As school resumes in another few days – if you haven’t resumed already -, you most definitely would like to know what specific things can help improve your brain power to take on the rigour of academic work for the new term, and come out successful at the term-end assessment tests.
Keeping your interests close to heart has impelled us to dig through the web for information that will come handy and beneficial for you as school resumes next week. Do consider how BBC Future has sifted through the evidence as you read on to discover the five most promising ways to sharpen your wits.
1. Protect your ears
The mind suffers if it becomes isolated from any one of its senses. Listening to loud music for just 15 seconds a day would be enough to damage your hearing, and using a hairdryer for even 15 minutes a day could harm tiny cells that pick up sounds.
2. Learn a language or a musical instrument
Rather than fiddling with only just a crossword puzzle(which often appear to have limited general benefits), you might want to consider a more ambitious mental workout, such as learning a musical instrument or picking up a new language. Both rely on a wide skill set, exercising your memory, attention, sensory perception and motor control as you try to wrestle with new scales or the unfamiliar sounds of new words.
The practice should help you to become more mentally agile, with lasting benefits well into old age. And if you find that a certain topic or subject is just too demanding, consider yourself lucky: more stimulating activities do seem to help you improve your brain power.
3. Don’t feast on junk food
Obesity can harm your brain in many ways. The build-up of cholesterol in the arteries can restrict blood flow to the brain, starving it of the food and oxygen it needs to function. What’s more, neurons are highly sensitive to levels of the hormone insulin. A regular diet of sweet food can disrupt insulin, triggering a chain reaction that causes deadly plaques to build up in the brain.
The good news is that certain nutrients like omega 3 fatty acids, and vitamins D and B12 help to reduce damage to the brain.
4. Build your body
We often make a distinction between brains and brawn. In fact, getting in shape is one of the surest ways to build your mind . Physical activity not only establishes a better blood flow to the brain; it also triggers a surge of proteins such as “nerve growth factor” that can help stimulate the growth and maintenance of neural connections in the brain.
The benefits of physical exercise can also be seen in that children who walk to school get better grades, and a wide variety of exercises from gentle aerobic exercise to weight training and body building can also help.
5. Have fun!
If all that sounds like hard work, one of the best ways to protect your brain is to socialise. Put simply, humans are social creatures, and our friends and relatives stimulate us, challenge us to try new experiences, and relieve us of stress and unhappiness.
Everything from memory and attention to overall mental processing speed benefit from regular contact with other people.
Ultimately, the scientists suspect that there is no single magic bullet to train your brain. The people who age best have a lifestyle that incorporates a little of everything: a varied diet, stimulating activities, and a circle of loving friends. And that’s not only a recipe for a smart brain, but also a healthy and happy life.
See Also: Six Ways To Help Improve Brain Function
