Show Your Brain Some Love: 7 Tips to Keep Your Brain Happy and Healthy
Maintaining good brain function is important for a variety of reasons, including improved memory, higher productivity, and better overall well-being. Keeping your brain healthy isn’t complicated. Even some small switches and habits can go a long way to keep your thinking sharper! Here are a few simple habits that you can adopt to keep your brain healthy and happy:
Stay Social
Maintaining strong social connections is important for brain health. People who feel connected have stronger cognition at any age. Engaging in social activities and maintaining close relationships with friends and family is a fun and effective way to keep your brain healthy!
Manage Stress
High levels of stress can have negative effects on the brain, including impaired memory and difficulty with problem-solving. To reduce stress, try activities like meditation, deep breathing, or exercise.
Sleep on your side
This may seem like a strange tip, but according to research, sleeping on your side activates a brain-cleansing system that helps your brain function better for longer! Your glymphatic system is responsible for clearing build-up from your brain cells that contributes to neurological issues and cognitive decline, and this strange simple habit seems to be a major contributor to its effectiveness!
Learn a New Language or Musical Instrument
Learning a new language or instrument can help to keep the brain active and improve cognitive function. These can also be fun and rewarding hobbies!
Get Out in Nature
Spending time in nature has numerous benefits for the brain, including reduced stress and improved mental well-being. Some research also indicates that time spent outdoors literally changes your brain structure in the area that governs executive functions like working memory, social decision-making, and selective attention.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness involves focusing on the present moment and being aware of your thoughts and feelings. Practicing mindfulness can help to improve mental clarity, reduce stress, and increase overall well-being.
Support Brain Health with Brain Training
Keeping your brain healthy means keeping it active. While things like games, reading, and puzzles are great tools to do this at home, creating a “mental fitness” plan with a trained cognitive skill trainer can be even more powerful. Brain training literally rewires your brain so things like memory, concentration, and problem-solving can become more efficient and effective.
If you have a weak muscle group you pursue physical therapy or a personal trainer to help you strengthen it. This is the same approach we have to your brain! At LearningRx, we help you identify which individual skills you are struggling with in order to focus our attention on those areas to build more neural connections and greater confidence.
