Benefits of Brain Gym

The major benefits associated with brain gym exercises are as follows: It makes you smarter and sharper. It boosts your confidence level. Improves health and boosts the immunity and healing in your child. Improves eyesight. Improves their creativity. It improves your self-esteem. Revitalizes your natural healing mechanisms. Restores health and harmony.

What Are Brain Gym Exercises?

Brain gym exercises are simple tasks that help to stimulate brain activity and keep the mind engaged. Just like when you exercise you engage and strengthen core muscles, brain exercises stimulate blood flow to the brain and increase oxygen supply to the brain. Brain gym exercises release stress, enhance learning and development, while effectively engaging the brain.Not only younger kids, but even older kids and adults can benefit from these effective yet simple brain gym exercises.
Here, we bring you 10 simple brain gym exercises for your child that will help your child develop good motor skills, memory and ensure effective brain development.

Top 10 Brain Gym Exercises For Kids

1. Cross Crawl: Cross crawl is a simple exercise that can be done while sitting or standing. Ask the child to touch his left elbow to his right knee and then right elbow to his left knee. This exercise is most effective when done slowly. Cross crawls helps with the bilateral integration of the left and right brain and also energizes the body
2. Number 8: This is one of the simplest brain exercises for your kid but effective nonetheless. Ask your child to draw number 8 on a book or a piece of paper repeatedly. It should be drawn with a loose hand and freely. Drawing this figure relaxes the mind and loosens up tense muscles
3. Draw with the other hand: Another simpler brain exercise is to ask the child to draw with his non dominant hand. If the child is right handed ask him to draw with his left and if the child is left handed ask him to draw with his right. Remember this has to be a fun activity so let the child draw whatever he wants and however he can
4. Brain Buttons: Ask the child to lightly press his head (between the hairline and the eyebrows) and then close their eyes and breathe. You can instruct the child to breathe in deeply and then breathe out. In between also ask the child to take a 5 second pause and then breathe in deeply. This is a rejuvenating exercise that even adults can do occasionally
5. Hook ups: For hook ups ask the child to sit in a comfortable position and then ask him to cross left ankle over his right. Stretch the arms and cross them and interlace the fingers. Then ask the child to bring his hand to his chest and keep still and breathe deeply for a minute. Hooks up help the nervous system to calm down and relax.
6. Memory games: Simple games like memory games can serve as an effective brain exercise. You can bring out all the toys your kids have lay them on the floor, ask the child to close his eyes and remove a couple toys and ask the child to find out which toy is missing. This will stimulate memory function and brain activity
7. Board Games: Board games such as checkers, monopoly etc can be quite stimulating as well. You can bring out the good old ludo, carom or even the chess board can play with the kids. A competitive atmosphere and a challenging game can be a great brain gym exercise for all the members of the family, kids included
8. Scissor jumps: Jumping exercise are quite effective to promote brain functions. If you have access to a trampoline ask your kid to jump on it and while jumping ask him to cross his arms and legs. You can even do it without a trampoline just ask your kids to jump a little higher. This exercise promotes sensory development and good motor skills
9. Puzzles: Another great exercise would be to solve puzzles. Buy a puzzle that is suitable for your child’s age and sit down with the kid and help him or her solve it. It could be as simple as matching objects and as tricky as creating a picture. Choose the puzzle appropriate for your child’s age, do not tax the child buy undertaking difficult puzzles
10. Nesting and block pattern toys: Nesting toys and building blocks are easily available in the market. Encourage your child to build block patterns like making a pyramid or a cubicle this will stimulate their brain and encourage to come up with different patterns on their own. You can also buy come nesting toys that fit inside each other, dismantle them and ask the child to put it back together. This might look simple but is an excellent exercise for kids.