You probably spend a few hours every week to keep yourself physically healthy and active. You do cardio, weight training, or maybe just walking to keep your muscles active and running. This keeps your joints fluid and helps your physiological processes function adequately.
But how much time do you spend working out your brain?
We know what the follow-up question is! “How do I exercise my brain, and how does exercise help the brain?”
Well, the logic is simple.
If you want to lift heavier weights, you need more physical strength. Large biceps and a sturdy back can go a long way in helping you achieve your weightlifting goal.
The same can be said for your brain, too. So, if you want to overcome bigger obstacles and tackle bigger challenges head-on, it is important to practice brain exercises.
Brain exercises are not a new concept. The idea of sharpening your brain to retain more information and increase your cognitive functioning has existed for years. As per federally sponsored research, brain exercises and training can help older adults increase their cognitive functioning for over ten years after the training has ended.
Wondering how to do brain exercises?
Well, we have got you covered. In this post, we have created a list of the most effective and simple brain exercises that you can use to sharpen your brain! Let’s dive in.
9 Tips On How Can You Exercise Your Brain
1. Follow Your Ideas Through Multiple Conclusions.
Our first tip on how to do brain exercises is this simple activity that will surely change how your mind works.
On a daily basis, you are often plagued with multiple ideas and thoughts about what to do. You probably never even have the time or bandwidth to put these ideas into practice. Your decisions are mostly based on evaluating a few surface-level pros and cons.
But here’s a simple brain exercise that is going to elevate your decision-making and cognitive functioning to another level.
So, the next time you have multiple ideas around one topic, make it a habit to do idea exercises. For this, simply sit down with your idea and evaluate three possible outcomes for it. Try to visualize your ideas in different ways. This will help boost your perspective and help you figure out better alternatives.
2. Do something difficult daily.
Practice makes a man perfect, and this is essentially true for mental exercises. Improvement is not a chance outcome. It needs perseverance and your ability to challenge yourself constantly.
When it comes to improving your cognitive abilities, one of the best brain-sharpening exercises is doing at least one thing you find difficult every day. Develop the habit of picking something that lies outside your comfort zone daily.
For instance, enroll in a class in which you feel you don’t fit, be a part of a project that you feel underconfident about. The idea is not to have the biggest change but to have regular small changes in your routine. This one from our list of simple brain exercises is also going to help build your confidence and self-esteem in the long run.
3. Learn. Learn. Learn.
One of the most important mental exercises for sharpening our brains is not something you can do one-off. It is rather a way of living that you need to imbibe.
Learning is probably one of the most effective and simple brain exercises. The best part – it is also something that you can easily incorporate into your life.
There is an entire universe of knowledge around you, and if you just soak up even a bit of it, you will have to figure out how to do brain exercises. There is no dearth of what you want to imbibe. From books, podcasts, and movies – there are countless places where you can learn from.
Additionally, just talking to the people around you and learning more about where they come from and their lives is a great mental exercise in itself.
4. Do not take your work home.
Another tip on how to do brain exercises is never to let your work linger longer than it should.
We live in the work-from-home era. We are expected to be always on and available for whatever comes our way. However, having a wind-up or closing the daytime for yourself is important. This should be the point after which you no longer engage in work-related activities.
Rest is one of the best ways to sharpen your brain. It allows your brain to find adequate rest and also boosts neuroplasticity (neural connections between the brain).
Therefore, one of the best mental exercises for your brain is to put a hard end to all your stressors after a set time. Unplug for the next few hours and do something you want to do (apart from work).
5. Vary your schedule.
Another one on our list of simple brain exercises is varying your schedule.
See, most of us live a routine and monotonous lifestyle. And there is nothing wrong with it. However, sometimes, the monotony of our jobs, academics, or lifestyle can flow into our minds and disrupt our functioning. Your mind gets into a rut and takes a back seat.
In these times, an excellent tip on how to do brain exercises is to add some variety to your schedules. Even the smallest of changes can have a big impact. For instance, change the route through which you commute daily. Or go for a walk in the morning, at night, or probably during the middle of your day.
All these small changes can prove to be exceptional brain-training exercises to get your mind out of the rut.
6. Teach something to another person.
One of the tips on how to do brain exercises is to teach something that you have learned to another person.
Whenever you learn something new, the trick to mastering that topic or skill is to use it actively. And the best way to do it is to teach the skill to someone who knows nothing about it.
Teaching someone a new skill you have learned is one of the best mental exercises. Since teaching requires you to be thorough and clear with your concepts, it helps you recapitulate and better understand whatever you have learned.
7. Use the 10-minute rule.
Learning how to do brain exercises efficiently motivates your mind to work when it doesn’t really want to. But this doesn’t happen easily. You have to be willing to make the effort to practice mental exercises and be dedicated to the practice.
A ten-minute rule can come in extremely handy whenever you are on the verge of putting things off.
For instance, if you feel yourself looking at your phone or the couch when you decide to go out for a run or complete a project, give yourself ten minutes to work (or run). If your mind still fights you after these ten minutes, you can decide whether to give up or not.
However, more often than not, once you take the first step, you are more likely to finish the task. This simple brain exercise also helps you understand that the task that felt like a mountain before, wasn’t actually that difficult, thereby motivating you to take prompt actions further.
8. Start cooking some complicated recipes.
If you ever wonder how to do brain exercises for a sharper mind, just get going in the kitchen with a few complex and detailed instructions-filled recipes.
Taking time out to practice a complicated recipe can be one of the most simple brain exercises as it helps improve your retention capacity and focus. Additionally, cooking helps you relax and unwind, which is great for your mental health.
As per experts, human brains grew in size and capacity when humans first engaged in cooking during the Stone Age! So, try cooking as the next brain-training exercise for you, and maybe you might just push humanity toward a new era.
9. Engage all your senses.
The final tip on how to exercise your brain is to engage all your senses at once.
The more senses you use while learning something, the more likely you are to grasp and understand fully. As per research by Elisa Calvi and team, a group of people who were initially shown a group of images along with a specific smell had excellent retention ability when asked to indicate what images they had seen before without the odor. The brain images from the research concluded that the image sensory area of the brain lit up when people saw images that were initially paired with odor. Therefore, even in the absence of smell, they were easily able to identify the images.
Therefore, one of the most effective brain-sharpening exercises is to engage all senses possible when you try learning something new.
Conclusion:
Focusing on how to do brain exercises and engaging in mental exercises is one of the best things you can do to increase your cognitive skills, concentration, memory, and well-being. We hope by incorporating these simple brain exercises, you will eventually sharpen your brain and perform to the best of your abilities.
Developing your brain strength will not happen overnight. However, you will surely get there if you are consistent with your practice.
Have you ever had those moments when your mind was completely disoriented, and you couldn’t make sense of what was happening around you? If yes, chances are you have experienced brain fog. To read more about it, click here.
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