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Increasing physical activity doesn't mean you have to join a Zumba class before work though it's great if you do! Physical activity needs to be maintained throughout the day to increase oxygen flow to the body and brain, and working in a standing position does just that!
It has a positive impact on work performance, creativity, and health in general. But maybe you're thinking that standing all day just isn't feasible for you! That's ok — there are a lot of ways to increase the time on your feet throughout your day. You will lose weight, you lessen your chance of heart disease, and you will improve your brain.
But if you can do nothing else, stand up! This week, do your brain a favor and set the alarm on your phone to go off once an hour. Use that reminder to stand up for brain health and longevity! The basic PuzzleArt Therapy System has three levels, each with several modules that help participants learn, develop, and refine a variety of skills. The levels are set up to move the participant from simple to more complex challenges, though each level and each exercise within the levels can be repeated over and over, without the risk of it becoming boring or repetitive.
This is a result of the open-ended format of PuzzleArt Therapy. While there are specific directions that teach the eyes and brain to look for connections, paths, and ways to solve problems, there are no specific right or wrong answers, but instead, a plethora of potential solutions waiting to be discovered!
The goal of the level one modules is to familiarize one's self with the PuzzleArt pieces, relate more closely to them, and practice working with them while developing solid breathing and relaxation practices. Through the exercises in this level, participants will first become oriented with the PuzzleArt pieces, and will be guided through exercises that help them make connections between colors, shapes, lines, edges, as well as providing them with an opportunity to manipulate the pieces to form their own patterns and designs; becoming a visual artist right from the beginning!
Participants will be making these connections in a way that unifies physical movements with visual tracking. Neural pathways will be developed and strengthened while they settle in with the mesmerizing PuzzleArt pieces that are just irresistible — they are made to be touched and that is exactly what participants will want to do! The level two modules are dynamic and creative. As participants move deeper into the PuzzleArt universe, they will learn how to expand their creative horizons. This level guides participants through a process that helps them see the pieces instead of just look at them.
It then takes them through guided exercises to examine what they see, and observe how that changes as they follow the exercises.
They're then taken through a series of questions that prompts them to critically evaluate and synthesize both what they've seen and the process they've gone through. We continue to develop guided relaxation and breathing techniques in this level, as well as adding in more whole-body movements that strengthen bilateral skills.
The level three modules deal with feelings and emotions related to the colors, shapes, textures, and lines of the PuzzleArt pieces, but more deeply, it is about recognizing the value of owning one's emotions, viewpoint, and perspective. Challenges in this level have the participant literally take on a new perspective of the PuzzleArt Pieces, from changing their position in relation to the pieces, changing the piece's relationship to the viewer, and changing how the viewer uses their eyes to see what they're working on.
Sign up today for a free brain game , and get a glimpse of what PuzzleArt Therapy is all about! Every day we are all surrounded by complex problems that require decision making. Whether you are a student, a teacher, a medical professional, a parent, a businessperson — problems do not discriminate — they have a way of finding us all! And because we all face problems, we must all then solve those problems. Whether you are trying to resolve the national debt or manage your own finances, eradicate poverty or modify your diet and exercise routine, your problem-solving skills are put to the test on a daily basis.
With all of this constant decision making happening all around us, one might think we would all be experts at problem solving, from the big issues to the mundane. But just because we do something a lot — make decisions, solve problems — doesn't mean we're any good at it or that we're getting any better. Doing something over and over, the same way you've always done it, is likely to garner the same results.
The problem here is that precedent and experience often guide us, and so we continue to see problems from a familiar angle. Sometimes, we need to turn the problem on its side, stand up and look at it from above, walk away from it and come back with fresh eyes. The global issues facing society today require skilled problem solvers: But ultimately, as opportunities — not simply as something to be dealt with, burdened by, or weighed down under.
In order to look at issues with that unique perspective, we need to develop divergent thinking that helps us evaluate all the angles of an issue from a variety of perspectives and create a myriad of possible solutions. This is in contrast to the very concrete, linear way many of us have been taught to problem solve.
