Our thinking process is continuous. We constantly reflect and solve the challenging puzzles of life. Sometimes it is necessary to help your brain speed up cognitive processes.
How to improve your brain function? Try the following tips.
1. Drinking coffee, water & wine
Caffeine helps you focus on labor-intensive tasks and accelerates cognitive processes. Of course, it doesn’t mean that coffee will make you more intelligent. Caffeine temporarily makes our brain work more efficiently, but drinking coffee all the time can be harmful to other organs (for example, your stomach).
If you replace it with a glass of water, the feeling of cheerfulness will be much longer.
Drinking water on an empty stomach activates the entire gastrointestinal tract, and, in contrast to the hot, strong coffee, it doesn’t irritate mucous membranes, which in turn gives you a sense of cheerfulness.
Scientists found that wine also accelerates cognitive processes due to the presence of antioxidants. But here it should be noted that it is good to drink this alcoholic beverage only in moderation; only in this case it will improve your brain function and overall physical health.
2. Eating the right foods
The foods that we eat and those that we don’t eat play an essential role in our brains and memory since they influence memory processes. Flavonoids, fats, calories, and glucose all influence the memory areas within the brain.
Therefore, another way to keep your brain in shape is to eat the right foods, such as vegetables and fruits along with other brain-boosting foods. Moreover, there are some herbs, such as ginseng, that have been found to significantly improve cognitive abilities and increase stress tolerance.
Taking healthy fats and fresh vegetables, while avoiding excessive sugar and grain carbohydrates are some of the strategies towards dietetic memory enhancement.
Alternatively, celery, curry, broccoli, walnuts, and cauliflowers contain antioxidant compounds that protect the brain and enhance the production of new brain cells.
Reducing the intake of damaged omega-6 fats while increasing the consumption of animal-based omega-3 fats, is as well an important strategy. Additionally, always limit the intake of calories and saturated fats, and eat more fruits.
Not all the food is good for the brain. Which ones can enhance the cognitive processes? These are products that contain glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, and antioxidants. Experts recommend eating nuts, blueberries, avocados, and whole grains.
By eating healthy food you give your body the necessary support to improve your brain function. In addition, certain nutrients make neurons work faster and more efficiently. For example, foods rich in magnesium can prevent migraines, and those rich in vitamin B12 can prevent brain dysfunction in old age.
Vitamins B are very beneficial for your brain function. Vitamin B6 enhances long-term memory, and B1, B2, and B12 help produce and rebuild brain tissue. You can get B vitamins by adding chicken, oily fish, and bananas to your diet.
You may also want to introduce certain herbs to your diet. For example, add rosemary shoots to your breakfast. This will improve blood flow to the brain and enhances the work of your brain and body in general. Rosemary is not the only herb that boosts cognitive function – the sage, for example, will help you concentrate better.
3. Following the right eating routine
We emphasized that you consume has a tremendous effect on all your bodily functions, including cognitive ones. It is not only your stomach that suffers from malnutrition but also your brain.
But it turns out that when and how you eat matters too. Thus, experts recommend eating little and often.
“Eat little and often – it helps your body constantly maintain the desired level of energy”, says Carina Norris, the author of “You Are What You Eat”.
“Large portions provide an important flow of blood to the stomach involved in the process of digestion, which means that there is an outflow of blood from the brain.”
At the same time, staying hungry from time to time may be beneficial too. Scientists at the Yale School of Medicine made tests on mice and found that more hungry individuals performed cognitive tasks much better.
4. Staying physically active
Many people believe that bodybuilders or athletes are less intelligent than, for example, post-graduate students. However, studies show the positive effects of physical exercise on cognitive function. If you are not an athletic type, try regular walking, which also can be rather useful.
All kinds of physical exercise have an extremely positive influence on your productivity and cognitive functions. Physical training improves blood flow to the brain, makes the mind clear, gives intellectual energy, and increases the ability to concentrate.
Regular exercise encourages the brain to operate at optimum capacity through stimulating the multiplication of nerve cells, thereby protecting and strengthening the nerve-cell interconnections.
During exercise, there is an increase in blood flow to the brain and the brain cells discharge protein contents known as the neurotrophic factors, one of which is known as BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).
Its role is to trigger numerous chemical contents, which promote neural health, thereby directly benefiting cognitive functions such as learning, encoding, and retrieval of tasks. The resultant outcome is thereby a favorable impact on memory processes for both the youth and adults.
Physical exercise does not only keep muscles in tone but also has a positive impact on the overall health of the brain because intense movements improve the blood supply to the muscles and brain.
In particular, some studies have shown that dancing and other examples of similar leisure activities reduce the risk of dementia. Such activities keep your body and mind in tension, teach you to make quick decisions and adopt new behaviors.
Exercises where you need to keep your head below your heart (such as certain yoga postures) are also considered to be particularly effective.
5. Getting proper rest
A lack of sleep has the worst effects on your cognitive functions. Have you ever tried to drive a car after a bad sleep? Now think about how a lack of sleep can affect the activity of your brain.
Night sleep allows our brain cells to recharge and clears our heads. Studies have shown that sleep enhances the brain’s functioning that makes you smarter and more open-minded.
When you deprive yourself of sufficient sleep, the brain can hardly operate to its full capacity. Its problem-solving abilities, critical thinking skills, and creativity are compromised. Adequate rest would thereby boost such aspects and enhance the brain’s ability to process and recall information.
To improve your brain function, you should sleep at least 7-8 hours. In addition, the sleeping schedule has great importance.
If you wake up too late and stay awake till late at night, you will surely experience confusion throughout the whole day. If you feel tired during the day, it is advisable to sleep for 10-20 minutes (not longer). Short naps refresh and relieve stress.
Going to bed and waking up early would be a preferable approach. The brain works best is in the morning, according to a study conducted by researchers of the University of Sussex. For example, if you are taking a test or writing an exam, the results are more likely to be better by 5% before noon.
All it takes is to change your habits and make the right lifestyle choices to improve your brain function.
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