It is common knowledge that we need to exercise in order for our muscles to grow. But we rarely see workout challenges for our brains or pay attention to the fact that like any muscle, it needs to be used often in order to function properly.
If you have been working out your body, but have neglected your brain, today is the day that changes. Salud brings you 5 ways to exercise your brain.
- The dictionary game. Grab your dictionary, and learn five words and their meaning. The next day, test yourself. This exercise will help you train your mind to remember new information, as well as expand your vocabulary.
- If you have a partner, pick up chess. When played mindfully on both ends, this game can be extremely beneficial for your brain. Besides exercising both sides of the brain, playing chess helps develop concentration, strategy, and problem-solving skills.
- Solving puzzles. The cool thing about puzzles is that they come in many different formats like a jigsaw, mazes, mechanical puzzles like the Rubik’s cube, and even Sudoku, a great type of puzzle that uses numbers instead of shapes. Puzzles can help improve your memory and visual-spatial reasoning, develop better problem-solving skills, and lower stress levels.
- Memorizing a new song. If music is your pick, searching for a song you haven’t heard before and memorized the lyrics can improve your memory, and benefit the overall health of your neurotransmitters.
- Find new purposes for everyday objects. The curious practice of choosing a mundane object like a glass or a towel and thinking of different functions besides the obvious ones can help you keep your brain cells young and functioning properly.
Having a balanced diet and taking multivitamins daily can also help keep your memory and your brain functioning in tip-top shape. Our blog post 4 Reasons Why You Have Bad Memory will tell you a bit about a few things you can change to improve this essential function of the brain.
Although these are some of our favorites, there are plenty of exercises and games that can help you stay sharp. Many studies link exercising your brain to a delay in the development of diseases that affect cognitive skills and memory, like Alzheimer’s and dementia.
We hope you find these exercises useful and put them in practice right away. You can tell us which brain game or exercise is your favorite in the comments below
You can call us at 1-800-299-7917 to make a virtual appointment with Doctor Rigoberto Perez Diaz, or visit our website www.salud.bz, we will gladly assist you. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and do not forget to tune into our daily program SALUD TV.