Warming Up Your Brain Improves Performance

Want to improve your ability to solve a problem, take a test,  deliver a presentation or perform some other cognitive task?   Make sure you stimulate your brain by having a friendly social conversation before taking on the task. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, this friendly-chat brain boosting technique works well because:

“… some social interactions induce people to try to read others’ minds and take their perspectives on things,” Ybarra said.”

A 10-minute “get to know you” conversation produces the effect. The researchers warn that the effect does not work if the conversation has a competitive tone.

Interested to hear from readers on what else we can do to “warm up” our brains before a cognitive performance.