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Acceleration of thinking. A complete guide to developing your thinking speed

Characterized by rapid, facilitated emergence and change of thoughts. The judgments of patients with accelerated thinking are superficial. This, as well as attention disorders inherent in states with accelerated thinking, explains the low mental productivity of patients in a manic state. Mental productivity is even lower in symptomatic manias of intoxication or infectious origin, since in these cases the phenomena of increased exhaustion of mental processes become of great importance (such conditions are classified as astheno-manic). The performance of patients with mild hypomanic states and cyclothymia may be relatively good. The more pronounced the acceleration of thinking, the less effective the patient’s activity.

Attention disturbances in manic states are primarily characterized by its instability. The combination of unstable attention, facilitated formation of associations, and accelerated flow of thoughts leads to peculiar changes in the patient’s speech - individual statements are not connected by any common idea, random associations are characteristic, often in consonance. The object of thinking becomes any object to which the patient pays attention. With a significant acceleration of thinking, they talk about a leap of ideas - thoughts replace each other so quickly that from the outside it is perceived as a continuous stream of words. At the same time, with a leap of ideas, in contrast to schizophrenic fragmentation, it is still not difficult to grasp the sequence of thoughts and their, albeit very superficial, interconnection. Only in cases of extremely sharp acceleration of thinking does the observer lose the ability to perceive transitions between individual thoughts. In these cases they speak of manic (vortex) confusion. Accelerated thinking, due to its instability, is characterized by an easy loss of the object of reasoning.

Hello, dear friends!

The speed at which our brain processes information plays a huge role, both in decision-making and in life in general. Our success and well-being depends on how efficiently and quickly we respond to external factors and stimuli.

How to speed up the brain's reaction? After all, he is a supercomputer weighing only a few pounds! But a person’s movement depends on his ability to correctly send signals to the body.

The center of control and issuance of commands that control life is also responsible for relationships with other people, perception and emotional assessment of what is happening.

Optimizing your brain's response is an opportunity to be better! That is why for today’s article I have selected some tips that will help you increase your mental abilities.

1. Physical activity

Californian scientists have proven that with systematic physical activity, a person’s convolutions begin to move better, producing so-called “gray” cells in the body.

So, for example, in battle, an individual must concentrate at lightning speed and make informed decisions. Coordination of body movements, assessment of threat or distance to the enemy is similarly carried out using brain signals.

The life of an individual sometimes depends on how effectively the reaction to the signal given by the computer is structured. Therefore, to develop the speed of thought and the entire body, I definitely advise you to go in for sports.

2. Thinking training

When it comes to developing a skill, not only physical activity is important. You can independently develop the desired area of the brain and make it work more productively.

How to do it? Firstly, it is worth understanding in advance what type of thinking prevails over you? Secondly, earlier in my materials I wrote about how to develop logical thinking or improve the left hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for feelings and creativity.

However, I would like to note that the thought process itself and independent analysis greatly helps to develop inactive parts of the brain. I invite you to discover new sensations.

Try unknown smells or dishes, experiment while traveling, take up a craft previously unknown to you. And necessarily, to open new horizons.

3. A simple question “Why?”

Start a new and useful habit for yourself. Did you probably know that gray matter is predisposed to undisguised curiosity? So that’s why I suggest you develop the piquant skill of asking a question “ Why?»

Ask yourself this question at least 10 times a day. Compare findings, conclusions, study new information and develop. You will be surprised how many prospects and opportunities will open up for you when you introduce such a small question into your speech routine!

4. Eat more nuts

Nuts contain oil. Starting from cedar to walnut. Previously, it was considered useful only for the treatment of heart disease. But now research has revealed that it works great in increasing the speed of brain function.

Thanks to nuts, the amount of oxygen that enters the head increases and its proper circulation is ensured. In addition, it promotes more efficient functioning of membranes in the body's cells.

