Balance is an interesting and fun skill that has been proven to activate large and widely varied parts of the brain. As covered previously, anything that activates more parts of your brain always allows you to access more of your innate creativity. All those interconnections, nudges, hints and messy entanglements that happen from connecting your knowledge around and throughout your brain will always lead to greater creativity and fresh insights.

Here's how balance works to activate more of your brain:

Balance comes from feedback that comes from the eyes, the muscles and joints, and the vestibular organs in the inner ears. These sources send information in the form of nerve impulses to your brain.

(Note that some brain experts are "extending" the brain to include your eyes, nose, tongue and hands… since the number of connections into your brain from these body parts are extensive.)

Feedback from the eyes - Specialized sensory receptors in the retina called rods and cones are sensitive to light. When photons strike them, visual data impulses are sent to the brain to guide balance. For example, when you are laying in bed or standing in the street, your eyes constantly communicate visual references for vertical and horizontal.

Feedback from the muscles and joints - Specialized sensory receptors that are sensitive to stretch or pressure in tissue deliver feedback to the brain from the muscles and joints. This sensing of position and movement of the body is called proprioception. When your legs, arms, etc. change position, sensory receptors feedback the shortening and stretching of the opposing muscles to your brain.Impulses from your neck, shoulders and head show the relative position of your head, while impulses from your lower leg, feet and ankles indicate the body's movement and position relative to gravity and the earth or floor.

Feedback from the inner ear (vestibular organs) - The inner ear is a complex series of structures and fluids within the skull. Each inner ear has hearing (auditory) parts and balance (vestibular) parts which are the vestibular organs. The sensory receptors within this complex series of structures sends feedback to the brain, orienting our balance.

Feedback to the Cerebellum - All this information is sent to the cerebellum. It's in charge of balance, posture and coordination. The cerebellum is about 10 percent of the brain, yet it contains nearly 50% of all neurons in the brain! The cerebellum sends the information to the rest of the brain and spinal cord which distribute instructions to the body. The cerebellum allows us to walk, maintain balance, and turn around without effort.

The cerebellum is involved in a lot more than that though. It is activated during many other thinking activities.

Recent research has shown through PET (Positron Emmision Tomography) scans, how much brain activity is stimulated by simple balance. In fact, the amount of neuronal activity and the total area of the brain activated, soars when you do something as simple as maintaining balance on one leg.

Here's how to make it work to your benefit:

Any sort of exercise where you are required to maintain static or dynamic balance will stimulate this dramatic increase in brain activity. Tai chi (and any other upright and moving martial art) works well. So does walking on a treadmill, using a cross country ski machine, skiing or skating of any kind, skateboarding, surfing, dancing, mountain biking; or any other activity that "grooves with gravity" is valuable in this type of brain activation. Any action that offers the opportunity to coordinate your movements so that your center of mass remains aligned with your center of gravity, stimulates large and varied parts of your brain.

Specific exercises to stimulate this increase in neuronal activity have been proposed as effective brain stimuli that will result in increases in our ability to learn and integrate knowledge. This can have profound effects on your writing. Here are some recommended exercises :

1. Single Leg Stance:

Raise one foot up without touching it to the standing leg. Try to bring your thigh to a parallel position with the lower leg hanging down. Practice on each side for 30 seconds, twice a day or to at the end of a learning session.Then, with your gaze fixed straight ahead, close your eyes and maintain balance for up to 30 seconds. The goal is to stand unaided on one leg with your eyes closed for 30 seconds… no foot touching the support leg, no hopping, the raised foot doesn't touch the floor, and the arms do not touch something for support. Count the longest time you can maintain with your eyes closed.

2. Leg Extension Balance drill

Front Leg Extension:Turn your standing legs' foot outside to a comfortable angle with the knee slightly bent. Extend your other leg forward, carefully extending your knee by pushing through your heel and pulling your toes back upwards to the sky. Bend the standing leg (towards a sitting position) as much as is comfortable (and possible) without leaning. Breathe, maintain your balance and grip the ground with your toes. Keep your eyes on the horizon.

Move to Side Leg Extension: From the Front Leg Extension rotate your extended leg, leading with the little toe so that your raised leg rotates to the side with your foot turned outward 45 degrees. Crouch down on the standing leg and keep your leg extended to the side (like a side kick). Breathe and grip the ground with your toes.

Move to Rear Leg Extension:Leading with your heel, bring your leg in and then extend your leg backwards until your leg extends behind you. Slowly extend your leg out behind you as you lean your upper body forward. Breathe and maintain your balance.

Swing back to Front Leg Extension: Bend your raised knee and slowly swing your leg under you and carefully extend your leg to the front. Begin the set again with a Front Leg Extension. Repeat for 4 sets on each leg.

3. Leg Extension Balance Drill with toes pointed:

Do the same set of leg extensions with your toes pointed. Move through the same three position set, 4 times on each leg.

4. Swinging the Extended Leg:

Standing tall and balancing on one leg, raise the other leg and pull your toes upward while pushing through your heel. Gently swing your raised leg back and forth for 20 seconds. Then switch and swing the other leg.

5. Balance Board Sessions:

Extreme Balance Board Indo Board Vew Do Board

Practice balancing for 5 – 10 minutes, in order to help integrate the ideas you are coming up with, or to break up a long writing or researching session.

Dr. Richard Restak in his book "Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot" also suggests a set of dynamic one legged balance exercises to achieve brain activation.

Balance training has been used to recover from ankle sprains; with children for vestibular (inner ear) problems; to strengthen chronic knee injuries; with elderly individuals with frequent falls; and even to solve lower back pain.

Balance training has been shown to be more efficient than strength training and surprisingly, it gives rapid results.

Most of all – it's a lot of fun. Try it out!