Some mats fold up easily, making them a good choice if you're tight on Square36 Extra Large Exercise Mat ProSource Puzzle Exercise Mat. Sivan Health and Fitness Puzzle Exercise Mat EVA Foam Interlocking Tiles . but quite large and we wanted to use the whole floor for him to drop his barbells.
We are taught this in school over and over. Remember when the teacher would ask a question and you would raise your hand and wave it frantically, confident that you had the correct answer? Or recall all of the standardized tests you've ever taken, perhaps starting with the Iowa Test of Basic Skills as a child, the SATs as a high school student, or professional exams such as the Praxis as an adult — all of those tests require an evaluation of a problem and the identification of one correct answer. We have become quite skilled at this model of convergent thinking, but this process teaches us to come to the same conclusions that someone else has already reached.
Instead of searching for an answer someone else has already identified, we must become more creative in our problem solving. We must reach beyond what has already been done, and find new ways to solve problems. Divergent thinking is typically much more free-flowing and spontaneous, with a goal of generating as many solutions as possible, and making connections between ideas that might not have been made before.
It is to approach the problem without the idea of looking for a single, absolute solution, but instead looking at the problem as many opportunities to be explored.
This sort of problem solving skill must be cultivated as it doesn't come naturally for most people. PuzzleArt Therapy provides a format to learn this incredibly important skill.
It provides a process to evaluate problems from different angles, teaching participants to notice patterns and connections that might not have been immediately obvious, and the process is open-ended. There are no right or wrong answers , but instead, many solutions, and many paths to reach those solutions. They were not searching for one correct answer — but for many solutions, many opportunities. Divergent thinking and out-of-the-box problem solving is crucial to the leaders of today and the future leaders of tomorrow, and we must recognize that this isn't just an innate ability.
It's a whole mindset that can be taught, learned, and honed to shape the world around us. We can become better problem solvers, learn processes that help us develop our divergent thinking skills, and work to solve our own problems as well as those in our schools, our communities, and maybe even our world.
Sign up to try PuzzleArt Therapy for yourself and begin to see the world and its problems in a new way. Preschoolers spend their days building with blocks, manipulating puzzle pieces, coloring, cutting, and learning to function in their world. While to them this is all just play, their brains and eye are engaged in important work, developing the visual skills that will help them succeed in school and life.
But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. At this unique point in child development, opportunities for growth and learning abound at every turn, and children ages 2 to 5 are fine-tuning the visual skills they developed from birth through toddlerhood, strengthening their focus, tracking, and depth perception skills.
During this time, a child's visual perceptual skills are maturing to help them progress through a variety of childhood milestones. Preschoolers develop complex hand-eye coordination in order to learn to ride a balance bike or scooter while steering and watching where they're going. They must coordinate gross motor skills and visual skills in order to play a sport such as soccer, and they must develop the visual perceptual abilities and fine motor skills necessary for reading and writing readiness.
While most children develop along the path of visual ability without issue, the preschool years present a critical point where vision problems occur.
Prevent Blindness tells us that 1 out of 20 preschoolers have a vision problem. Children will need matching skills, which requires visual discrimination; directionality, which incorporates a visual understanding of left to right and top-to-bottom; and letter-recognition skills, which involves visual processing and memory. One challenging piece of the puzzle is that children often do not notice there's a problem nor do they complain.
Without a larger frame of reference, they assume this is how everyone sees and navigates the world. Any delays in development must be noted, as they may signal the presence of a vision problem and therefore, delays in the development of visual skills. If a child is having difficulty recognizing colors, shapes, or letters, they may in fact be experiencing a visual problem rather than a learning issue.
Clearly, the stakes here are high: This label and potential interventions would not solve the root of the problem and could add layers of other issues, such as social stigma and lowered self-esteem. Behavioral and developmental vision care can play an important role in correcting the visual deficits of a preschool-aged child.
PuzzleArt Therapy provides fun and engaging tools and activities that strengthen over 20 skills, including ones that aid in reading-readiness and address the most common visual problems the preschool set face, including:. When you're three, learning about the world is your main job in life. What if we could identify the primary cause of reading failure in school-aged children?
