Mental math, also known as doing math calculations in your head, has become a bit of a lost art in the age of calculators and smartphones. However, there are many benefits to keeping your mental math skills sharp that go beyond just impressing your friends or not having to find your phone to figure out a restaurant tip. Mental math provides a brain boost that can help keep your mind agile and alert as you age. It may even help stave off cognitive decline and dementia. Let’s take a deeper look at the impact mental math can have on your brain health.
What is Mental Math?
Mental math involves doing basic math calculations in your head without the aid of pencil and paper, calculators, or other devices. This includes:
- Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers
- Figuring percentages or fractions of amounts
- Determining square roots or squaring numbers
- Estimating quantities or costs
- Solving basic algebra problems
Mental math relies on memorized math facts as well as other number relationships and shortcuts to arrive at solutions. Students used to routinely practice mental math skills in school without relying on calculators, but nowadays students reach for the calculator even for simple computations.
Adults also frequently turn to technology rather than working it out in their heads. While technology has certainly made complex computations easier, losing those mental math skills could have impacts on brain health and function.
Mental Math and the Brain
Mental math provides a brain boost in several key ways:
Strengthens Important Cognitive Skills
Mental math relies heavily on working memory – the ability to temporarily hold information in the brain while manipulating it. It also utilizes executive functioning like reasoning, flexibility, and self-control.
Regular practice with mental math strengthens these cognitive skills that are vital for many tasks, including problem-solving, critical thinking, focusing, and decision making. Strengthening these skills through mental math could even boost cognitive abilities beyond math.
Increases Speed of Information Processing
With mental math, there is no writing down intermediate steps – you have to retain steps and solutions in your head while quickly moving through the computations. This helps increase the speed at which you can process numerical information.
As you get faster at mental math, you are actually helping your brain process data more rapidly, an ability important for learning and daily activities.
Boosts Overall Brain Connectivity
Math is complex mental activity that engages many areas of the brain at once, including the prefrontal cortex, parietal lobe, hippocampus, and others. Mental math activates these regions and strengthens the connections between them.
The heightened connectivity can improve communication and efficiency throughout the brain, benefiting skills beyond just math.
May Help Delay Cognitive Decline
Some research has found that engaging in challenging cognitive activities may help improve brain health and delay cognitive decline associated with aging. Mental math just might be one such brain boosting activity.
A 2013 study had older adults practice mental math for 8 hours a week for a month. Brain scans before and after showed increased neural activity and connectivity that corresponded with improvements in cognitive skills like working memory and reasoning.
While more research is still needed, keeping math skills sharp as you age could support longer lasting cognitive abilities.
Benefits for Students
Practicing mental math skills has advantages for students, both academically and cognitively:
- Improves math competency – Mental math leads to deeper understanding and number sense.
- Enhances concentration and focus – Keeping track of operations in your head takes focus.
- Boosts working memory – Holding steps in your head strengthens temporary information storage.
- Increases efficiency – Less writing makes mental math quicker than paper and pencil math once mastered.
- Builds confidence – Being able to quickly calculate in your head is empowering.
Students who are strong mental math users often excel at math and demonstrate strong problem-solving skills and overall math achievement.
How to Improve Your Mental Math
If you want to boost your brainpower with mental math, follow these tips:
Start simple
Don’t jump into complex equations. Build skills starting with simple single-digit addition and subtraction before moving to double digits and more advanced operations. Master the basics first.
Practice regularly
Use spare moments like waiting in line or in traffic to quiz yourself. The more you practice, the more automatic mental math becomes.
Try math games
Games like Sudoku or math puzzles provide fun ways to engage in mental math. Many math game apps can provide quick practice.
Learn math tricks
Tricks for quickly squaring numbers or other such shortcuts help make mental math easier. Look up math strategies online or in books.
Estimate answers
Practice first estimating a solution rather than calculating an exact answer. Developing number sense helps improve approximate mental math.
Compete with friends
A little friendly competition can make mental math practice more motivating. Compare who can calculate tips or sale prices the quickest.
Conclusion
Mental math provides a great brain workout that can keep you mentally sharp at any age. Practicing mental math strengthens key cognitive skills like working memory, focus, and processing speed. It also increases connectivity in the brain. Making mental math a part of your daily routine provides benefits beyond just saving time reaching for a calculator. Put away the calculator and pencil and start calculating more in your head! Your brain will thank you.
| Mental Math Skill | Cognitive Benefit |
|---|---|
| Adding/subtracting | Strengthens working memory |
| Multiplying/dividing | Increases speed of information processing |
| Determining percentages | Enhances concentration |
| Estimating quantities | Improves overall brain connectivity |
| Solving algebra problems | Boosts focus and reasoning skills |
Tips to Improve Mental Math Skills
- Practice mental math every day
- Start with simple problems before working up
- Learn shortcuts and math facts
- Use math puzzles and games
- Estimate answers before calculating
- Compete with friends
Mental math provides a great brain workout that can keep you mentally sharp at any age. Practicing mental math strengthens key cognitive skills like working memory, focus, and processing speed. It also increases connectivity in the brain. Making mental math a part of your daily routine provides benefits beyond just saving time reaching for a calculator. Put away the calculator and pencil and start calculating more in your head! Your brain will thank you.