7 Tips to Keep Your Brain Young

Brain

The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.     

Daniel Goleman

Contrary to popular belief, brainpower does not diminish as you grow older. In fact, you can be mentally alert by using your brain more often and creatively. Here are some of the ways to maintain your mental faculty:


1. Use your brain: Use it or lose it. The more you use it the better it is. Participate in intellectual activities such as learning new words, playing challenging games (Scrabble, bridge, chess, crossword puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles), reading, taking up a musical instrument. repairing something and solving complex problems. According to scientists from UCLA’s Brain Research Institute, anything that is intellectually challenging can serve as a kind of stimulus to growing dendrites and making connections.

2. Chewing gum: When you are chewing you increase the blood flow to your brain. According to research the blood flow to the brain between senior citizens with a full set of teeth and toothless is 30%

3. Things to avoid: To protect your brainpower do not cut short on your sleep. Avoid polluted environment, stress, sedentary lifestyle, too much alcohol and tobacco, social isolation, and watching too much TV.

4. Exercise: Physical exercise or just walking for half an hour three times a week can improve your concentration, learning abilities, and abstract reasoning by 15 %. Aerobic exercise forces extra oxygen into the brain which boosts mental powers and promotes the growth of new brain cells

5. Smart ways to use your brain: Actively engaging your brain. Better memory can be achieved when you pay attention and making an effort to remember something especially things that you are interested in. As an example, reading and listening are passive in nature; we have to take notes, write brief summaries, and organize key ideas in order to remember.

6. Use your hands: According to research when you are active manually, it stimulates blood flow to your brain. It is beneficial to comprehension, memory, and thinking process. One such activity is to close your eyes and manipulate some control buttons.

7. Food to boost your brainpower: Eat a high carbohydrate breakfast to supply energy to your brain. Include fish in your diet. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. Antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables help neutralize free radicals, molecules that can damage brain cells. Consume food rich in iron such as lean meats and beans. Iron helps transport oxygen to brain cells.

Do the right things to stimulate your brain for optimal mental performance.