That is why people who are not lazy and add a lot of nuts and plant foods to their diet are less susceptible to nervous disorders, attention problems and memory problems.

Also, for the sake of successful digestion, it is worth noting that nuts are rich in proteins, which means it is better not to mix them with carbohydrates (honey, raisins, ...)! This is one of the rules of balanced nutrition, which will help you digest and assimilate food much more efficiently.

5. Train your memory

Techniques that help strengthen memorization skills have a beneficial effect not only on thinking, but also on the memory of body physics. Practice and exercise are the recipe for a positive implementation of a new habit.

Dancing, aerobics, gymnastics, as well as meditation help our body establish all vital regulatory systems. By memorizing movements, exercises and poses, you strengthen the connection between the body and the brain signal.

And the chemical reactions themselves that occur during activity train muscle memory and strengthen the entire body, and this increases the level of movement speed.

Reading, solving problems and training visual memory, along with logical puzzles, are excellent in developing a person.

6. Proper nutrition

Can unhealthy fats make you stupid? You won't believe it, but it's true! Researchers at the University of Toronto have proven the fact that fat has a negative effect on the mental capabilities of experimental subjects - that is, rats.

Why is this happening? When you give up junk food, a person’s brain begins to work easier and faster. When harmful animal foods with huge amounts of fat are replaced with foods of plant origin, the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the brain increases in the body.

And this in turn increases the indicators of the thought process and reaction speed.

7. Improving acquired skills

Of course, our lives are full of familiar and ordinary activities. Among them you can find sewing, drawing, and cooking. But I will advise you to diversify your leisure time by complicating household chores and acquired skills.

This will help stimulate neural connections to additional load. Start reading literature that, in addition to theory, has practical implementation. Get acquainted with drawing styles unknown to you, master a different type of cutting or sewing. Discover the world of raw food cooking and put what you learn into practice!

This approach obliges you to achieve higher performance, and your brain to be healthy and productive.

8. Games

An active lifestyle and the desire to move, rather than lie on the couch, helps keep gray matter in good shape. Did you manage to find some free time? Be sure to spend it outdoors in the company of children or friends!

Games of tennis, football, basketball, frisbee and any strength training are perfect for you! Go hiking, reach the top and don’t be too lazy to buy a gadget that measures the number of steps per day

A new-fashioned lotion can be very useful for those people who spend most of their time sitting. And with the help of the application, you can always understand whether you walk home or can you afford to take public transport?

9. Train your concentration level

Concentration is a panacea for increasing brain performance! But you should understand that its “eaters” are not always noticeable and perceptible. Learning to see exactly when you got distracted? What was the reason to do this?

By doing one thing after another and being in the “here and now” state, you will be able to achieve high marks for your work in reality.

10. Aromatherapy and relaxation

In order not to burn out all the cells in your head from too much effort, you should pay due attention to rest. I will advise you to resort to aromatherapy to tone up or, conversely, relax.

Substances that stimulate the body may contain notes of cypress and mint. But in case of calm, use a rose. A geranium scent might also work.

Friends, I’ll put an end to this.

Subscribe to my blog updates and recommend it to your friends to read. In the comments, tell us how you speed up brain reactions and what proven exercises do you recommend?

See you on the blog, bye-bye!

Acceleration of thinking. Acceleration of thinking, flight of thoughts, tachypsychia or tachyphrenia (from the Greek tachis - fast, quick, phren - mind, mind) - accelerated change of thoughts and ideas, usually accompanied by tachyphenia or tachylalia (tachy + Greek phemi - speak, lalia - speech) , that is, speeding up speech and speaking a lot. At the same time, an accelerated change in emotional manifestations is usually observed - tachythymia (tachy + Greek thimos - mood), as well as an accelerated change and increase in the amplitude of movements, including acts of expression - tachykinesia (tachy + gr. kinetikos - related to movement). Accelerated walking is designated by the term tachybasia (tachy + Greek basis - walking), accelerated reading - tachylexia.