Or pin down a treatable factor in academic and behavioral problems among at-risk students? Because those issues, and more, often come back to vision problems. I'm not implying that every child who has been labeled with a learning disability or ADHD is misdiagnosed, but the reality is that one out of every four school-aged children have an undiagnosed vision problem.
One out of four! To add to that, children typically don't complain of visual issues because they assume how they see the world is normal.
Compounding the issue further, traditional eye screenings are often inadequate. The screening doesn't come close to evaluating peripheral vision, depth perception, eye coordination, color vision, or focusing ability. It also provides no information about whether or not the brain and the eyes are working together to process visual information. However, many students are overlooked for visual perceptual problems because they perform well on the eye chart.
Changing this perception is crucial to helping parents, teachers, and students themselves be on alert for visual perceptual deficits that impact learning, school performance, and even behavior. Visual ability is fundamental to the learning process. Students must be able to see their books, computer screens, and the whiteboard, but they then need the visual skills to both understand and respond to what they are seeing. They have to be able to organize images into letters, words, and ideas that make sense, and then they must comprehend and retain those messages.
Students have to be able to maintain their focus and not lose their place when looking between the board and their notebook, and they need to be able to judge distances and coordinate their hands and eyes in order to draw a picture or hit a ball. Clearly, students make use of a variety of visual perceptual skills throughout their school day, and in order to experience success both in and out of the classroom, those visual skills must be optimized. From the moment they wake up until they fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, they are processing visual information.
If students are experiencing a visual perceptual deficit or several , it will impact their understanding and application of what they're supposed to be learning in this crucial time period, and may also lead to headaches, fatigue, and other eyestrain problems. Clearly, vision problems that go undetected and untreated leave students ill-prepared for school. Without the visual skills to succeed in the classroom, students are bound to be frustrated, act out, and experience delays and the need for special education. For as long as humanity has been aging, we've been lamenting the process.
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The goal of the level one modules is to familiarize one's self with the PuzzleArt pieces, relate more closely to them, and practice working with them while developing solid breathing and relaxation practices. Any guy that age who can do 10 pull-ups has got my attention. Each piece can be used as a center, corner, or border. It provides a process to evaluate problems from different angles, teaching participants to notice patterns and connections that might not have been immediately obvious, and the process is open-ended. We can use the knowledge that our brains are malleable to change our neural wiring — but how can you rewire your brain? It was only on the end and a little cut here and there and it was free. We have tried so many ways to get them to have a smooth trail.
The mouth is silent, speech fails him; the mind decays, remembering not the day before. Who hasn't walked into a room only to realize they have absolutely no idea why they're there, or spent ages searching for an important something-or-other? Helping others combat issues of memory at any age is crucial to our success as practitioners. When memory lapses become more common, reaction times slow, or words don't come as easily, panic often begins to set in! But as we know, this is not an inevitable part of aging!
People don't have to sit around waiting to forget what they had for breakfast! Fortunately for all of us, we can take daily initiatives to improve our memory, which greatly increases our quality of life regardless of age. From 3 to , we can all benefit from increased memory. Recent studies demonstrate that working memory capacity, long thought of as a constant, can be improved through training. The changes in cortical activity after training could be evidence of training-induced plasticity in our neural systems. From memorizing the alphabet to learning to read, playing team sports to participating in a monthly book club, solving problems, meeting deadlines, setting and reaching goals — all of these and more!
The connections between our eyes, brain, and working memory have powerful implications. Our brains process information all of the time, and we make decisions constantly about what to attend to and what to discard. Of course, visual acuity is a small piece of the entire visual picture, as visual ability includes so much more: Since what we take in through our eyes is so crucial to how our brain processes, integrates, and reacts to information, focused time and energy should be dedicated to perceptual training.
Perceptual activities are fun learning tools that can help train the brain in a multitude of ways and assist in making sense of the information the eyes are sending to the brain. PuzzleArt Therapy is the first therapy to combine binocular, perceptual, and sensory therapy with hands-on abstract art to improve memory and overall brain function and therefore, enjoyment of life! This fun, engaging, and creative therapy can work in so many ways and can strengthen an incredible number of perceptual skills, including:. Start working out on the puzzle mat that will support you with the No.
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