Do you forget your keys often at various places? Do you face troubles coming up with the right words during a conversation? These are just a few examples of the declining capacity of your mind. You might be vulnerable to several similar issues.
Don’t let your age convince you that it’s alright to have such problems when you are no younger. There are some people older than you with their mental strength intact. You can also elevate your power by merely following the below-mentioned tips
- Learn to play an instrument
According to research, musicians have high mental alertness. Listening to music also helps to boost your brain, but musicians are more active because they play various instruments. It is already known, a significant difference between the brain structure of musicians and non-musicians.
As we grow older, our reaction time keeps decreasing. However, musicians are least likely to face this problem in the evening of their life. Because unlike a brain game, playing an instrument activates multiple senses. It involves vision, hearing, and touching. That way, they train their mind to do numerous things at a single time.
Have you noticed while a singer being consumed emotionally while playing the guitar? You can see on his face how much he is into the song. He feels every chorus he plays. This emotional involvement also stimulates brain supremacy.
It is best to learn a musical instrument at a young age. That’s why children are learning instruments like guitar, piano, and flute more than ever. But that does not mean you can’t do in the later years of your life.
- Spare some time for meditation
The practice of meditation has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. It is speculated about 18 million Americans take part in meditation. Much so, many multinational corporations have made it mandatory for employees to meditate regularly.
Meditation uplifts your brain in the following ways:
- Stress: Meditation helps you to tackle stress more effectively. A high level of fear triggers a part of your mind called amygdala. The activation of amygdala disables the various parts of your brain, which deal with logical thinking. Afterward, most of your decisions become influenced by either anger or fear. Meditation effectively takes you out of the amygdala, aka “lizard brain.”
- Remembering information: Our brain also works like sticky notes. You memorize a list of items and buy them from the market without ever writing them. It is called working memory, which we use soon. A daily session of yoga or mindfulness meditation practice can improve your working memory.
- Focus: This is an era of information overload. We are glued to mobiles and see hundreds of advertisements daily. So it is not startling to learn that most of us can’t focus for an extended period. Just spare 20 minutes to meditation can nib in the bud of this problem.
- Solve puzzles
Next time you see your children playing with problems, crosswords, in particular, don’t snuff them. They are not wasting their time. They are unconsciously boosting their brainpower. Just like our body, our mind also needs some flexing of muscles. And puzzles can be an excellent alternative for that.
Numerous studies have disclosed that people indulging in crossword puzzles experience a slower decline in memory compared to others. Moreover, playing crossword has been credited as one of the most efficient ways to perform cognitive functions.
Apart from that, the following are some key benefits of playing puzzles:
- The impact of problems is no fad. It lasts very for an extended period
- Overall, reasoning power improves. You can engage in a conversation more eloquently
- It keeps diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s at bay
- Playing puzzles also enhance performance in math
- Learn a new language
So many third world countries are learning the English language because it offers them many career opportunities. But the citizens of these countries might not know that they are developing their brain by adopting a new language.
Language is more than just a source of communication. It takes ages to build a vocabulary. So the wisdom of so many years is comprised in every word. Let’s break down the perks and privileges of acquiring a brand new language:
- Improves decision making: It is a well-documented fact that people who know more than one word understand the trivialities of a situation. Their decision making is likely to be more informed compared to the monolingual people.
- Influences your first language: By learning a new language, you end up knowing about the mechanics of your mother tongue more appropriately. This linguistic awareness reflects every time you communicate in your native language. As a result, you turn out to be an impeccable speaker and writer.
- Enhances the size of the brain: Typically, a great mind is quite likely to outperform a small brain. Guess what; it’s proven that bilingual people tend to have a bigger brain than monolingual people. Brain size might not be the last thing, but it matters for sure.
- Get quality sleep
Never disregard quality sleep. At times most talented people commit some of the silliest mistakes because they are running short on their sleep. It deprives them of creativity because creativity ideas take place in fresh minds. Attention span also decreases a great deal when you are sleep-starved.
It is important to remember that sleeping for long hours does not necessarily ensure quality sleep. Even if you take a short nap, make sure you are not disturbed during that period. Switching off your phone or keeping it on silent is one way of doing so. Researchers have performed various skills in this regard, and every time the people who had a quality sleep performed far better than those who didn’t do so.
