While you may want to practice this tip privately rather than on the subway, you’ll be pleased. You may feel silly, but as soon as you try this tip, you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Raising your eyebrows opens your eyes wider, resulting in a slight adrenaline boost. You’ll instantly feel brighter and more alert.
Despite the hype, crossword puzzles and online games by themselves will not boost your brain. But learning something new will. Researchers had older people try different activities, but only those who learned a new skill, such as quilting, showed significant improvement in brain function. The brain is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. So find a new hobby that excites and challenges you. Pick up a musical instrument, try a new language, or play chess on the computer.
Sleep has proven to be one of the most important elements in having a good memory. . . . Even a short nap can improve your memory recall. . . . Research indicates that when memory is first recorded in the brain–in the hippocampus, to be specific–it’s still “fragile” and easily forgotten, especially if the brain is asked to memorize more things. Napping, it seems, pushes memories to the neocortex, the brain’s “more permanent storage,” preventing them from being “overwritten.”
Improving Your Memory: Did You Know Chewing Gum May Help?
Another easy method to try that could improve your memory is chewing gum while you learn new things. There’s been some contradictory research around this topic, so it’s not a solid bet, but a study published last year showed that participants who completed a memory recall task were more accurate and had higher reaction times if they chewed gum during the study. One reason that chewing gum might affect our memory recall is that it increases activity in the hippocampus, an important area of the brain for memory. It’s still unclear why this happens, though.
Your Mind: Use It or Lose It
Mental exercise is just as critical as physical exercise in keeping your brain fit and healthy. Mental exercises may improve your brain’s functioning and promote new brain cell growth, decreasing your likelihood of developing dementia. Like your muscles, you have to use your brain or you lose it.
Avocados Are Giving Your Heart Lots of Love
Avocados are a fun food to eat, they’re nutritious, and they’re a good source of monounsaturated fat, which can reduce your risk of heart disease. A recent study found that LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol was lowered when people replaced the saturated fat in their diet with one Hass avocado a day. The study also found decreases in the LDL particle number and the ratio of LDL to HDL (“good” cholesterol), suggesting avocados have even more cardiovascular benefits. Researchers concluded that avocados may protect the heart in a similar way as olive oil and nuts do in the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet.
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“Observational studies have consistently found that older people who get regular exercise are less likely to decline mentally and/or develop dementia. Aerobic exercise such as running or cycling seems especially beneficial, but any activity can help, including strength training, walking and tai chi, which have all been the focus of recent studies. Exercise probably benefits the brain just as it helps the cardiovascular system—by improving blood pressure, blood flow, weight, cholesterol levels and blood sugar. In addition, brain scans show that aerobic exercise can actually improve brain activity and produce new brain cells and connections between them.”
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Not only, for example, do “you need sleep after learning to essentially hit the save button on those new memories so that you don’t forget,” you also “need sleep before learning to actually prepare your brain, almost like a dry sponge ready to initially soak up new information.”
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You’re probably aware of the benefits of exercise on your body — it lowers your risk of heart attack, many types of cancer and age-related injuries. Did you know regular exercise strengthens your brain just as it does your body? Although brain size decreases with age, research has shown that exercise can actually help reverse that — you can start anytime. One study found that physical activity helped participants build measurable increases in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that lets you create and store memories. In another study, older adults with mild cognitive impairment who lifted weights two to three times a week improved muscle tone and cognitive function. It doesn’t take too much: Just walking briskly for 30 to 60 minutes, three to five times a week, contributed to measurable brain improvements.
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The nerves in your brain connect to one another to send messages and signals for your brain to function. As you age, your brain can lose some of these connections causing your brain to become slower in sending and receiving signals and causing you to age more rapidly. By eating purple foods such as grapes, blueberries, pomegranate, eggplant, beets and wine, you can help protect your nerves and even form new ones to reverse aging in the brain. Add one cup of purple foods to every meal to boost your brain power.
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