What is the hype about “right brain training” anyway?

Why is right brain training and creative thinking skills important for future generation?

What is the hype about “right brain thinking” anyway? Why the fuss? Why the focus? And above all, is it worth our time? Before we divulge some best practices (implemented at Discover Me) regarding the benefits of right brain engagement, we want to tell you that, yes you the reader….you can still train your brain and think “differently”.

Why think differently?

What is the difference anyway?

Hang in there! Neither what we are about to reveal is anything new, nor it is as complicated as learning to swim or driving a car. All you need to do is, appreciate the types of processing related to the right and left sections of your brain and practice engaging them both.

If you are like me, you think with your left brain, at least most of the time! You execute your tasks with logic and order. This means, all daily math related computations – adding up groceries while you shop, pouring left-over food in the appropriate container, budgeting your expenses and even planning a party at home. Marvelous isn’t it? The left hemisphere is also dominant in language processing. You hear something, you recognize the language and you reply accordingly. Recall what you had for dinner last night. What was the name of the last movie you saw in the theater? What was the name of your childhood pet? Thanks to your left brain processing, you know the answers to those questions.

The right brain deals with creativity. The right brain will help you analyze the tone and the context of the person speaking to you. It will help you react to the tone! Did you have the moment of euphoria when you recognized a friend fifteen years post high-school? Thank your right brain that is mainly in charge of spatial abilities and face recognition. What about nostalgia associated with those notes of music you heard as a child? Have you ever hung a wall-hanging approximately adjacent to the window? Estimations and rough comparisons are also within the realm of the right brain. The right brain also helps you make sense of the visuals and imagery. 

Creative thinking is something we as adults are required to indulge in when solving problems at work and at home. Creative thinking enables us to carry out the left brain processing in the desired direction. Creativity and innovation have been the corner stone to success in any project.

How many times are we praised with terms like “genuine”, “unique”, “out of the box thinking” or even “revolutionary idea”. The right brain is responsible for most of these laurels.

Mind Mapping Exercises for Right Brain Engagement

At Discover Me, we promote right brain thinking through many activities. Research indicates that drawing exercises engages the right brain processing. When subjected to such exercises at a young age, we arouse the creative thinker in the candidate.

Mind Mapping is a technique originally created by Tony Buzan. It uses words connected with arrows or lines. It’s a good way of representing a large amount of interconnecting information in a fairly compact way, and many people also use it for planning presentations or taking notes in meetings. Mind maps include rich pictures that are color-coded, interconnected, radiating from a central idea or a word. How many times have we used this strategy at work as adults? Replacing all words with pictures creates an even more powerful mind map. Perhaps one of the greatest utilization of mind maps is understanding (or demonstrating) a complex idea or a concept. Mind mapping promotes visual thinking that enables the individual to relate ideas presented across the academic curriculum. So a child who is trained to depict ideas visually, will be able to internalize complex information much easily as compared to a child who tried to envision the idea in logical order.

Think of the long-term benefits of this healthy habit cultivated in your child at Discover Me!

Three-dimensional drawing is also a great tool to engage the right brain. At Discover Me, the learner is required to draw and improve this skill until they get as close to the real image as possible. What starts as a tough exercise (especially for artistically challenged individuals) yields into subsequent ease and enjoyable experiences. The idea is to enable your child to think and express visually.

Conclusion

In the current academic setting, where rote memorization continues to dominate the success criteria, creative thinking is compromised. What use are the facts acquired in memory when you cannot apply them in the dynamic real world context. At Discover Me, we prepare creative individuals who are well-equipped to succeed in ambiguous situations. Never underestimate the combined power of the right and left brain thinking!