Maintain a Healthy Brain (8 Tips)

This is a revised and condensed summary from our book How God Can Change Your Brain,
 and although it was published in 2009, the list remains the same.  There are, however, other essential “ingredients” for maintaining a healthy brain (like a high fat, super-low sugar diet) but the research remains unclear for most of them.  For example: doing crossword puzzles, taking supplements, and playing video brain-training games have been proven ineffective for making a noticeable difference in your cognitive skills (and those companies promoting brain enhancement are often heavily fined by the FDA).

The Eighth Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Smile.  Even if you don’t feel like it, the mere act of smiling repetitively helps to interrupt mood disorders and strengthen the brain’s neural ability to maintain a positive outlook on life. Even if you fake a smile, other people will respond to you with greater generosity and kindness.

The Seventh Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Meditate.  I wish I could say that meditation and intensive prayer were #1, because that’s where much of my and Andy Newberg’s research has been focused, but being #7 is nothing to sneeze at (no, sneezing doesn’t help the brain and may even be a symptom of a rare cerebellar disorder).

The Sixth Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Consciously relax. I’m not talking about taking a nap, or assuming the position of a couch-potato in front of a television set.  I’m talking about deliberately scanning each part of your body to reduce muscle tension and physical fatigue. And if you add pleasant music, your body will relax more quickly. Calming music, by the way, has been shown to sharpen your cognitive skills and improve your sense of spiritual well-being. By the way, if you don’t learn how to consciously relax, you’ll hinder the power of these other ways to enhance your brain.

The Fifth Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Yawn.  Go ahead: laugh if you want (which is actually the 9^th best way to exercise your brain!), but there are now over 40 studies documenting the power of a yawn.  These are just a few of the  neurological benefits of yawning:
1.     stimulates alertness and concentration
2.     optimizes brain activity and metabolism
3.     improves cognitive function
4.     increases memory recall
5.     enhances consciousness and introspection
6.     lowers stress
7.     relaxes every part of your body
8.     improves voluntary muscle control
9.     enhances athletic skills
10.  fine-tunes your sense of time
11.  increases empathy and social awareness
12.  enhances pleasure and sensuality

The Fourth Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Aerobic exercise.  Vigorous exercise strengthens every part of the brain, as well as what it is connected to – the body. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 90, exercise is going to lengthen your life. And, in general, the more the better. For example, running is better than walking, and walking is better stretching, but it is important to find the “right” amount of exercise that feels the best for you.

The Third Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Stay intellectually active. This should be (if you will pardon the pun) a no-brainer. When it comes to the dendrites and axons that connect one neuron to thousands of others, if you don’t use it, you will lose it. Intellectual and cognitive stimulation strengthens the neural connections throughout your frontal lobe, and this, in turn, improves your ability to communicate, solve problems, and make rational decisions concerning your behavior.


The Second Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Stay socially connected and dialogue with others.   Language, socializing, and the human brain co-evolved with each other, allowing us to excel over many of the physical and mental skills of other mammals and primates. And if we don’t exercise our communication skills, large portions of the brain will not effectively interconnect with other neural structures. Effective dialogue requires  intense social interaction, and the more social ties we have, the less our cognitive abilities will decline.

The #1, Absolute, Best Way to Exercise Your Brain
Optimism. Recently, a team of National Institutes of Health researchers concluded that optimism is neurologically essential for maintaining motivation and good mental health. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that positive thinking decreases stress, helps you resist catching the common cold, reduces your risk of coronary artery disease, eases breathing if you have certain respiratory diseases, and improves your  coping skills during hardships.  An optimistic attitude specifically reduces the stress-eliciting cortisol levels in your body, and many other studies have demonstrated how optimism improves behaviorial coping in a variety of physical illnesses, and in a forty year follow-up conducted at Duke University, optimists had increased longevity when compared to pessimistic individuals.  Indeed, the role of optimism is so important in maintaining psychological health that the University of Pennsylvania has an entire institute—the Positive Psychology Center, headed by Martin Seligman—dedicated to this research.
http://markrobertwaldman.com/8-ways-to-exercise-your-brain/