The collection of short stories called “Gymnastics for the Brain” contains a pioneering method for exercising the mind. This collection presents recurrent situations of daily life, followed by lessons learned as a way of reflection.
These are written in leetspeak language, whose purpose is to stimulate the mind to practice the habit of reading in a playful way, but with greater intensity.
Leetspeak is a specialized type of writing that uses symbols, such as numbers and special characters, to replace letters of the latin alphabet. It is also known as ellet or leet, and is popular mainly among Internet users for communication on social networks, online games, between computer hackers, etc.
How Leetspeak Works
The habit of reading, as we know, can result in benefits such as increased imaginative ability, reasoning, memory, pattern recognition, among others.
Leetspeak can also be used as a technique for exercising the mind, thereby promoting improvements in brainpower and reading ability.
The use of leetspeak acts as a kind of encryption of words, forcing the brain to make more effort to understand and, consequently, is a mental exercise, which can contribute to the enhancement of the benefits resulting from reading.
The importance of reflection
In day-to-day life, where changes happen more and more rapidly and steadily, we rarely have time to “pause and reflect” on life in general, our habits and the way we behave and we respond to certain everyday situations. But, according to Joel Barker “speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction”. So it’s important to stop once in a while to see if we’re really heading in the right direction in our life.
The stories in the “Gymnastics for the Brain” collection contain messages about relevant themes whose reflections are important to the brain and thus prevent stress and prepare us to meet the challenges we face.
Reflection is also an important way of exercising the mind. When performed in a relaxed, calm and open-minded environment, can stimulate creativity and imagination as well as produce learning and generate insights capable of changing unwanted habits and behaviors.
Pratical combination
According to the brain dominance theory, the brain contains two hemispheres that each performs a number of roles.
The right side of the brain is best at expressive and creative tasks. Some of the abilities popularly associated with the right side of the brain include: emotions, imagination and criativity. On the other hand, the left-side of the brain is considered to be adept at tasks that involve abilities as: language, logic, numbers and critical thinking.
The stories of the collection “Gymnastics for the Brain” seek to work with the emotional side of the reader. This hardly activates the right section of the brain. On the other hand, interpreting passages written in leetspeack hardly activates the left section of the brain, associated with numbers and logic.
The combination of stories for reflection plus texts written in leetspeak provides a complete experience in working with both hemispheres of the brain. This way, it produces an increase in perception, and improves capacity for understanding and reflection on the transmitted messages. As a result, it is an efficient way of mental exercise.
The books of the collection Gymnastics for the Brain
Among the books of this collection, stand out:
- Opposing Brothers
- The Preferred Son
- The Surprise of Separation
- Negotiation Almost Impossible
- The Undecided Passenger
In the first part of this books, the story and messages are written in leetspeak. In the second part the stories and messages are written in normal language, because if the reader encounters any difficulties in the interpretation of leetspeak he can refer to this section.
OS: The e-books in the collection are available in Kindle format. To read on your PC or other device download the free reading application.
I you prefer, you can use the Kindle Cloud Reader, which lets you read ebooks in your web browser – no Kindle device required.
Exemple of text in leetspeak
The following is a text written in Leetspeack, Try to read and undesrstand what is written:
“7h3 c10ll3c+110n 0f 5h0r7 $+10r13$ c4ll3d “9ymn4$+1cs ph10r 73h 8r41n” c10n+41n5 4 p110n33r1n9 m37h0d ph0r 3x3rc1s1n9 7h3 m1nd. +h15 c10ll3c+110n pr3$3n75 r3curr3n+ 51+u@7110ns 0f d@1ly l1f3, ph0ll0w3d 8y l3$$10n5 l34rn3d 4$ 4 w4y 0ph r3fl3c+10n.
L337sp34k 1$ 4 sp3c14l1z3d +yp3 0ph wr1+1n9 7h4+ us3$ $ymb10l5, 5uch 4$ num83r5 4nd 5p3c14l ch4r4c73r5, 710 r3pl4c3 l3++3rs 10ph 7h3 l4+1n 4lph483+. 17 15 4l50 kn0wn 45 3ll3+ 0r l337, 4nd 1$ p10pul4r m41nly 4m10n9 1n73rn37 u53r5 ph0r c0mmun1c4+10n 10n s10c14l n37w0rks, 10nl1n3 94m3$, b37w33n b10x0r h4ck3r5, 37c”.