There are two basic principles to keep your brain healthy and sharp as you age: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change. If you can do the crossword puzzle in your sleep, it’s time for you to move on to a new challenge in order to get the best workout for your brain. Curiosity about the world around you, how it works and how you can understand it will keep your brain working fast and efficiently. Use the ideas below to help attain your quest for mental fitness.
1. Read a Book
Pick a book on an entirely new subject. Read a novel set in Egypt. Learn about economics. There are many excellent popular non-fiction books that do a great job entertaining you while teaching about a subject. Become an expert in something new each week. Branch out from familiar reading topics. If you usually read history books, try a contemporary novel. Read foreign authors, the classics and random books. Not only will your brain get a workout by imagining different time periods, cultures and peoples, you will also have interesting stories to tell about your reading, what it makes you think of and the connections you draw between modem life and the words.
2. Play Games
Games are a wonderful way to tease and challenge your brain. Suduko, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain’s speed and memory. These games rely on logic, word skills, math and more. These games are also fun. You’ll get benefit more by doing these games a little bit every day-spend 15 minutes or so, not hours.
3. Use Your Opposite Hand
Spend the day doing things with your non-dominant hand. If you are left-handed, open doors with your right hand. If you are right-handed, try using your keys with your left. This simple task will cause your brain to lay down some new pathways and rethink daily tasks. Wear your watch on the opposite hand to remind you to switch.
4. Learn Phone Numbers
Our modem phones remember every number that calls them. No one memorizes phone numbers anymore, but it is a great memory Skill. Learn a new phone number everyday.
5. Eat for Your Brain
Your brain needs you to eat healthy fats. Focus on fish oils from wild salmon, nuts such as walnuts, seeds such as flax seed and olive oil. Eat more of these foods and less saturated fats. Eliminate transfats completely from your diet.
6. Break the Routine
We love our routines. We have hobbies and pastimes that we could do for hours on end. But the more something is second nature, the less our brains have to work to do it. To really help your brain stay young, challenge it. Change routes to the grocery store, use your opposite hand to open doors and eat dessert first. All this will force your brain to wake up from habits and pay attention again.
7. Go a Different way
Drive or walk a different way to wherever you go. This little change in routine helps the brain practice special memory and directions. Try different side streets go through stores in a different order anything to change your route.
8. Learn a New Skill
Learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently. Reading Shakespeare, learning to cook and building an airplane out of tooth picks all will challenge your brain and give you something to think about.
9. Make Lists
Lists are wonderful. Making lists helps us to associate items with one another. Make a list of all the places you have traveled. Make a list of the tastiest foods you have eaten. Make a list of the best presents you have been given. Make one list every day to jog your memory and make new connections. But don’t become too reliant on them. Make your grocery list, but then try to shop without it. Use the list once you have put every item you can think of in your cart. Do the same with your “to do” lists.
10. Choose a new skill
Find something that captivates you that you can do easily in your home and doesn’t cost too much. Photography with a digital camera, learning to draw, learning a musical instrument learning new cooking styles, or writing are all great choices.
Tags: brain exercise mind
11. Do psychedelic drugs.
AND STOP WATCHING TV!
If you are left-handed, open doors with your right hand. Very practical way to start using more of brain. Thank you.
Great post and so true. Doing things differently will always make your brainpower surge.
I have a few posts about thinking and doing things differently on my blog about achieving your big dreams. You might enjoy it.
Number 8 and 10 are essentially the same thing
This is good, I will use them especially working eith my non-dominant hand.
Yeah, you did a pretty nice job, but what about the list. Is there any special technique to keep all the items of list in mind. I had never tried reading a novel because I think it is waste of time, Why not to read some science magazine or book to gain the knowledge why a novel
Hi, thanks for the tips i really think the are quite useful in everyone’s daily life. I’ll try some of them so i can see if there is any new interconnection between my left brain side and my right brain side :/ see you later
In terms of playing a game, you have to be selective on what game you play. I recommend something like Brain Age which is intended for this (available for DS currently). Also games like tetris and columns, or word games like typing of the dead or word jumble. Or you can play suduku online.
These are some great tips, and some that I actually like to do myself! Often times, I’ll challenge myself to do menial tasks in different ways just to find out if I can do them.
If I could add anything to this list, I would recommend writing stories. When we’re free-writing stories, it causes our brains to work twice as hard to create interesting and exotic ideas.
On building further with these stories, play Dungeons and Dragons, that game provokes your brain to be quick and come up with interesting material!
If you’ve got any suggestions or comments for me, visit me at my blog: http://pursefighter.com
really great advice…
i do some and have got the results…
hope the extra ones also do the same….
lets se…
This is a great list you wrote. I can definitely see where all the little extra things you do through the course of your day will help build up your brain. And most people really need to. Lol
Thanks for the tips!
Good information about how to keep the brain alive or ‘Be more dynamic’.
Nice tips, I’m always looking for ways to get my brain moving again. I’ve actually started using my non-dominant hand to do daily tasks.
Talib, the reason why, especially if you tend to read science magazines all the time it is important to read things like novels from time to time is because it is this change that will increase your brain capacity. If your brain is used to reading one thing all the time, it is no longer exercised as much by that thing. You must give it new challenges.
OK - Tonight I am going to try it with my left hand instead of my right.
Learn Phone Numbers?
Einstein didn’t even know his own phone number…
He said why memorize something you can look up…
Bruce Lee spent every moment of the day using a different muscle, if he was eating rice with chopsticks in his left hand, his right hand was squeezing a stress ball and vice versa. If you can learn to multi-task throughout the day, you’ll get better and better, to the point where a year later you can easily become ambidextrous. it’s just key to do more than one thing at a time all the time
A tip for a change and results.
By doing the above list it also helps fighting alziehmers and such. POGO.com is a place where you can play jigsaw puzzles, word games and such to get your brain awake.
Looks like I will be following some of your main tips from today onwards. My strong hand is my right side, probably I will try to use more of my left hand. In addition, I will be picking up ASP.NET language to program some important stuff. Next, what I will be doing is Sudoku!
Crossword puzzles really make you think about obscure words and places. You can’t help but stretch your mind. I enjoy revisiting the puzzle days or hours later to see so many that I knew but did not get the first time. Your brain works on them unconsciously when you put it down for a break.
Better yet, get yourself one of those furry bundles of love that will make you laugh - a dog or cat I speak of.
useful to great info shared. i truly appreciate it!
Very helping tips! They really improve brain speed and memories such as fast memory, visual memory… very boosted. Thanks a lot!