Five Hobbies that Make You Sharper & Better
Do you always forget your car keys? Do you always have troubles memorising? Do you have problems squeezing out your creative juices? Don’t worry. No matter what age you are, you can still significantly improve your brain power. While your diet plays a major role in enhancing your brain health, what you do on a daily basis does have a significant impact too.
Below are science-backed ways to boost your brain power, and even reverse brain deterioration! The best thing is - you can easily turn them into hobbies.
Try out a new instrument.
Playing a musical instrument boosts connections between the two hemispheres of the brain and increases grey matter volume. This makes you good at solving math problems and other complex matters. Also, playing an instrument is one way to ensure that both sides of your brain are working together properly. Research shows that both sides of your brain work smoothly.
Learn a different language.
Not only does knowing two different languages increases your chance of getting hired by big companies. It also makes you sharper and wiser! Studies have shown that bilinguals have denser grey matter in their language centres than monolinguals. They can more easily focus on two tasks at once, and think more analytically. Furthermore, the parts of the brain that are devoted to memory, reasoning, and planning are larger in bilinguals than those of monolinguals.
Meditate.
What research tells about the health benefits of meditation is pretty astounding. Studies suggest that people who meditate have better focus, concentration, and memory than those who don’t. The reason is that this ancient practise has been found to positively impact areas of the brain that control learning and memory. And it seems like people from all ages benefit from meditation. Senior citizens who meditate keep more grey matter than those who don’t while students with behavioural problems in school who engaged in meditation demonstrated improvement in their b behaviour and school attendance as it reduces their stress and anxiety.
Work out.
Spending at least thirty minutes every day doing moderate to vigorous physical activities have sharper brains than those who keep a sedentary lifestyle. Exercising pumps out blood to your brain, delivering essential nutrients and oxygen so it performs in its best capacity. This in turn, boosts your memory, problem solving, and decision-making abilities. Another vital role of exercise is that it signals the release of several key hormones in your brain, including serotonin - the mood-booster and dopamine, which affects learning and attention; and norepinephrine, which influences attention, perception, motivation, and arousal.
Keep challenging yourself.
We need to think of our brain as a muscle. The more we use it, the better and stronger it gets. The more information you feed your brain, the more functions it can perform. The more you challenge your thinking abilities, the more it gets sharper. Crossword puzzles, strategic games and deductive thinking abilities are great ways to bolster your brain power. You can also improve your mental prowess by learning a new craft, communicating with different people, reading, traveling, and trying out things you never did before.