The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

This is not another classic from Stephen Covey, it's a review of some good lifestyle options we can fol­low to main­tain, and improve, our vibrant brains.

Learn what is the “It” in “Use It or Lose It”. A basic under­stand­ing will serve you well to appre­ci­ate your brain’s beauty as a liv­ing and constantly-developing dense for­est with bil­lions of neu­rons and synapses.

Take care of your nutri­tion. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but con­sumes over 20% of the oxy­gen and nutri­ents we intake? As a gen­eral rule, you don’t need expen­sive ultra-sophisticated nutri­tional sup­ple­ments, just make sure you don’t stuff your­self with the “bad stuff”.

Remem­ber that the brain is part of the body. Things that exer­cise your body can also help sharpen your brain: phys­i­cal exer­cise enhances neurogenesis.

Prac­tice pos­i­tive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mind­set and you look for­ward to every new day in a con­struc­tive way. Stress and anx­i­ety, no mat­ter whether induced by exter­nal events or by your own thoughts, actu­ally kills neu­rons and pre­vent the cre­ation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the oppo­site of exer­cise: it pre­vents the cre­ation of new neurons.

Thrive on Learn­ing and Men­tal Chal­lenges. The point of hav­ing a brain is pre­cisely to learn and to adapt to chal­leng­ing new envi­ron­ments. Once new neu­rons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they sur­vive depends on how you use them. “Use It or Lose It” does not mean “do cross­word puz­zle num­ber 1,234,567″. It means, “chal­lenge your brain often with fun­da­men­tally new activities”.

We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organ­isms in this planet. Aim high. Once you grad­u­ate from col­lege, keep learn­ing. The brain keeps devel­op­ing, no mat­ter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.

Explore, travel. Adapt­ing to new loca­tions forces you to pay more atten­tion to your envi­ron­ment. Make new deci­sions, use your brain.

Don’t Out­source Your Brain. Not to media per­son­al­i­ties, not to politi­cians, not to your smart neigh­bour… Make your own decisions, and mistakes  And learn from them. That way, you are train­ing your brain, not your neighbour’s.

Develop and maintain stim­u­lat­ing friendships. We are “social animals , and need social inter­ac­tion. Which, by the way, is why ‘Baby Einstein’ has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.

Laugh. Often. Especially to cognitively complex humor, full of twists and surprises  Better  try to become the next Jon Stewart

Now, remember that what counts is not reading this article-or any other-, but prac­tic­ing a bit every day until small steps snowball into unstoppable  inter­nal­ized habits…so, pick your next battle and try to start improving at least one of these 10 habits today. Revisit the habit above that really grabbed your attention  click on the link to learn more, and make a decision to try something dif­fer­ent today!

10 BRAIN DAMAGING HABITS YOU SHOULD STOP NOW!

1. No Breakfast
People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level.
This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.

2. Overeating
It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.

3. Smoking
It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.

4. High Sugar consumption
Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.

5. Air Pollution
The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.

6. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain cells.

7. Head covered while sleeping
Sleeping with the head covered increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.

8. Working your brain during illness
Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.

9. Lacking in stimulating thoughts
Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.

10. Talking Rarely
Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain.

10 Simple Ways to Tune Up Your Brain

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely  couldn’t remember his/her name? Sure, it happens to all of us.

Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse sometimes. It’s hard to blame them really.

As humans, we spend much of our existence stuffing our brains with stuff. Some stuff is worthless, some of it’s meaningful, some of it, well, it’s just stuff and there is an endless amount of it.

No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time, to be kept in shape, and even an occasional charge. Think of it as a tune up for your brain. Skipping brain maintenance is as silly as the person wandering the parking garage because they forgot where they parked. Is that you? Are you that person? Sure. We all are at some point. No worries, there is hope.

Here are some things you can begin doing as soon as today to begin the great brain tune up:

• Eat Almonds: Almond is believed to improve memory. If a combination of almond oil and milk is taken together before going to bed or after getting up at morning, it strengthens our memory power. Almond milk is prepared by crushing the almonds without the outer cover and adding water and sugar to it.

• Drink Apple Juice:Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice increases the production of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in an increased memory power.

• Sleep well: Research indicates that the long-term memory is consolidated during sleep by replaying the images of the experiences of the day. These repeated playbacks program the subconscious mind to store these images and other related information.

• Enjoy simple Pleasures: Stress drains our brainpower. A stress-ridden mind consumes much of our memory resources to leave us with a feeble mind. Make a habit to engage yourself in few simple pleasures everyday to dissolve stress from your mind. Some of these simple pleasures are good for your mind, body and soul.

• Fast for a day: Fasting cleans and detoxifies our body. It is known fact that heavy food not only causes stress on our digestive system but also drains our brainpower. Fasting relieves toxic emotions such as anger, grief, worry, and fears – before they accumulate and cause disease. By cleansing toxic emotions, fasting strengthens metal clarity with increases memory, concentration, creativity and insight.

• Exercise your mind:Just as physical exercise is essential for a strong body, mental exercise is equally essential for a sharp and agile mind. Have you noticed that children have far superior brainpower than an adult does? Children have playful minds. A playful mind exhibits superior memory power. Engage in some of the activities that require your mind to remain active and playful. Play scrabble or crossword puzzle,Volunteer, Interact with others, Start a new hobby such as blogging, reading, painting, bird watching, Learn new skill or a language.

• Practice Yoga or Meditation: Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster.With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower.

• Eat whole wheat: The whole wheat germs contain lecithin. Lecithin helps ease the problem of the hardening of the arteries, which often impairs brain functioning.

• Develop imagination: Greeks mastered the principle of imagination and association to memorize everything. This technique requires one to develop a vivid and colorful imagination that can be linked to a known object. If you involve all your senses – touching, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing in the imagination process, you can remember greater details of the event.

• Control your temper: Bleached food, excess of starch or excess of white bread can lead to nerve grating effect. This results in a violent and some time depressive behavior. Eat fresh vegetables. Drink lots of water and meditate or practice yoga to relieve these toxic emotions of temper and violent mood swings.

If  you are serious about putting your brain to optimum use, these are tips you should never neglect.