Test Your Brain Power

You can use this 2×5 grid to solve this problem.

The 5 Baxter sisters get together for breakfast once a week at their favorite diner.  The waitress knows all 5 sisters and every week asks them if they want their usual, to which the sisters always say yes.  Use the clues to determine how each sister likes her eggs, what type of breakfast meat each prefers, and what kind of juice each sister drinks.

1. The five sisters are: Danielle, Eileen, Laurie, Nikki, and Rhona.
2. Laurie always has steak and eggs, but she doesn’t like apple juice or grapefruit juice.
3. One sister, who isn’t Eileen, always has bacon, poached eggs, and orange juice.
4. The sister who always has grapefruit juice doesn’t order her eggs scrambled.
5. Danielle always has eggs sunny side up, but does not have the ham or Canadian bacon.
6. Rhona, who doesn’t order Canadian bacon or grape juice, always orders her eggs over medium.
7. The sister that has pineapple juice each week doesn’t have scrambled eggs.
8. The sister who has her eggs over easy does not have the grapefruit juice.

View the solution here: What’s for Breakfast Solution

Experiencing writer’s block?  Having trouble with a creative endeavor?  Faced with a problem you can’t seem to solve?  There is a simple technique you can use to help you see things differently, come up with new and unexpected ideas, and relax in the process!

Creativity Boosting Meditation:

1. Find a quiet area with pleasant scenery.  This can be a corner in your favorite park, or sitting in front of a small desktop fountain or anything that is visually pleasing where you are least likely to be disrupted.
2. Sit comfortably and take in the scene, casually observe everything that is in front of you.
3. Close your eyes and take several deep cleansing breaths through your nose.  Let all the tension in your muscles ease away, relaxing your arms, legs, torso, and face.  (You might be surprised how much tension we carry in our faces.)
4. Focus on your breathing, if your mind wanders to other topics, bring it back to your breathing.  Find a slow, comfortable rhythm that helps further relax your body.
5. Give yourself 5 to 15 minutes of this quiet relaxed breathing and then open your eyes and take in the scenery in front of you again.  Chances are you are going to notice things you missed before, colors may seem more vibrant, and you may have a new approach to the problem you were facing before.

The reason that this works is because you are clearing your mind of the preconceptions that may have been standing in the way of finding the right words to write next, a new way to approach the creative endeavor, or finding a solution to the problem you were facing.

Sleeping is an important part of learning, memory. and brain health and function.  For more on this, read “Sleep On It” which discusses the effects sleep has on the brain.  Naps can provide the same effects as a full night’s sleep, just on a smaller scale.  Power naps are short naps that give you the advantages of the first two sleep cycles and allow you to wake refreshed.

Power naps are often used by people who are short on regular sleep in order to make up for the deficiency.  Lance Armstrong incorporated power naps as part of his training regimen when preparing for the tour-de-francebicycle race.  Steve Fossett reported that when he made his 67-hour solo flight around the world he took many two- to three-minute naps and says he woke refreshed.  Thomas Edison took periodic “catnaps” instead of getting a full night’s sleep when working on inventions like the light bulb.

Research indicates that power naps can increase productivity, improve learning, decrease stress levels, and improve mood.  A study done by NASA indicates that while power naps don’t improve alertness, there is an improvement in memory functions.  When people nap, their brain functions remain at a consistent level through out the day.  When people don’t nap, brain functions are shown to decline as the day progresses.

The key to a power nap is its length.  The point is to complete the first two sleep stages and then wake up.  The first sleep stage is the act of flling asleep in which we become relaxed and out breathing slows.  This stage usually lasts bout 10 minutes.  The second stage is a light sleep that is very restful and can last from 10 to 20 minutes.   So a power nap should last between 20 and 30 minutes.  Each person will have a different length that works best and the only way to determine yours is through trial and error.

If you sleep too long, your body will go into a deeper sleep and if you wake before this stage is complete you will experience something called “sleep inertia” which leaves you feeling sluggish and having a hard time focusing.  Upon entering the deeper sleep stage, your brain is effectively winding down and when disrupted it can take as long as half an hour to get your brain back up to its usual level of activity.

If you have trouble falling asleep for a short nap, you can try meditation CDs or simply take a break from what you are doing and daydream.  You may not fall asleep, but it gives both your brain and your body a break and a chance to build up some energy stores.

You have a square birthday cake and need to cut into exactly 8 equal pieces but you can only make 3 cuts.  How can you do this?