When we are physically sleeping, our mind never rests. It keeps hovering around past and present events. Thus, deep sleep is considered as an essential ingredient to create links and make memories
- Conquer stress
The current generation is running high on the scale of pressure. Perhaps, no other age in the history of humanity was so vulnerable to stress. Remember, there is no greater enemy of your mind than pressure. The heavy dose of anxiety has destroyed so many genius minds. Without confronting force, you can’t conquer it.
Be attentive to your breath. Our breath and stress are directly correlated. Experts of the opinion, we breathe from the upper part of our chest when we are stressed out. You should counter it by breathing from the lower part of your belly. It will reduce stress symptoms
Don’t try tooth and nail to please all the people. You will be amazed to see the dramatic outcome of this formula
By default, humans pay more attention to what they don’t have instead of what they have. That stops you from being grateful which is a root cause of stress
- Be socially active
Being secluded for the time being is good. But there is a difference between temporary seclusion and permanent detachment from the outside world. You limit your growth by saying goodbye to society.
Through socialization, we tend to make new friends. We are all different from one another. So, when communication or debate takes place between people with different backgrounds, you end up learning a lot of new ideas.
Also, sometimes, we feel stressed because we don’t spell out what is going inside us. To its credit, technology has made socialization all too easy now. You don’t have to leave your house anymore to find new friends. Just go and sign-in to any popular social media platform where millions of people are waiting to welcome you.
Once you are done making friends online, you can meet them in person at dinner, beach or invite them over for coffee.
- Take care of your body
Someone so aptly said, “A healthy mind does not exist in an unhealthy body.” When people are engrossed in the gym, the majority of them believe they are building abs and muscles for their body. But, at the same time, they are also up scaling their mental might.
Wondering how bodily exercises are indirectly benefiting your mind? Take note of the following points:
- Self-esteem: Color, height, face cut, and other factors matter in appearance. But you also can’t disregard the importance of a sound body. In simple terms, if you are in good shape, you will feel good about yourself, which is prone to generate positive thinking. Positive thinking is an asset to our mind.
- Anxiety: The warm chemicals released after the workout are the great antidotes for stress.
- Sharpens the memory: There are specific cells in our mind which are responsible for memory. Exercise increases the production of these cells.
- Deals with addiction: Well, at times, people are so addicted to things like alcohol, smoking, and suchlike that it lies outside their power to get rid of them. Consumers leave no stone unturned to bed farewell to these dangerous intakes but no avail. No doubt, it deteriorates their mental health. However, with exercise, you can help to recover from such addiction as well.
- Be attentive to your diet
Your diet and mental health are closely associated. People even go on to say that “you are what you eat.” Such is the role of food. So when you eat junk food, not only your body gets negatively affected, but your mind also suffers to excellent length.
Mostly, our eating habits get developed during teenage. Once they get established, it’s tough to root them out. The best way to unroot such patterns is not to adopt them in the first place.
- Lower sugar intake. It is a must-stop if you want to keep your memory razor-sharp as you age
- Eat avocado. It is related to improving memory
- Beetroot should make it to your salad plate for it confronts with memory retention problems
- Consume dark chocolate because it elevates concentration power. Make sure you don’t end up increasing sugar level
- Quit alcohol. I know, it’s easier said than done. If you can’t dump this habit altogether, keep the consumption at the bare minimum.
- Read as much as you can
It need not emphasized that books keep us informed about every walk of life. But it is a lesser-known fact that reading can increase brain power. The moment you begin to read, your mind steps into a gym where it works out. According to a study conducted by a well-reputed organization, reading can reduce your chances of mental decline by 32 percent.
We have already discussed the advantages of sound sleep; well, reading a few pages before going to bed can act like sleeping pills. But make sure you don’t read e-books before bed because they can keep you awake for long hours.
Conclusion
Probably you might not have anticipated that increasing mental strength could be this easy. Although, the process is not a walk in the park but not an intensifying task either for sure. Our mind is the most valuable asset in our body, so it is our responsibility to pamper it to the best of our abilities.
