Five Ways That Signing Up For a Workshop Boosts Your Brain Fitness

There are lots of ways to keep your mind engaged when you’re carving out some personal relaxation time.

You can enjoy fun stuff like connecting with long lost acquaintances on Facebook, going to a movie, catching up on reading, spending time with friends and family, or binge watching TV shows that you’ve been aiming to see. But to really amp up your grey matter’s well-being, participating in a workshop at an adult school or creative studio can be an enlightening, enjoyable, and rewarding solution.

Here’s why:

1. Workshops can motivate you to develop a new skill, passion, or hobby. According to research published in Psychological Science, people who pursued these goals showed significant cognitive gains, including improved memory.
2. Workshops that inspire you to learn a language can also deliver brain gains: according to Medical Daily Pulse, becoming bilingual can help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and stimulates more activity in certain brain regions.
3. Workshops give you a chance to meet and engage with people who share your interests. Researchers at Brigham Young University found that this nurturing of social relationships can have a positive effect on your mental health, as well as your mortality.
4. Workshops offer you a convenient opportunity to explore new topics, activities, or pastimes that you may have always been interested in - but never quite found the time to do. By sparking this journey in lifelong learning, you’ll whittle down your “to-do” list, add to your “finally doing it” list, and, as detailed in the U.K. magazine Psychologies, increase your self-esteem in the process.
5. Workshops let you disconnect from your distracting digital devices and experience new information that’s refreshing, stimulating, and challenging. Forbes writer Jan Bruce says that turning off your devices for even one hour will increase your attention span, savor the moment, and dial down your overall stress.

To discover new knowledge, connect with new groups, and strengthen your mind power, taking a workshop in an area that’s always been of interest to you is absolutely worth your time, effort, and attention.

Ashley Gabriel is the owner of My Social Heirloom, a new co-working, event, and workshop space in Montclair. Follow her @SocialHeirloom.