June may be brain awareness month, but every day offers another opportunity to beat summer slide. How so? Just for fun – why not celebrate a brain-friendly challenge daily. Let’s say you capitalize on hidden or unused intelligences in unexpected places all  summer? Or at least on 30 different days…

Recharge your brain!

1st – Listen for a new clue that will open an innovative solution to a problem you face. Brain fact = Boredom and stagnation remaps your brain for more boring and stagnant acts daily. The wonder of a new sound though, can remap its listener for treasured possibilities. Your turn…?

2nd  – Shift up one part of your setting today by adding a favorite photo,  moving a chair to a better place, or playing classical music in the background. Brain fact = Novelty influences brainpower, and a comfortable setting can inspire amazing new outcomes. Your turn…?

3rd – Enter today’s free draw here to win $100 of brain based tools to get more from any topic you lead or learn today. Brain fact = Risk not only adds fun to a day but it also adds the dopamine chemicals you need to enjoy more healthy risks.

 4th – Offer a genuinely kind word of support to encourage a person who failed, mis-stepped, disagreed, or seems discouraged. Brain fact = Encouragement literally changes the chemistry and make-up of a brain through raised serotonin levels that benefit you and others who need it most.

5th – Play your way past a problem that challenges you! Brain fact = Cortisol stress chemicals shut down solutions and act like a silent killer that can literally shrink your brain.

6th -Grab that first bite and then sleep! Write the first line, plant the first seed, plan the first step at night before you sleep. Brain fact = Your brain panics and shuts down when overwhelmed, but it leaps easily for each small step taken in the direction of a complex project.

7th – Survey your multiple intelligences and then try an unfamiliar intelligence in a fun task that will benefit you and somebody else today! Brain fact = each time we use a different intelligence, we grow it.

8th – Burn strong but don’t burn out! Toss some silly sauce onto a serious situation. Laugh at yourself and the brain engages new parts that release fuels you need to create and enjoy innovative solutions.

9th -Toss some serotonin into your relationship with your dad or a valued mentor ahead of Father’s Day, by completing this sentence for them: I treasure how you …

10th –  List 5 things you plan to do today and then check each off as you do it. Ensure at least one is fun! When you list goals, you free your working memory for creativity.

11th – Discover in this TED talk what one mark original thinkers do differently and then try that one thing to add mental brilliance to your day.

12th – Offer an act of kindness  to a person who has been criticized. Brain fact = Cynicism or criticism in ourselves or others limits talent and stomps out innovation. Kindness adds opposite and awesome results.

13th – Apply something you learned today to improve something you will do tomorrow. Brain fact = Plasticity (the brain’s ability to change itself) changes us when we act.

14th – When you want to focus or create new ideas – play background music designed to help here. Brain fact = music literally changes your brain waves and can improve your moods.

15th – Discover an aha solution to a pesky problem by listing the problem on the left side of a T-chart and adding an awesome (but doable) solution on the right side. Brain fact = Your frontal lobe helps you to choose novel solutions that lead to aha benefits.

16th – Spend time outdoors or in natural light today. Brain fact = Increased light decreases melatonin (a sleep chemical) so that you remain focused and more alert.

17th – Make a decision to react calmly when you feel you are under pressure. Brain fact = Each time you react calmly your amygdala (or seat of emotions) stores this reaction for your next emotional response when challenged.

18th – Change one dislike into a like by making a focused decision today. Brain fact = It turns out that brains are not elastic so they must stretch with every experience, but are plastic and malleable so they can be set in a new mold by our choices.

19th – Learn one new thing today and then teach it to somebody else in ways that actively involve that person. Brain fact = we retain 90% more when we teach as we learn, compared to 5% retention from lectures.

20th – Listen to a person express a view on the opposite side of your view, and then apply what you learned to discover new possibilities. Brain fact = to listen with your brain often brings change with what you learn.

 21st – Name one specific reason why you appreciate a person in your life and then thank that person. Brain fact = thankfulness increases oxytocin and trust in relationships.

22th – Teach one thing you do well to a friend, in exchange for learning from that person’s different strength. Brain fact – Mutual mentoring or mind-guiding awakens hidden and unused parts of your brain.

23rd – Choose one new intelligence to add hope to  your day, and one new task to complete with that intelligence. Brain fact =  You grow new dendrite brain cell connections each time you use a new intelligence.

24th – Ask one compelling question that others feel compelled to answer with interest. Brain fact – Curiosity is an engine that drives the brain toward innovative results.

25th – Jot down three things you are especially thankful for starting today and keep up the practice all summer. Brain fact = Thankfulness adds alertness and much more to your day.

Laugh so that all laugh

26th – Allow fantasy into your day – get to know a Namungo! Brain fact – imagination holds a huge part of your brainpower and it unleashes magical rewards to refresh you!

27th – Set aside play time today to enjoy one thing you enjoy most. Brain fact = Play alters the operation and make-up of the human brain.

28th – Start a personal revolution by doing one thing to change a broken part of your day. Brain fact = We come equipped with mirror neurons so that we mimic those around us and others mimic our actions for change.

29th – Alter the use of one thing to make it into another, such as a log into a bench. Brain fact = Novelty acts as a trigger to develop and advance the innovative mind.

30th – Turn one learning event into a playful or fun event – as I did in play to learn resources.

Looking for another free tool or two to get started? You’ll find additional brain based triggers, creative tasks and innovative takeaways at  TPT site.

YOUR TURN! Join our Brain Based Circles! Would love to meet you at any of the following!

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Created by Ellen Weber, Brain Based Tasks for Growth Mindset