What are the ways to keep your brain healthy? What is the importance of brain exercising?. Did you feel these questions are not important? Weighing just about 3 pounds our brain is an important organ. It oversees and synchronizes the actions and reactions in our body. These enable us to feel, think, move around, execute certain jobs and lets humans have memories and emotions.
Best Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy and Active
Like being fit physically is important for us similarly brain health is also crucial for our well-being. Without it functioning properly we will be unable to execute our physical or mental actions.
How to Keep Our Brain Healthy?
There are several ways in which we can keep our brain healthy and we have them compiled below for you:
- Stay Fit Physically
With age neurons or brain cells lose connectivity among them. These connections are known as synapses and are responsible for our thoughts. Several studies have shown that exercise not only has the power to prevent mental decline but to also restore memory. Exercises especially a combination of aerobic and weight training increase the development of capillaries in the brain. Medical findings have also proved that fit people have sharper brains and those who are getting into shape are not only shaping their body but also sharpening their brains. This leads to a healthy supply of blood, oxygen, and nutrients. Exercise also helps in improving levels of cholesterol, helps in stabilizing high blood pressure and also maintains the functions of insulin (the main cause of diabetes).
- Keep Your Brain Working
By the time you are 30, your brain begins to lose pace. It becomes slow and this is why as we age it begins to forget easily or have other functioning problems. Neuroscientists say that our brain can be trained to work faster through mental exercises. Dr. Michael Merzenich is known for his research in brain plasticity. His work explains how the brain has the power to repair with speech, language, reading, and hearing. He developed a computer-based training program to boost the information processing function by the brain. Programs like this can slow down brain aging; something like an anti-aging cream that slows down the aging process of your skin. So, engage your brain in mind activities and keep your brain youthful– solve puzzles, play Sudoku, learn a new language, learn a new hobby or try solving a Mathematics problem.
- Eat Healthy
Most of the diseases and illnesses that we have are because of the food we eat. Eating wrong opens gates to a myriad of problems some of which are deadly. A nutritious diet is not only good for your body but your brain too. Foods which contain antioxidants help in neutralizing harmful free radicals. These fight cancer and are healthy for the brain also. Nuts, vegetables, fruits, green tea, whole grains, and beans are rich in antioxidants. Besides indulging in physical activities and exercises one should also eat healthy. We are all aware of the modern day diseases – obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes have become common names. These conditions are a burden to your brain.
- Get Your Sleep
Staying up late to work, party or spend time on the internet can make your brain foggy. Inadequate sleep can shut your brain out and you may be unable to respond to certain things properly. Throughout the day our brain is exposed to several of incitements – visual, audio and emotional. Processing all this information is difficult. The neurons or the brain cells repair themselves when you are sleeping. Some of the brightest ideas come to us early in the morning when we wake up for a good night sleep. One research performed on the students of City University, New York saw that the students who did not catch enough sleep preferred to solve easier sums compared to those who slept well. Our mind tends to look for easier paths because it isn’t ready to take on something difficult.
- Meditate
Mindfulness, cognition through meditation has been drawing the attention of the psychologists recently. There is evidence that meditation impacts our physical and mental health positively. Although there are different types of meditation techniques, all of them center on one theory – calming down the mind, getting rid of all negative thoughts, focusing on breathing and self-awareness. Various studies conducted tracked the participation of brain in thinking. It was seen that as the participants practiced meditation their brains partook in intelligent thinking. Another study revealed that people who practice meditation have more cell density in the hippocampus which is connected with memory and control behavior and futuristic planning. One of the biggest enemies of the mind is stress. It blocks everything including ones power to learn something good. Stress prioritizes instant information and limits attention duration. Basically, it does not let us think broadly. We tend to take quick decisions for matters that require time and patience. This leads to wrong decisions. Moreover, the brain stops working and this leads to several serious problems beginning with depression. Meditation rids the mind of stress and enhances our ability to learn. It raises our level of general intelligence.
- Quit Smoking
A medicine study was conducted on 21,123 smokers who smoked between 1978 and 2008. Those who smoked more cigarettes suffered from worse cases of dementia compared to those who smoked a lesser number of cigarettes. Even when the researchers controlled factors such as diabetes, heart disease, substance abuse, age and some more factors; they found that even the person who smoked the least cigarettes was at a 37% increased risk of getting dementia. Smoking ages your brain and this is why you get dementia in the latter stage of your life.
- Don’t Abuse Alcohol
Alcohol like smoking kills the brain cells at a much faster pace compared to the age of a person. Studies show people who drink 5 bottles of beer in a sitting had thrice the risk of getting dementia compared to the people who drank mildly. Dementia caused by alcohol abuse is called Alcohol Related Brain Damage or ARBD. When neurons die they are regenerated in humans but for someone who consumes alcohol, excessively the neurons don’t regenerate.
Life is valuable, let us not deteriorate its worth. Have good relationships, be happy and lead a healthy lifestyle to have a healthy and long life.
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