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Would you knowingly damage your home, your car, your surfboard, or any of your precious belongings? You probably wouldn’t, and the same likely goes for us in relation to the rest of our body. We make choices to protect and nurture our body and our brain as best we can. It’s our home and by taking care of it the hope is we’ll extend our life. You are the architect of building your brain. You have the ability to rewire your brain and train your brain.
So let the re-wiring begin. Here are a dozen ways to train your brain with the same attention you give to the rest of your body.
1. Choose Healthy Habits
You’ve no doubt seen this familiar list of smart lifestyle choices; stop smoking, lessen stress, get enough sleep, lighten your load (obesity is a major risk factor for dementia), move/exercise daily, decrease alcohol and junk food in-take.
These are common for many health reasons yet changing these habits are not only challenging; they are powerful. Cultivating new habits and re-wiring your brain takes work, dedication and effort. However, there are more subtle, yet specific and even profound brain enhancers on the list.
2. Stay in Constant Movement
Just as your muscles waste away when you don’t exercise, so does your brain if you don’t use it. Think of training your brain like it’s a muscle. Give it physical and mental exercise. Exercise promotes new brain cells and connections for a strong brain, so get moving.
3. Be a Student of Life
Commit to learning something new every day. Be curious, be creative. Engage in a new hobby, enroll in a class that interests you, explore a different environment and make life an adventure. Brain function improves with ongoing stimulation when we challenge ourselves in mentally, physically, emotionally and socially stimulating surroundings. “Adventure prevents dementia.”
4. Use the Proper Fuel
What we eat has a huge effect on our brain function and how our neurotransmitters/chemical messengers operate. Alertness, mood, and cognitive function are highly reflective of our nutrition choices. Brain food recommendations include nuts, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, eggs, blueberries, leafy greens, avocados, salmon/oily fish, olive oil (coconut and hemp oil too), broccoli, and tomatoes to name a few.
5. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
Boredom and monotony are toxic for our brains, explore and get out of your comfort zone, change up your daily routine. Go beyond your usual boundaries.
6. Stay Positive
Surround yourself with uplifting people, read inspiring books, practice positive self-talk in order to elevate your internal dialogue.
7. Stay Alert
To promote good memory, make a conscious effort to pay attention. Be alert and aware of your surroundings, be present, and continually strive for innovative goals.
8. Pause
Be still. Adequate rest and sleep plus meditation are as important as activating and mentally exercising our brain.
9. Love
Cultivate meaningful connections and positive social interactions. Be involved in the community. Just love.
10. Practice Gratitude
Being grateful creates a filter on how we see the world and we will seek more experiences to feel grateful for. When we look for gratitude, we will find it.
11. Visualize
When we mentally rehearse a skill in our imagination we are firing the same neurons as if we were physically performing the activity. It increases the efficiency of the electrical transmissions between nerve cells so we are better at the skill in the real world. We turbocharge our progress by just closing our eyes.
12. Try Yoga/Mudra
Move through this sequence of poses, and explore on your mat. Creating a pose with your hands is called a mudra. It is a symbol, seal, and sacred gesture of placing the hands in a special way that has a unique effect on the body’s energy, engaging certain areas of the brain. A very well known mudra is, “Jnana mudra” where the index finger and thumb come together and form a circle. It is symbolic of invoking wisdom and knowledge.
Be wise with your choices.
You are the author of your story.
You are the caretaker of your temple.
You are the captain of your ship. Stay on course toward a more healthy, thoughtful and adventurous life.
You and YOUR BRAIN are powerful.
With health and love,
Amanda Kriebel
