Improving Your Brain's Impulses by Easy Exercises

Have you ever done something without thinking and then regretted it? Maybe you bought something expensive that you didn't need, or ate a piece of cake when you were trying to eat healthy although it's a natural part of human existence, but when it happens too often, it can complicate life. 

There is impulse brain training that will help you control your reactions and make better decisions.

What Exactly Is Impulse Control?

The prefrontal cortex is one of the most important organs responsible for impulse control - it is an area of your brain located just behind your forehead.  She is responsible for thinking about goals, making plans, and controlling your behavior. When you have a sudden impulse, another part of the brain associated with feelings and desires activates. 

The prefrontal cortex must work to stop or "slow down" this rapid impulse, and when you engage the muscle more, it becomes stronger. Similarly, when you train to control your impulses, the connections in your prefrontal cortex can strengthen and work better. 

Scientists have been looking into this for ages - research suggests that when people do stuff that needs self-control, their prefrontal cortex tends to be more active.

For instance, there was this study at Queen's University where they taught rats to chill out and wait for a signal before doing anything. Turns out, as the rats got better at holding back, the scientists spotted more electrical signals firing between brain cells in the front part of their heads.

Why Is It So Important to Train Your Brain?

• Better Health: By controlling your impulses, you can change your eating habits and instead of eating fast food because it's easy, you can choose healthier food. 

For example, when you see a chocolate cake, you may feel like eating it immediately, but with more self-control, you can eat a piece of fruit instead, knowing that it is healthier for your body. 

• More Money: When you go shopping, an impulsive approach can force you to buy things that you don't need, and when you're in better control of the situation, you can stick to your budget and save on things that really matter to you.

Think about online shopping: a new product appears in your social media feed, and you immediately feel the urge to buy it. With the pulse control system, you can close the page, wait a day, and then decide if you really need it. 

• Happy Relationships: In conversation, an impulsive person may say something unkind or get angry, and if you teach your brain to pause, you will be able to react more calmly and kindly, which will improve your relationships with family and friends. 

For example, if your partner says something that annoys you, your first reaction may be to want to argue. After taking a minute to catch your breath and think, you will be able to respond in a calmer voice and find the best solution together.

• Improving Concentration: Many games and impulse control exercises also focus on concentration, and by training your brain to ignore what is not important, you will be able to focus better on work or school assignments. It helps you to see things through and be proud of your achievements. In today's world with phones and notifications, it's easy to get distracted. 

The ability to control your impulses will help you resist the urge to check your phone every time it beeps and allow you to focus on the task at hand.

• Greater Confidence: When you feel that you are responsible for your own choices and actions, you feel stronger and more confident. By successfully fighting a bad habit or sticking to a complex plan, you strengthen your faith in your ability to succeed.

How Does the Brain Work with Impulses?

The prefrontal cortex is one of the most important organs responsible for impulse control - it is an area of your brain located just behind your forehead.  She is responsible for thinking about goals, making plans, and controlling your behavior. When you have a sudden impulse, another part of the brain associated with feelings and desires activates. 

The prefrontal cortex must work to stop or "slow down" this rapid impulse, and when you engage the muscle more, it becomes stronger. Similarly, when you train to control your impulses, the connections in your prefrontal cortex can strengthen and work better. 

Scientists have been studying this for many years, and research has shown that when people perform tasks that require self-control, they often show more activity in their prefrontal cortex. 

For example, in a study conducted at Queen's University, rats were trained to wait for a signal before acting, and as the rats controlled their impulses better, the researchers noticed that the electrical signals between cells in the frontal lobe of their brain increased.

Different Kinds of Training and Exercises

Training Method	Main Goal	Simple Example
Mindfulness	To notice your thoughts and feelings without reacting to them	Sit quietly for a few minutes and just pay attention to the sounds you hear - don't try to change anything, you just notice
Go/No-Go Games	To stop an action even when you have an impulse to do it	You press the button when you see the green circle, but not when you see the red one
Delay Gratification	To learn to wait for a better reward in the future	Waiting for 15 minutes before eating a piece of cake
Cognitive Reframing	To change how you think about a situation to control your feelings and actions	Instead of thinking, "My friend is so mean!", you might think, "Maybe my friend is having a bad day"
Working Memory Tasks	To keep information in your mind while you work on a task	Try to memorize the list of words in the correct order while solving a simple math problem.

The Mind Elevate App and Its Features

You can find lots of apps that help you train your brain. One cool one is Mind Lift; it has a bunch of games made to boost how well your brain works, and they're all based on brain-training ideas. The games can give you a hand with things like remembering stuff, math, learning new words, and paying attention.

• Concentration Games: For example, you may have to quickly find words or match identical elements. There are more than 40 different games in the app that develop skills such as accuracy, grammar, and reading skills.

• Personalized Workouts: The app creates a workout program specifically for you and determines what you need to train, and offers games to help you improve. This way, your workouts will always be exactly what you need. You can focus your attention on the skills you are trying to develop, such as getting better at math or reading faster.

• Adaptive Difficulty: As you succeed in the games, they become more difficult.It gets your brain working and helps you get better. Depending on the application settings, the difficulty of the games varies, so you are always learning and not bored.

• Tracking Results: The app tracks how you're doing and you can see how much better you've become, which is great and you want to keep going. The app allows you to see how well you are doing - weekly checkups show what you have achieved and where else you can improve.

Conclusion

By understanding how your brain works and using various exercises and tools such as the Mind Elevate app, you can learn how to pause and make decisions that will help you live a happier and more successful life. You will be able to better control your actions and your life, because it's better to think longer and take a break than to regret what you did.