Power up Your Brain with These Tips

Amy Taylor October 27, 2014

Yes it’s true – you need to have a healthy body if you want to have a longer life. But you also need to have a healthy mind.So how can you increase your brain power to accommodate more activities every day? While you can splurge in caffeine or some power drinks for temporary boost, nothing beats the natural way. What’s more, these products can be detrimental to your health too.

Here are great ways to power up your brain:

Engage in healthy, meaningful conversations.

Bored? Looking for something challenging to do? Why not solve a word puzzle? Answer a logic test,try out a new craft, or have a meaningful conversation? While reading a lot does enrich your knowledge, communication is also important in improving your cognitive function. One of the secrets of successful people is that they love conversing with different kinds of people, especially those who are more experienced and smarter than them. The more you hang out with these people, the more you become like them.

Work out.

Physical exercise doesn’t only strengthen your muscles. It also strengthens and sharpens your mind. Amazing things happen in your brain when you work out. One of which is the release of feel-good chemicals (also called endorphins) that boost your mood and give you a higher sense of well-being. More importantly, exercise helps with the growth of new brain cells and the connections between brain cells, leading to a healthier, sharper brain. Furthermore, some research suggests that exercise seems to suggest that there may be genuine intellectual benefits to exercise in terms of IQ gains.

Eat right.

A lot of foods can boost our brain health, and they can be found in the supermarket, at the ‘fresh produce’ section. Vegetables like broccoli, spinach, kale, tomatoes, some berries, fruits, whole grains, seeds and nuts, and some fish contain antioxidants and nutrients that boost brain health and help reduce your risk of cognitive problems, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Some foods contain amino acids, such as tyrosine, that are associatedwith mental alertness.

Sleep a little more.

Are you lacking in sleep most of the time? Then you are doing something that can cause great damage to your brain and can even literally shrink your brain!Many scientists believe that irregular sleeping patterns lead to illnesses, ranging from aches and pains to heart disease. Sufferers can go on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, which causes overwhelming tiredness, poor concentration, irritability and depression - similar to permanent jet lag.Of course, different people require different amounts of sleep and although there’s no universal rule for how long we should all be sleeping, it’s becoming increasingly clear that working late and waking early can cause serious problems.

Optimise your gut flora.

Just so you know – your gut is your ‘second brain’. Your gut bacteria transmit information to your brain via the vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem into your enteric nervous system. Put simply, your gut health impacts your brain function and behaviour asthey are interdependent in plenty of ways. Consuming a lot of processed foods can destroy the balance between the bad and good bacteria thriving in your gut. So eat more of fresh, whole foods. Ditch the fizzy drinks and go with natural, homemade beverages. Add fermented foods like yoga in your diet. They are a rich source of good bacteria.

These 5 health tips are scientifically proven to boost brain health. So go ahead and incorporate them in your lifestyle and see what happens.