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By: Paula Oleska, M.A.
You enter a room to get something, but you can’t remember what it was. Sound familiar?
What happened? When you are under stress, different parts of your brain, especially your brain hemispheres, stop talking to each other, and you may then become distracted and forgetful. We call that “brain disorganization.” The brain hemispheres need to work well together for you to feel like you are sharp and in top shape.
What makes it possible?
A structure called the corpus callosum stretches across the midline of the brain and functions like a cable, conducting impulses between the hemispheres. How strong is this cable?
It depends whether you crawled as a child!
When a child reaches the stage of development when she can get on her hands and knees, she gets to her new destination by crawling: extending her right arm and left leg and quickly alternating to move forward. This is the movement that builds the corpus callosum. The more you crawl, the stronger the cable.
But what if you didn’t crawl as a child (which is very common)?
No worries! You have NEUROPLASTICITY!
Neuroplasticity is your brain’s ability to regenerate and grow new connections throughout your lifetime.
And you don’t have to crawl on the floor like a baby to get the results! As a grown up, you can just imitate it. It’s called Cross-Crawl, or Crossover. You can do it standing, sitting or even lying down. And it works like magic to connect the hemispheres!
You simply lift your knee and touch it with your opposite hand and alternate like that for one to three minutes. It will immediately remedy the “disorganization” and will help your brain hemispheres work together.
So next time you find yourself puzzled why you came into the room, stop and do a few Crossovers. You will surely remember! And because it’s such a simple thing to do, you can use it every day for a minute or even less, for the rest of your life. Happy Train Your Brain Day!
Paula Oleska, M.A. is a brain optimization expert, using cutting edge neuroscience to keep brains active and sharp. Her proprietary method, Brain Upgrade®, helped 5,000 people in five countries achieve outstanding results in their lives, including aging backwards.