As a rule, the acceleration of thinking is combined with increased distraction of attention. At the onset of the disorder, internal distractibility predominates, when patients are distracted by random thoughts and ideas. Nevertheless, some patients at this time become very observant, noticing previously hidden details in the behavior of others. In more severe cases of the disorder, external distractibility comes to the fore—switching attention to some random external impressions (Osipov, 1923). At the height of the disorder, distractibility of attention reaches the degree of aprosexia, that is, a complete loss of voluntary attention, acceleration of thinking - jumps of ideas, and inconsistency of thinking - incoherence or aprosectic ataxia of thinking, according to V.P. Osipov.

Some idea of the degree of acceleration of thinking is given by the number of words spoken by patients per unit of time. It exceeds 80–90 words per minute (an approximate indicator of normal thinking speed) and reaches 200 words or even more. Patients, however, testify that even with very rapid speech, they do not have time to verbalize many of their thoughts: “In my thoughts I am already in Moscow, but in my speech I am still in Siberia.” Thus, they seem to indicate the existence of non-speech phenomena of thought, that is, the possibility of separate occurrence of thinking processes and thinking processes. The time for thinking over answers to questions is significantly reduced, pauses between words and phrases are shortened, and the flow of speech sometimes does not stop for a single minute.

Subjectively, the acceleration of thinking is accompanied by a feeling of special ease of appearance and extraordinary clarity of thoughts, a distinctness unusual for them before, some special depth and brightness. Many thoughts that normally go unnoticed easily pop up in the mind. The process of translating thoughts into words is facilitated. There are no difficulties in choosing the right words or forming phrases. At the same time, it seems to patients that their formulations are unmistakably correct.

As a rule, the ability to think to oneself is lost: whatever patients think about, they immediately say out loud. They speak much louder than usual, sometimes almost breaking into a scream. Speech, as it accelerates, increasingly takes on the form of a monologue, and dialogue skills are reduced. The phonemic structure of speech suffers, since individual phonemes and syllables do not have time to pronounce. Patients' stuttering disappears if it occurred in their normal state.

The logical structure of thinking is destroyed, it becomes associative, since the place of logical relations is taken by associations of similarity, contiguity and contrast. Abstract and general concepts are replaced by concrete ones, that is, the level of thinking is significantly reduced. If in the normal state the patients had some other thinking disorders, then with a significant acceleration of mental activity they recede into the background and become less noticeable. The productivity of thinking decreases as it accelerates. A slight acceleration of thinking can lead to a significant increase in thinking productivity, so that in a relatively short time, patients are able to do what would normally take them months, or even years. This, however, has to be judged from the words of the patients themselves. The pathopsychology of accelerated thinking has not been sufficiently studied.

Tachyphrenia is usually characteristic.

