5 quick brain teasers to sharpen two key cognitive skills: attention and working memory

Look­ing for some fun–and free–cognitive stim­u­la­tion over the week­end? Here you have a few quick brain teasers to chal­lenge your atten­tion and your work­ing mem­ory (work­ing mem­ory is the capac­i­ty to keep infor­ma­tion in your mind while work­ing on pro­cess­ing and inte­grat­ing it)

Please give them a try…they are not as easy as they may seem :-)

  • 1. Say the days of the week back­wards, then in alpha­bet­i­cal order. (Speak oth­er lan­guages? Try doing the same in Span­ish, French, Mandarin…)
  • 2. Say the months of the year in alpha­bet­i­cal order. Easy? Well, why don’t you try doing so back­wards, in reverse alpha­bet­i­cal order.
  • 3. Find the sum of all the dig­its in your date of birth, mm/dd/yyyy. Want a tougher mind teas­er? Do the same with your spouse’s or best friend’s date of birth (with­out look­ing it up…)
  • 4. Name two objects for every let­ter in your first name. Work up to five objects, try­ing to use dif­fer­ent items each time.
  • 5. With­in two min­utes, look around wher­ev­er you are and try to find 5 red things that will fit in your pock­ets, and 5 blue objects that are too big to fit.

PS: If you want even more, check out these 50 brain teasers, games and visu­al illu­sions. Free, and fun for adults of any age!

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About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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