The Benefits of Mental Math for the Brain

Mental mathematics is an important skill that can help keep our brains fast and sharp. It improves a person's sense of numbers, memory, logical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Research has shown that there are physical changes in the hippocampus when children

The Benefits of Mental Math for the Brain

Mental mathematics is an important skill that can help keep our brains fast and sharp. It is not just an oral calculation in the mind, but it is the training of brain cells that can have a positive impact on cognitive abilities in general. Mental math helps to improve a person's sense of numbers, the ability to understand relationships between quantities, and their memory. It also increases a person's ability to store large amounts of information in their brain and develop logical thinking, which allows them to increase their problem-solving skills.

Research conducted by Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, revealed how a year of early math classes can change children's brains. MRIs showed that there are physical changes in the hippocampus, which is the area of the brain associated with memory. The stronger the connections in the hippocampus, the greater the ability of each person to remember facts by heart. Kathy Mann Koepke from the National Institutes of Health shared advice to parents that they should continue doing math exercises with their children as experience matters and those simple multiplication and addition exercises could go a long way.

The first benefit of developing mental math skills in a child is their ability to concentrate. JAMS is an Abacus-centered mathematics school that uses Abacus & Anzan instruction to help children grow and learn lifelong skills. Mathematical concepts are based on each other and it's important to have an idea of numbers to understand complex concepts. Scult states: “It is possible that training the brain with mental mathematics strengthens the capacity for emotional reevaluation or, perhaps, continuously executing the process of emotional reevaluation increases the ability to perform other types of mental calculations, such as mental arithmetic.”Mental mathematics is when a child is able to determine the correct answers to mathematical equations without the use of anything other than their brain.

Calculating mathematical problems from memory may seem unrelated to the daily processing of emotions, but they have more in common than you might think. In conclusion, mental math helps to keep our brains fast and sharp by improving our sense of numbers, memory, and logical thinking. It also increases our ability to store large amounts of information in our brain and develop problem-solving skills. Research has shown that there are physical changes in the hippocampus when children do math exercises which increases their ability to remember facts by heart. Parents should continue doing math exercises with their children as experience matters and those simple multiplication and addition exercises could go a long way.

Shahid Lakha
Shahid Lakha

Shahid Lakha is a seasoned educational consultant with a rich history in the independent education sector and EdTech. With a solid background in Physics, Shahid has cultivated a career that spans tutoring, consulting, and entrepreneurship. As an Educational Consultant at Spires Online Tutoring since October 2016, he has been instrumental in fostering educational excellence in the online tutoring space. Shahid is also the founder and director of Specialist Science Tutors, a tutoring agency based in West London, where he has successfully managed various facets of the business, including marketing, web design, and client relationships. His dedication to education is further evidenced by his role as a self-employed tutor, where he has been teaching Maths, Physics, and Engineering to students up to university level since September 2011. Shahid holds a Master of Science in Photon Science from the University of Manchester and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Bath.