Acceleration of thinking is characteristic of manic and hypomanic states of various origins and is observed in manic-depressive psychosis, as well as in manioform states of exogenous origin, sometimes in schizophrenia, mainly in the onset and in its circular form. When thinking is accelerated, disturbances in its dynamics come to the fore, manifested in the lability of judgments. Characterized by rapid, facilitated emergence and change of thoughts. The judgments of patients with accelerated thinking are superficial. This, as well as attention disorders inherent in states with accelerated thinking, explains the low mental productivity of patients in a manic state. Mental productivity is even lower in symptomatic manias of intoxication or infectious origin, since in these cases the phenomena of increased exhaustion of mental processes become of great importance (such conditions are classified as astheno-manic). The performance of patients with mild hypomanic states and cyclothymia may be relatively good. The more pronounced the acceleration of thinking, the less effective the patient’s activity. Attention disturbances in manic states are primarily characterized by its instability. The combination of unstable attention, facilitated formation of associations, and accelerated flow of thoughts leads to peculiar changes in the patient’s speech - individual statements are not connected by any common idea, random associations are characteristic, often in consonance. The object of thinking becomes any object to which the patient pays attention. With a significant acceleration of thinking, they talk about a leap of ideas - thoughts replace each other so quickly that from the outside it is perceived as a continuous stream of words. At the same time, with a leap of ideas, in contrast to schizophrenic fragmentation, it is still not difficult to grasp the sequence of thoughts and their, albeit very superficial, interconnection. Only in cases of extremely sharp acceleration of thinking does the observer lose the ability to perceive transitions between individual thoughts. In these cases they speak of manic (vortex) confusion. Accelerated thinking, due to its instability, is characterized by an easy loss of the object of reasoning. Speech during a jump in ideas reflects the chaotic nature and increased variability of the purposefulness of thought processes, and the patient’s high distractibility. With accelerated thinking, patients do not dwell on individual ideas; their judgments are hasty, ill-conceived, one-sided, and superficial. Accelerated thinking is generally superficial and inconsistent. In psychological research, such ill-considered, hasty judgments of patients are easily corrected by pointing out to the examinee the mistake made. The exception is cases of angry mania, when the patient sharply negatively perceives any attempt to interfere with his reasoning. The impression of acceleration of the course of mental processes during an objective examination of patients in a manic state hasis external. So, the speed is sensomotor reactions and the latent period between the pronunciation of the stimulus word and the response in a verbal experiment are often not accelerated. Vice versa, an increase in these indicators is occasionally observed and is associated with instability of attention. The acceleration of thinking is determined by the ease of associations and lability of judgments, rapid changes of thoughts. Typically, accelerated thinking occurs against a background of heightened mood and euphoria. At the same time, a phenomenon that seems paradoxical at first glance is noted -with obvious superficiality of judgment and low productivity of mental activity, patients in a manic state sometimes amaze their interlocutor with apt remarks and their powers of observation. The fact is that their intellectual level is not reduced, and their ability to sharply judge, wit, often evil, and observation do not suffer. A. A. Perelman (1957) considered this feature of such patients as a sign of the preservation of the potential capabilities of their intellectual activity, the determining goals in thinking. At the same time, they have some lack of control over their judgments, weaknessinhibitory attitudes, which manifests itself in a certain decrease in the sense of tact and insufficient ability to be embarrassed. This explains the fact that a patient in a manic state can tell another person to his face what a healthy person would prefer to hide. W. Jahrreiss (1928) distinguished the following variants of the jump of ideas. 1. Mental leap of ideas - rich and poor in images. The picture of a race of ideas rich in images corresponds to its descriptions in typical circular mania. Poor in images of the leap of ideas, it is distinguished by the small number of ideas that arise in the patient’s thinking during its vortex acceleration. Clinically, the lack of images of the jump of ideas manifests itself mainly in the acceleration of speech and verbosity with a narrow range of ideas and images. Transitions from one thought to another occur not so much due to the lability of thinking, the ease of the emergence of semantic associations, but rather due to consonance or under the influence of external impressions. The role of internal incentive mechanisms can be traced significantly less in the mental production of patients with a lack of images and a jump of ideas. The onslaught of speech does not correspond to the volume of ideas and images that arise in the content, which is striking in its poverty. In this case, thinking has little content, despite its external acceleration. In such cases, they speak of unproductive mania, which should always alert the psychiatrist in terms of a possible diagnosis of the schizophrenic process. 2. Speech jumping of ideas is also mainly based on associations of consonance and is often observed in manioform states in patients with schizophrenia. It is often observed during catatonic excitement. 3. “Mute”, speech-poor leap of ideas is also called a whirlwind influx of thoughts - mentalism(P. H. Shaslin, 1914). Mentism is understood as an influx of thoughts, memories, and images. This symptom is distinguished by its involuntary occurrence and insubordination to the will of the patient. Subjectively, the patient experienced extremely painful e t the influx of thoughts, their direction does not depend at all on his consciousness; no volitional effort can either stop the influx of thoughts or direct them into the usual channel of reasoning. Often these thoughts do not even acquire a clear verbal form and appear in the mind in the form of images, ideas, and concepts devoid of specific content. Many psychiatrists consider mentism as a type of associative automatism (minor automatism). Mentism is observed in schizophrenia (especially in the onset and during a sluggish course of the process, when there is no pronounced mental defect), sometimes in exogenous-organic psychoses, in their initial stage, in cases of mild disorders of consciousness with manic stupor." In mentism K. A. Skvortsov (1938) saw the initial stage of automatism, the beginning of the encroaching alienation of thoughts.A characteristic feature of mentism in schizophrenia is its protracted course, the influx of thoughts leaves the patient only for a short time. 4. Vortex confusion is considered as the highest degree of expression of the race of ideas. Vortex (manic) confusion is difficult to distinguish from confusion in exogenous-organic psychoses, from an amental state. Their differentiation is possible only by analyzing the movement of psychopathological symptoms and taking into account the somatic state of the patient. V.P. Osipov (1923) believed that the basis of vortex confusion is the weakness of the associative process in connection with somatogenic asthenia. From a clinical point of view, the acceleration of thinking is not a diagnostically unambiguous symptom complex. The variety of its manifestations reflects both the specific essence of the pathological process and the peculiarities of pathogenesis inherent in a particular stage of the disease.and often the severity of the disease, the intensity of its severity. It should be noted that the presence of accelerated thinking significantly complicates the pathopsychological examination of the patient. This primarily applies to manioform states in patients with schizophrenia. Acceleration of thinking in such cases often masks thinking disorders typical of schizophrenia. Only when manic-like manifestations subside do thought disorders of a schizophrenic nature clearly appear. We must remember this and not rush to a diagnostic judgment in cases where the clinical picture simultaneously shows signs of accelerated thinking and schizophrenic symptoms.

