The brain is the most extraordinary organ endowed to man. But it should not be taken for granted. Simulation and exercise are your only fodder to keep you going. In addition to improving brain function, it also protects against cognitive decline. Research tells us that just using the brain actually increases the number of dendritic branches that connect brain cells.
Why is it so important to exercise our brain?
In plain language, without exercise, the brain is prone to atrophy or destruction. The benefits are both short-term (improved concentration and memory, sustained mental clarity, coherent thinking, and coordination) and long-term (creation of a “brain reserve” that protects against Alzheimer’s).
How does exercise train the brain?
Christin Anderson, MS, fitness coordinator at the University of San Francisco, explains that exercise affects many sites within the nervous system, triggering pleasurable chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that make us feel calm, happy, and euphoric.
Here are some ways you can train your brain, ensure it works smoothly, and consistently improve your performance:
Engage your brain with unknown tasks:
It’s important to challenge your brain to learn new tasks, especially ones you haven’t experienced before.
Example:
Cook a new dish, learn a software application, shop at a different grocery store, play a new computer game.
Change the hand you normally use to control your computer mouse, TV remote, brush your teeth, or dial the phone.
You will notice that you feel quite awkward and clumsy while handling it at the initial stage. But don’t worry, you’re teaching your brain to be flexible and equipping it to handle new tasks.
Travel stimulates your brain
Traveling is a great way to stimulate your brain. It worked for our ancestors, whose nomadic lifestyle provided a great opportunity to visit new places, learn new things, and discover unknown facts.
neurobic
Neurobics is a unique variety of brain exercises that engage your five physical senses and your emotional sense in unexpected ways, encouraging you to change your daily routines. They help your brain make its own nutrients that strengthen, preserve, and grow brain cells.
Try to use more than one of your senses in a daily task:
E.g. Read while you eat, write while listening to a lecture.
Physical exercise
Did you know that physical exercise is also good for your brain? It is important because it influences the rate of creation of new neurons in our brain.
Read
“Read, read, read,” says Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland. Don’t limit your reading to magazines and newspapers. Try to read two types of books at the same time. Alternate, fiction with non-fiction. They will not only help enrich your vocabulary, but also bring out your creative and practical side.
strengthen your memory
Try to memorize the phone numbers you use most often.
Try to remember and recapitulate facts and information that you have gathered in one day. This will help you remember it later when the need arises.
Try to collect the morning headlines every day you read.
There are plenty of programs out there that will help you with your memory. “Brain Age” or “Big Brain Academy” for Nintendo DS are recommended and fun. These games were created specifically to improve your memory.
To learn
This is something versatile. Never divorce yourself from learning. Try to learn one or two facts daily, make it a habit. Before you go to bed, ask yourself what you learned during the day. Help your children, grandchildren, neighbors, friends with their subjects, projects, etc.
solve problems
Most newspapers offer new Sudoku or crossword puzzles every day. Try your hand at brain teasers, brain teasers, and different types of brain teasers that are sold in books. You can even avail a good deal on the internet. Try to solve these. These hone your problem-solving skills. Play scrabble and storm over Rubik’s cube for 15 minutes a day.
Exercise your structuring ability
Choose a sentence from a magazine or newspaper and try to make another sentence using the same words.
Practice putting puzzle pieces together as quickly as possible. Improve the time it takes you to solve it.
Exercise your logical skills
Logic is the art of reasoning: finding an ordered sequence for disparate elements. Don’t use a written list while shopping. Instead, use memory aids such as forming a complete word, or one that can be completed by adding a certain vowel or consonant to the first letters of words for things you need to buy. Or use whatever works for you.
Exercise your verbal skills
Listen to the morning news on the radio or television. During the day, write down the main points of the news that you remember. Try to add new words to your dictionary every day. Whenever you come to the end of a chapter in a book you are reading, summarize it as briefly as possible. Do the same with the whole book when you finish it.
Move your fingers to improve your brain:
Motor activities that use the fingertips, such as knitting, knitting, playing the piano, etc. they are reported to stimulate the brain. A map of the brain shows that the nerve endings at the tips of the fingers correspond to more areas of the brain than any other area of the body, except perhaps the tongue and lips.
sing to solve problems
When you’re alone in your car, try singing about something you’re working on. This stimulates your right brain. It’s easier to rhyme when you’re singing than when you’re just talking or writing. This is because the right brain is better at pattern recognition.
let the music play
Use the Mozart effect: classical music increases brain activity in a more positive way than other types of music. Two pieces of Mozart’s music; Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major (K. 448) and Piano Concerto No. 23 (K. 488) were found to have this effect.
Stimulate brain acuity with self-massage
Acupressure points on the neck at the base of the skull help improve concentration and memory.
Eat well
Increase your intake of foods that contain omega fatty acids (known to increase intellectual endurance), such as flax and hemp seeds, and fish.