to additional load. Start reading literature that, in addition to theory, has practical implementation. Get acquainted with drawing styles unknown to you, master a different type of cutting or sewing. Discover the world of raw food cooking and put what you learn into practice!
This approach obliges you to achieve higher performance, and your brain to be healthy and productive.
What is intelligence?
Ingenuity is a quick response to any situation. The speed of decision-making depends on the speed of thinking and composure. Few people know how to remain calm when circumstances are in a hurry. Often a person makes non-standard decisions while under stress, when the situation threatens health or life.
Schoolchildren or students experience similar feelings when taking an exam. Understanding the responsibility of the moment, a person instinctively gathers strength and gives the correct answer. In the described case, manifestations of intelligence are infrequent. But, with constant training, an increase in immediate response to circumstances was noticed.
A smart person will not create a complex technical device. After all, this will require work, including thinking, drawing drawings, and testing. Such an activity is beyond the capabilities of a person endowed with ingenuity. But, if you set him the task of finding a solution to how to repair the device, then a couple of options for repairing the device will immediately follow.