Stumped?  Here’s a hint:

One of the cuts is perpendicular to the other two.

Here’s the solution:

The first two cuts will make an x or a + on the top of the cake, cutting it into 4 equal pieces.  The third cut will be through the side, cutting each piece into two pieces.

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Many people start their day with a cup of coffee.  People who consume coffee on a daily basis report experiencing headaches and lethargy when they miss one or more of their regular cups of coffee.   There is a fine line when it comes to the positive and negative impacts of caffeine.

An initial dose of caffeine can help clarify thought, boost energy, and increase alertness.  This is because caffeine is a stimulant and binds to the adenosine receptors in the brain.  The stimulant effects of the caffeine increases the heart rate and the blood flow to the brain.  Binding to the adenosine receptors prevents the absorption of adenosine which causes drowsiness.

The effects of caffeine lead to a release of adrenaline into the body.  As adrenaline levels increase, mental clarity tends to decrease.  As more caffeine is consumed, the effects of the adrenaline can cause irritability and anxiety.  The benefits of caffeine are usually felt after one dose of caffeine - the equivalent to an 8-ounce cup of coffee.

A cumulative effect of caffeine is a disruption to the sleep cycle.  Caffeine has a half life of 6 hours, which means that out of 150 milligrams of caffeine consumed at 5 in the afternoon, 75 milligrams will still be in the body at 11 that night.  This means that the adenosine receptors are still being blocked.  While this may not prevent you from getting to sleep, it will prevent you from reaching a deep sleep state which means you are not getting fully rested.

The disruption to the sleep cycle results in a vicious cycle.  Not getting a good night’s sleep results in feeling drowsy the next morning and feeling the need for caffeine.  To combat the drowsy feeling, caffeine is consumed which starts the blockage of the adenosine receptors, which further disrupts the sleep cycle.

So while moderate use of caffeine can improve mental clarity, overuse of this stimulant can lead to dependency and end up impeding brain functions.

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The correct answer is neither - peacocks are the male of the species and do not lay eggs.  Peahens are the females and lay the eggs.

There were several guests who voted for the correct answer, congratulations!  Please comment to this post with your email address (the comments will not be published) so that we can choose a winner.

Change one letter at  time to get from Chess to Games.  You must have a real word each step of the way.  Highlight the area next to the word ladder for the answers.

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Gapes

Capes

Copes

Cores

Corps

Coops

Crops

Cross

Cress

Place 6 Xs on the Tic-Tac-Toe

board without making a

three-in-a-row in any direction.

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Stumped?  Here is a hint:

You will not have Xs in all four corners.

The Solution:

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The correct answer is None of the Above - an electric train does not emit any smoke.

There were several guests who voted for the correct answer, congratulations!  Please comment to this post with your email address (the comments will not be published) so that we can choose a winner.

Joe has 3 kids, can you determine their ages using the following information?

• ~ Their birthdays have the same month and day, but not necessarily the same year.
• ~ The product of their ages is 72.
• ~ The sum of their ages is 14.
• ~ The youngest child is named Alice, the two older children are Chris and Terry.

Stumped?  Here is a hint:

If you create a list of the ways to get a product of 72 with three factors, there are two that when the factors are added together, the sum is 14.

Solution:

The children’s ages are 2, 6, and 6.

Here’s why:

The clue that the product of their ages is 72 means we can come up with the following list of possibilities:

1 x  1 x 72 = 72
1 x  2 x 36 = 72
1 x  3 x 24 = 72
1 x  4 x 18 = 72
1 x  6 x 12 = 72
1 x  8 x 9 = 72
2 x  2 x 18 = 72
2 x  3 x 12 = 72
2 x  4 x  9 = 72
2 x  6 x  6 = 72
3 x  3 x  8 = 72
3 x  4 x  6 = 72

The next clue tells us to take the list of possibilities and add them together to see which equals 14.

1 +  1 + 72 = 74
1 +  2 + 36 = 39
1 +  3 + 24 = 28
1 +  4 + 18 = 23
1 +  6 + 12 = 19
1 +  8 +  9 = 18
2 +  2 + 18 = 22
2 +  3 + 12 = 17
2 +  4 +  9 = 15
2 +  6 +  6 = 14
3 +  3 +  8 = 14
3 +  4 +  6 = 13

There are two sets of ages with the sum of 14, since there is a youngest child, as the final clue tells us, the answer must be 2, 6, and 6.