Do you know your brain is the main organ in your body that coordinates all your bodily functions? How often do you spend time thinking about your brain? For a long time, most of us believed that we couldn’t improve our brain and have to manage with what we were born with.
However, current neuroscience research has shown that we can actually train our brain to improve its performance. Training our brain not only improves our reasoning and problem-solving abilities but also prevents certain chronic brain problems like dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Here are some of the effective tips, which can be exercised by anyone to manipulate their brain.
Use It Or Lose It
This is a golden rule to maximize brain power. Your brain is like a muscle; the more you use it, the more powerful it becomes.
Watching unstimulating stuff on TV; doing routine jobs like cooking, cleaning, and shopping over and over the same way might actually reduce your brainpower.
If you keep on learning new things, modifying your daily routines, discussing interesting topics, going out on vacations, and do many more things that make your brain think, you will trigger new connections in your brain and function better.
Neurons that fire together, wire together!
Feed Your Brain With Best Foods
The brain relies more on glucose for fuel than any other organ in the body. And glucose mostly comes from carbohydrates.
A study by the University of Toronto on 22 older people discovered that those whose diets included more calories as complex carbohydrates delivered the best results on memory and task tests.
Make sure your diet includes more complex carbohydrates in the form of fruits, fresh vegetables, and whole grains, nuts & seeds and olive oil. Avoid carbohydrates from ice creams, candy, and cake. The brain is made up of fat and healthy fats are necessary for brain health. It is better to avoid trans fat as much as possible.
Read Good Books
Reading is the best way to solidify our memory.
Pick a subject that you are interested in & know very little about and start reading an hour every day on that topic. Continue to read a few good books on the same topic and then choose another topic. Your brain is immersed in enormous knowledge like a parched rosebush, sending out blooms to your brain that help to improve your memory power.
Stay Away From Gadgets
We spend most of the time watching television or using a mobile phone every day. In fact, they stand in the way of your relationships, life and more. Spending a lot of time watching unnecessary content actually reduces your brainpower. Keep them aside and spend more time living an active physical life & exercising your mind.
You can use gadgets to improve your memory, however. The more engaged your brain, the more active your brain functions.
Meditation
Doing meditation or yoga every day is one of the best things you can do to improve the health of your mind/body. Meditation and yoga make your mind relax and give your brain a workout. By creating different states of mind, you can engage your brain with new and exciting ideas while improving the fitness of your brain.
Play Brain Games
Brain fitness programs & games that challenge your brain is a wonderful way to make your brain fit. Puzzle games like sudoku, crosswords, and other electronic games that make your brain think can improve the speed and memory of your brain. This is because they rely on logic, skills, talent and more. Of course, they are also fun, so spend at least 30 minutes daily and trust me you’ll benefit more.
Exercising Your Body Means Exercising Your Brain
Physical exercise not only benefits your body but also benefits your brain in many ways. Exercise enhances neurogenesis which means new brain cells are generated every time you exercise and increases levels of BDNF (Brain-derived neurotrophic factor) which actually helps neurons grow.
Exercise needs a lot of movement in your body, and your brain learns many new muscle skills and balance. Choose different exercises that can challenge your brain.
Do One Task at a Time
If you answer a phone call while checking your email, you probably may not remember a word about what you discussed in the call. Recent research has shown that our growing tendency to multiple tasks cuts down our productivity. So the best is to do one thing at a time.
Learn a New Skill
Learning something new activates multiple areas of your brain. Your thinking memory comes into play when you learn new things and compare things differently. Learn cooking or try various dishes, invent something like making a car out of toothpicks. Writing stories improves your imagination power. Any new skill will challenge your brain and make you think about it in order to learn it.
Make Simple Changes
We all love our daily routines. We have hobbies that we can even do for hours. But when we do tasks that are like ‘second nature’, our brains need to work less.
If you really want your brain to stay young, then challenge it. Change your simple daily routines like changing routes when you go out, using the opposite hand for simple things like opening doors, picking something etc. All the new things you do will force your brain to wake up and pay attention again.
Train Your Brain
Brain training is an ongoing trend. Many formal courses and especially reading books on brain training might actually work better and faster. Brain health trainers do extensive research for these programs, and the basic principles focus on enhancing memory, visualization, and reasoning.
Consult a brain health coach for initial guidance, and you can work on these concepts. To know more, consult Dr. Prithika Chary, a renowned life coach and brain health coach. Soon your brain will function at peak potential and make your daily life fulfilling and meaningful.