6 Daily Habits To Keep Your Brain Young & Sharp

Without brain health, we do not have health. So here are six ways to keep it in order:

Food for thought

The six areas to focus on are as follows:

1. Physical exercise: as we at 10almonds sometimes say, what’s good for the heart is good for the brain (because the brain is only as healthy as the circulation feeding it). For this reason, the recommendation here is for physical exercise that improves heart health—so, walking, running, swimming, dancing, etc.
2. Healthy diet: shocking nobody, this is important too. Specifically, a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and healthy proteins and fats is important—partly for the heart benefits that give indirect benefits to the brain, and partly because the brain is built of stuff and so we have to consume that stuff in order to rebuild it (omega-3s features strongly here, for instance). Remember to hydrate, too! The body can’t do anything without water.
3. Good sleep: yes, the famous 7–9 hours sleep per night, and yes, even at your age, whatever that might be. This is important for memory consolidation, cell repair, toxin removal, and more. Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, leads to cognitive decline and brain shrinkage.
4. Mental stimulation: ideally, engaging those parts of the brain you most wish to protect (e.g. language, memory, or whatever is most important to you).
5. Social interaction: this one gets underestimated a lot, but it’s important to have meaningful conversations (not just polite smalltalk from a small menu of stock phrases), and that these should be two-way, i.e. involving both listening/reading and speaking/writing. Ideally, all four of those, which for most people means online and offline social interactions.
6. Stress management: because chronic stress damages brain cells and accelerates cognitive decline, it’s important to manage that; practices like mindfulness meditation go a very long way and make a big difference.

For more on all of these, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

The Physical Exercises That Build Your Brain ← this is different from just exercising for one’s heart and thus the brain by extension, and rather, is specific exercises that strengthen specific parts of the brain.

Take care!