Reaching Your Intellectual Potential
There are techniques backed by scientific evidence to help you improve brain health and reach your full intellectual potential. Despite the crazy claims you have probably heard, there are genuine suggestions and techniques to help you achieve your goals. Here are five tips to improve your brain’s health today.
◊The Importance of a Healthy Diet
There are numerous foods that will benefit your brain by increasing your Mental functioning including fruits, vegetables and water. Ginkgo Biloba has been shown to positively impact the memory. Vegetables including tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, certain berries and grains, proteins, green teas and the omega 3 oil contained in oily fish help improve the brain function as well as the memory. The protein found in eggs, meat, peas, and beans has a high level of amino acids like tyrosine. This enables neurons to produce dopamine and norepinephrine which are linked to mental alertness.
◊The Benefits of Exercise
You probably already know exercise will cure a lot of intellectual, emotional and physical problems. Thirty to sixty minutes of vigorous exercise each day will increase your blood flow. This increases the amount of glucose and oxygen your brain receives. This complicated physical activity additionally provides a workout for your brain. Exercise will help you grow new neurons or brain cells, and promote three growth factors. These are the (BDNF) or brain-derived neurotrophic factor, (IGF-1) or insulin-like growth factors and (VEGF) or endothelial growth factor. These factors help reduce inflammation, slow down the destruction of the cells and grow new blood vessels. The hippocampus is located in the brain, controls the memory system and dormant cells can be awakened by exercising. Some of the best techniques are outlined below.
◊Avoiding Drugs and Alcohol
Avoiding smoking, drugs and alcohol will improve your brain health. Studies show individuals smoking in excess of two pack of cigarettes every day have double the risk of dementia as they age. Alcohol should only be consumed in an amount considered to be healthy.
◊Reducing Stress Levels
Stress will negatively impact your emotional and mental health. What you are feeling needs to be discussed openly and honestly. Keeping how you feel inside will increase your stress, shorten your attention span and prevent you from proper learning. An excellent means of reducing your stress levels is meditation. This can help improve your mental and physical health with techniques such as achieving calm, breathing, and stillness. Meditation has been shown to improve both memory and concentration. The brain is believed to process information more efficiently and faster when you include meditation as a part of your life.
◊Achieving Quality Sleep
Your brain is still working while you sleep. This is when your brain consolidates what you learned during the day. Many psychologists believe when you dream, it is your brain attempting to understand what occurred during the day and trying to interpret and understand the new information. This means you may literally be able to find solutions for any issues by going to sleep. Unfortunately, if you are not achieving quality sleep, you may be losing the benefits of your new experiences. A poor night of sleep will also impact your ability to learn the next day. The average adult requires seven to nine hours of sleep every night to receive the full benefits and reach their cognitive peak the next day. This will help keep your mind sharp.
Dominic LoBianco is a contributing guest writer on behalf of Lumonol. Dominic is responsible for creating content for a wide range of topics.
