What are cognitive skills? How does having more or less cognitive abilities influence our health? Discover how to develop your cognitive skills according to psychology.
The cognitive habilyties They allow us to advance more quickly both on a personal and professional level. Despite this, cognitive abilities can improve through effort and work. But how can we do it?
The cognition It is a term that refers to those mental processes that are involved in both the acquisition of knowledge and the understanding of our surroundings.
These are functions that involve higher levels of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception and planning. Therefore, the Cognitive abilities They are important for our daily development.
He development of cognitive skills It allows people to enjoy our cognitive abilities. In this way, a cognitive ability allows us to carry out any of the tasks we focus on in our daily lives.
Basic cognitive skills
Although we develop different types of cognitive skills, the reality is that all people share a series of basic cognitive functions. Among them are the following.
Attention: Attention is a cognitive competence which implies that people can concentrate on a specific stimulus in their environment.
Language: Language is another of the basic cognitive abilities that people enjoy. Specifically, language implies the ability to understand and express thoughts through our spoken and written words.
Learning: Learning is another of the cognitive areas that we all share. In this case it refers to those cognitive processes that are involved with the ability to assimilate new things, as well as synthesize information and relate it to previous knowledge.
Memory: Memory is another of the cognitive skills that we all share. The cognitive areas related to memory allow us to encode, store and retrieve information.
Perception: Perception is a mental ability which allows people to receive information through all the senses to be able to respond and interact with the environment and reality that surrounds us.
Thought: Thought is another of the basic cognitive skills, in addition to being essential for all cognitive processes. This cognitive ability allows people to make decisions, solve problems and everything that involves higher reasoning.
It is logical that having some Cognitive abilities or others may affect us to a greater or lesser extent. In this way, mainly our cognitive abilities impact the following aspects.
Perception of the world: Have a greater or lesser Cognitive ability It involves perceiving the world in different ways. Therefore, by improving our cognitive abilities, people can perceive other aspects of everything around us.
Form impressions: A cognitive competence It involves being able to give meaning to the information that comes in through our senses. So much so that people with better social skills can simplify the world to simpler ideas.
Fill the gaps in memory: Our memory is imperfect. For this reason, when the cognitive skills Our brain fills in the gaps of memories to a lesser extent.
Interaction with the world: The cognitive activities They involve many of the actions we carry out in our daily lives. In this way, people can pay more attention to the world around us if we work to have better cognitive skills.
How to improve our cognitive skills?
As we have mentioned, our cognitive ability can be improved. In this way, through the following habits people can increase their cognitive habilyties
Physical activity: According to different studies, physical exercise can improve some of the basic cognitive functions such as memory and thinking in general. In this way, doing daily training can improve the different cognitive areas of our brain.
Openness to experience: Being more open-minded is also one of the best ways to make people improve your cognitive skills So much so that people can promote their cognitive capacity by leaving their comfort zone, that is, by acquiring new experiences.
Develop curiosity and creativity: Another method to improve our cognitive skills It is precisely by developing both curiosity and creativity. Therefore, by carrying out an artistic activity we are giving our brain the ability to improve its cognitive skills.
Social relationships: Loneliness can be harmful to our cognitive habilyties According to different studies, not maintaining our social relationships can trigger psychological and cognitive deterioration. Therefore, it is essential to try to open our minds to new relationships as well as maintain those that we want to keep.
Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness meditation is one of the cognitive activities with more benefits for our brain. Research has shown that there are many changes in our brain that allow for better cognitive competence.
Reduces stress: Stress is one of the most widespread diseases today. So much so that according to neuroscientists, chronic stress and high levels of cortisol can damage our brain. Therefore, to improve our cognitive skills It is essential to try to avoid what causes us too much stress.
Sleep well: Sleep is vital so that people can develop our abilities to the fullest. cognitive habilyties Therefore, we must assume that a good rest is essential to increase the cognitive response of our brain.
In many cases, mental illnesses (such as anxiety and depression, among others) can affect the way we perceive our reality and how we face the world through our thoughts. cognitive habilyties Therefore, it is vital to go to a professional psychologist if you perceive any problem in this. Your ability to see the world may be affected.
