Tag: learning

Mental- Health

Have you trained your brain today?

dianangelika0607

05/06/22

The brain is our most important organ, which allows us to interact with our environment. It regulates the psychological processes such as memory, attention, perception, emotion, language, thought, and learning.

Therefore, training our brain daily is essential, and there are different strategies to boost its performance.

Practicing new activities such as learning a new language, studying, or reading a book allows our brain to remain active and dynamic, which makes this new approach stimulate its function.

Another strategy is to exercise. Just as the body training to tone a muscle, in the same way doing physical activity stimulates our brain. When exercising, hormones such as dopamine, endorphin, oxytocin, and serotonin are released. They are responsible for sensations such as feeling pleasure or happiness. Hence exercise contributes not just to our physical health but also, it’s essential to our mental health.

Doing meditation and mindfulness is another way to keep the brain sharp. Seeking a state of consciousness and focusing our mind on the here and now facilitate reaching a complete state of concentration, stimulating attention, memory, perception, or thought abilities.

Establishing healthy relationships is essential to training the brain. We say that toxic relationships are not beneficial for our mental health. For that reason, it is vital to build networks that generate emotional stability. These relationships are not only about our close contacts with family, friends, or co-workers. It is when we consult information such as social networks. All extrinsic stimuli influence how our brain processes, internalize and subsequently extracts information.

Another way to keep our brain sharp is by doing puzzles, word searches, crosswords, sudoku, and other challenging activities that get the brain active. These hobbies are exceptionally functional for the elderly because they aim to train their brains in abilities such as memory. It is also a way to invest time in entertaining and stimulating activities.

Finally, having a healthy diet keeps our brain active and improves our internal processes such as memory and emotion regulation; thus, foods rich in vitamins or minerals help boost our mental skills.

Therefore, to train our brain, we can rely on different strategies and daily habits which aim at our physical and mental well-being. But is there a specific formula? My answer is negative; the important thing is finding the best strategy that helps each person to find their biopsychosocial well-being and balance.

DARR.

Hobbies, knowledge, Personal Development, Wellness

Was Any Point In The Past Better?

dianangelika0607

28/07/2020

Every week I like to do my writing. Today I was thinking about the topic and I had a flashback about my childhood.

When I was a child, I never used a computer, a smart phone, Alexa or Playstation. In my time I played backyard games like Statues, Cops and robbers, Hide and seek, Tag and Hopscotch. And my gadgets were Spinning top, Yo-Yo, Cup and Ball and Marbles. I liked playing sports like basketball and soccer where people admired basketball players like Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson and 90’s soccer players like Maradona, Baggio, Zidane or Ronaldo.

At that time, I loved listening to music and enjoyed singing and dancing. The 80s and the 90s music was really incredible because it was the period of Pop, Rock and Latin Music like Salsa and Merengue. Artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna and groups like Guns and Roses, Nirvana or U2 were risen to stardom.

On the other hand, TV Series like Magnum P.I, MacGyver, Manimal or Mission Impossible were my favorites and ThunderCats, She-Ra and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were cartoons that I enjoyed very much.

All of those events and memories were very special and significant for me. Good times are always in our memory and they make us travel through time. Moments with friends, family and beloveds are unforgettable and are invaluable.

However, at present kids are growing up with technology and gadgets in their lives, no matter their age. According to an article which I read in the web, technology “allows for creativity and freedom of expression… aids in socialization and relationship building…allows for independence and empowerment… improves problem solving perseverance…helps instill and entrepreneurial spirit…enhances learning and technology jobs are (and will be) in high demand”.

From my point of view each period is different and children take advantage of their environment. I was surrounded by some stimulus that helped me to learn and to know about the world and when I remember all of those things that I did when I was child, I conclude first of all that time passes really fast and secondly it is very important to enjoy life. There is a phrase that says “Any time in the past was better”. That is possible but the most important is “Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary”. (N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society).

The way of learning and socializing can change, but some aspects remain. The important thing is that parents and teachers encourage children. No matter the time, the circumstances, the resources or the environment, I think being curious, being restless and doing research moves us through the knowledge and into success.

Finally I want to share a link about an article that I saw on the web, which shows Benefits of Technology  and The Right Kind of Screen Time for children: https://www.idtech.com/blog/benefits-of-technology-for-children

See you later!

DARR

information, knowledge, languages, self-improvement

Real Life English

dianangelika0607

08/06/2020

My principal target now is to be able to understand the English language. My experience with the language haven’t been easy because before beginning with Real Life I studied at an English school where I learnt some topics and grammar tools, which were useful for me when I got out to the real world but I realized that I needed more since when the people talk to me many times I didn’t understand and I thought “ Holly cow those people are talking very fast and I don’t understand anything” I felt so frustrate and sometimes I thought to give up the dream to learn English. However, I chose another way and with the situation of the Covid 19 I started to learn English for myself. I took advantage that I like watching tv and a good resource to learn English for me is watching tv series. I started to watch Friends. I love that series due to being so real and very funny. First, I watched it with subtitles and now I don’t use them. Another series that I recommend is Modern Family which is very funny too. The plot is about three families with different problems and cases that imitate real life. There is a character who is a Colombian lady and I feel identified with her because her Latin accent is very remarkable and funny also her pronunciation is really hilarious. Other series that I’m watching are Fullest House, The Witcher, The Crown and 13 reasons Why. I tried to watch Suits but I didn’t catch their vocabulary because it’s a series about some lawyers and there is a lot of vocabulary about business, law and other stuff that was complex for me. It’s a really interesting series but I felt that the series develops at a very fast pace, however when I improve my English, I’ll come back to watch it.

Another way that I think it’s really good to learn English is on YouTube where I found the channel Learn English With Tv. That channel from my point of view is amazing, creative, original and helps me to learn a lot of vocabulary. I’m a visual person and the method to see a scene and doing their analysis is very practical for me, also the series, movies and songs are really great. 

Listening to music and following the lyrics of a song is another way to learn English, sometimes it’s difficult since there are fast rhymes but if you like the music is an enjoyable activity.

Anyway, there are other ways to learn English like podcasts, reading books, participating in Meetups, watching or listening to news, going to libraries, participating in conversation clubs, definitely the best way to learn is by playing and enjoying it. For me to start this course is a big challenge but it´s an opportunity too. I agree that if you want something the attitude is very important to reach a target. I know that sometimes it´s difficult and you feel down, of course the method is very important, since my experience staying in a classroom all morning learning vocabulary and grammar in not enough and schools still use that methodology, I decided to change the traditional education  and use other ways like to be immerse in the native community. The most important is practice, take risks, have a good attitude and hit a hurdle. In my country we say “jump into the water” or in other words to take the correct pill.

DARR.