How to Boost Your Brain with Poetry

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Scientists from the University of Liverpool investigated the effect of reading high poetry on human brain activity.

It turned out that neurons in the brain send a strong impulse, meeting almost every word or turn in a poem.

This impulse does not diminish even when the line ends. This means that the brain is accelerating and continues to look for additional meaning in the following verses. The same works, retold in prose, do not have a similar effect.

For example, the word "distraught" in the retelling was replaced by "enraged." Before the replacement, the brain tried with all its might to comprehend why the author used this particular epithet. And the word "furious" did not generate a noticeable impulse.

We also found that reading poetry affects the areas of the brain responsible for autobiographical memory and allows us to reevaluate our experience in the light of what we read.

Such activities of the brain help to become smarter.

Write poetry

Psychologists advise to write down everything that happens to us on paper. This helps the brain to unload and organize information. Why not do it in verse? Even if you just retell the events of the day in poetic form, you can achieve at least two goals: to get psychological relaxation and linguistic experience.

Finding a rhyme and maintaining a rhythm takes mental effort, and it will not go to you in vain. In fact, such an action has nothing to do with literature. Just training the mind.

Listen to poems

The German neuroscientist Ernst Pöppel and the poet Frederic Turner in their essays attribute a slight hypnotic effect to listening to poetry. The brain adjusts to the rhythm of poetry and constant repetitions (rhymes). Thanks to this, a person relaxes.

When you listen to poetry, both hemispheres of the brain begin to work. The right one is responsible for the rhythm, and the left one is responsible for the verbal component.

It turns out that listening to poetry provides a stereo effect. It is much more useful than the mono-effect of ordinary prose, which only the left hemisphere processes.

The interaction of the hemispheres allows the brain to assess any situation from all sides. By teaching the brain to work as a whole, and not in parts (hemispheres), you can most holistically approach the problem. Agree, a useful skill.

Learn poetry

Learning poetry is one of the most accessible and enjoyable ways to improve your memory. If you make it a rule to learn at least one poem a week, after a couple of months you will notice that memorizing texts of any complexity has become much easier for you. Don't forget about erudition. We all admired at least once a person who reads a favorite poem by heart.

Recite

Recent research has shown that poetry develops empathy. Reciting strong lines makes people feel deep emotions and even goosebumps.

It turns out that the appearance of goose bumps on the skin is one of the forms of empathy. Scientists compare this effect to yawning: when one yawns, someone else involuntarily begins to yawn. It's the same with goose bumps. In this way, the brain learns to understand the emotions of other people.

The work of researchers and personal experience speaks of the beneficial effects of poetry on the brain. But don't be discouraged if you keep falling asleep over Dante's volume from time to time. Yes, poetry is a powerful trainer for the mind, but not the only one. If this doesn't work, just move on to the next one.