Have you ever, while replaying in your head the negotiations you just completed or your participation in a heated discussion, admit with annoyance that, unfortunately, only now, after some time, did the right argument for your partners or an exact retort come to your mind in defiance to your opponent? And the train, as they say, has already left. What determines the speed of decision-making, and how to develop quick thinking?

Let's look at a simple comparison. Have you noticed how different the speed of information flow is between a film in a cinema and a series on TV? When making a film, directors have a good idea of the environment in which the audience will watch it, and depending on this, they choose the appropriate speed of plot development. In the cinema, you are completely involved in what is happening on the screen.

The pace of information delivery is so high that to make it easier to perceive, other stimuli are removed by turning off the lights in the hall. On the contrary, at home you watch the series at a measured pace, you have the opportunity to run to the refrigerator for something tasty, get distracted by a phone call, and still remain aware of the events happening on the screen.

Different people's brains also work at different rhythms.. Some people easily navigate the information flows that fall upon them like frames of an action film, while others are only able to process the speed of the tempo of a soap opera. The speed of processing incoming information available to a person is called the speed of thinking.

Developing the speed of thinking is one of the directions for developing a disciplined mind.

The speed of thinking is determined by the speed of the basic nervous processes - excitation and inhibition. These are psychophysiological characteristics and cannot be influenced by simple willpower. But what you can really do is, by training your mind, achieve an increase in the speed of information processing.

So, here are 10 effective exercises for developing speed of thinking.

"What if..." scenario

When preparing for complex negotiations or a meeting where you will be required to quickly respond to a rapidly changing situation, think through possible scenarios in advance. Ask yourself what you will say in response to such and such a question, or how you will act in such and such a situation, or how you will respond to your opponent’s remark.

Such training is useful because it encourages you to build probabilistic models of the future in your head. Use preventive calculation of possible events as a simulator, because when imagining a situation, you can arbitrarily speed up or slow down the speed of your reasoning.

As long as your vocabulary is littered with this verbal husk, the tempo of your thoughts will be slower than the tempo of which you are actually capable.

Practice thinking in another language

When you have the opportunity to reason outside of strict time frames, force your brain to reason in a foreign language, not your native one. The process you initiate is similar to how Tibetan monks are trained. By performing various physical exercises with load, they will then be able to perform the same exercises without load many times easier and faster.

The same principle works here: by forcing the brain to build logic in a non-native language, you train it so that it can then do the same thing in its native language much faster.

Reading with a stopwatch

Read a chapter of any book as quickly as possible. Record the time it took you to read. Now time yourself again and quickly retell the main information you just read. Do this exercise regularly, each time trying to reduce both the time for reading and the time for retelling what you read. This way you develop both the speed of perception and the speed of reproducing information.

Speed alphabet

Place a piece of paper with the letters of the alphabet in front of you. Come up with 3 words starting with each letter of the alphabet as quickly as possible: three words starting with “a”, then three words starting with “b” and so on until the letter “i”. Gradually increase the number of words you need to come up with up to 10.

To make this exercise more challenging, use a stopwatch again. Time how long it takes you to come up with 30 words. Then try to reduce this time by speeding up the pace of the task.

With Vikium you can do exercises to develop your thinking speed according to an individual program

Dear calls

Sometimes money abroad goes very quickly for international calls on a mobile phone. Imagine that every second of your conversation costs a lot of money. When you remember a conversation you just had with someone, make it a point to mentally repeat it in a way that shortens the duration of the conversation as much as possible. Think about how you could clear this conversation of unnecessary information noise - unnecessary phrases and questions that could be completely avoided.

Practice engaging in business dialogue with someone if the situation allows. Imagine that you are talking on a phone where calls are very expensive. Try to speed up the dialogue, speak and think faster than you usually do. Focus only on the main thing, choose only the most precise words, do not get distracted from the topic, speak and answer quickly.

Determine your priorities

To train your thinking speed, use the practice of prioritizing. Everything you deal with, come into contact with, surrounds you, you can rank from important to unnecessary and useless. The habit of ranking structures your personal information space.

Just as it is easy for you to find the things you need where they are located in a certain order that you know, it will be easy for you to look for the information you need to make a decision. Although this recommendation is hardly a developmental exercise, following it means preparing your brain in advance for quick decisions.

Read humorous stories

Not just stories. You can also make it a rule to look at humorous drawings. A sense of humor is always associated with a high speed of response to a situation. Plus, this includes the ability to see a non-obvious contradiction and identify it in the most vivid and precise formulations. All this together represents quick thinking.

Don't just read or memorize witty jokes, but strive to understand what the point of the joke is, why it makes you laugh?

Collecting a collection of puns will also benefit your mind. By accumulating such unusual experience of responding, you train your brain to produce something similar at the right moment.

"Upside Down"

This exercise is similar to exercise 3, but it is much easier to perform. And, moreover, more fun. When you pick up any magazine or book or newspaper, turn it over so as to change the top and bottom and flip through it, looking at the drawings and photographs placed there.

Try to understand what is shown there, and do it as quickly as possible. This is how you train your brain to recognize non-obvious signals and navigate “shifting” situations. And, most importantly, do not be satisfied with the first answer, but delve into a deeper assessment of the situation. You can place a complex, intricate picture upside down on your computer desktop.

Changing speeds

Since we are talking about quick thinking, it is worth practicing controlling the speed of your processes. Do the same thing, changing the speed at which you do it. For example, you can brush your teeth at different speeds, drink a glass of water, or read a letter received in the mail. By deliberately speeding up or slowing down your actions, you train your brain to work at different paces. Try to gradually make slow execution even slower. And, on the contrary, speed up fast execution every now and then.

These exercises will not be effective if not performed regularly.. Doing one task every day will stimulate your brain to develop in the right direction.

If you really intend to seriously approach the problem of how to develop speed of thinking, the exercises proposed here will help you

promptly respond to a problematic situation,
do not regret that the right decision came to mind late,
protect your brain from early aging and devastating diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.