Seven Exercises To Strengthen Your Brain
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The silly video thumbnail notwithstanding, these are actually very good exercises to do:
Use it or lose it
Try these:
- Schulte table: locate numbers in ascending order on a grid within 30 seconds to improve information processing speed and peripheral vision. You can find many Schulte table challenges online or in apps for a quick brain workout.
- Multicolor text: say the color of each word instead of reading the word itself to strengthen memory, concentration, and multitasking skills. Though it looks easy, it forces the brain to process information differently, which is what we are looking for here.
- Blindfolded tasks: perform small tasks with eyes closed, such as writing your name, drawing shapes, or typing, to keep the brain active and sharpen spatial memory and recall.
- Hand coordination: make a “peace” sign with one hand and an “Ok” sign with the other, then switch hands and repeat five times within 10 seconds to strengthen the mind-body connection.
- Using non-dominant hand: use your non-dominant hand for tasks like writing or brushing your teeth, to give your brain an extra workout, form new neural connections, and improve coordination.
- Brain games: play strategic games to enhance decision-making and memory. Chess is a great option, and also websites like Lumosity offer a variety of free brain-training games.
- Limiting technology dependence: Strengthen memory and self-reliance by reducing dependence on technology. Practise tasks such as doing calculations without a calculator, spelling things correctly, and remembering phone numbers, instead of always relying on tech to do it for you.
For more on all of these, plus visual examples for some of the exercises, enjoy;
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Physical Exercises That Build Your Brain
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Open Your Hips With Better Joint Mechanics (Here’s How)
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Most people stretch hips incorrectly, and pushing through painful stretches often leads to little or no progress, which can be discouraging to say the least.
Here’s how to cut through all that and get the results you need:
More than just stretching
Effective hip mobility also requires joint capsule activation, muscle tension release, and nervous system safety. These four exercises meet those needs:
- Banded lunge hip mobilization: in a lunge, loop a resistance band across the hip of your lead leg, extend your back leg, and push your front knee outwards without hip rotation or spinal arching. Hold 15–20 seconds, repeat.
- Weighted butterfly stretch: sit with your feet together, knees out, and rest light/moderate dumbbells on each knee to gently press them down; relax fully, hold 2–3 seconds, repeat 8–10 times.
- Seated hinge with barbell: sit on a bench with your knees bent and your hips open; hold a barbell at your shoulders, brace your core, and hinge forward at hips while keeping your spine neutral; you should feel the stretch in your hips, glutes, and groin. Pause 2–3 seconds, repeat 8–12 times.
- Frog stretch with sliders and weight: hold the “frog” position (knees wide, feet out), for 30–60 seconds; add sliders to move your hips up/down, then rest a plate on your hips and hold another 30–60 seconds.
For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like:
The Most Underrated Hip Mobility Exercise (Not Stretching)
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Managing Major Chronic Diseases – by Alexis Dupree
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Our author, Alexis Dupree, is herself in her 70s, and writing with more than three decades of experience of surviving multiple chronic diseases (in her case, Multiple Sclerosis, and then a dozen comorbidities that came with such).
She is not a doctor or a scientist, but for more than 30 years she’s been actively working to accumulate knowledge not just on her own conditions, but on the whole medical system, and what it means to be a “forever patient” without giving up hope.
She talks lived-experience “life management” strategies for living with chronic disease, and she talks—again from lived experience—about navigating the complexities of medical care; not on a legalistic “State regulations say…” level, because that kind of thing changes by the minute, but on a human level.
Perhaps most practically: how to advocate strongly for yourself while still treating medical professionals with the respect and frankly compassion that they deserve while doing their best in turn.
But also: how to change your attitude to that of a survivor, and yet also redefine your dreams. How to make a new game plan of life—while working to make life easier for yourself. How to deal, psychologically, with the likelihood that not only will you probably not get better, but also, you will probably get worse, while still never, ever, giving up.
After all, many things are easily treatable today that mere decades ago were death sentences, and science is progressing all the time. We just have to stay alive, and in as good a condition as we reasonably can, to benefit from those advances!
Bottom line: if you have a chronic disease, or if a loved one does, then this is an immensely valuable book to read.
Click here to check out Managing Major Chronic Diseases, and make life easier!
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Food for Thought – by Lorraine Perretta
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What are “brain foods”? If you think for a moment, you can probably list a few. What this book does is better.
As well as providing the promised 50 recipes (which themselves are varied, good, and easy), Perretta explains the science of very many brain-healthy ingredients. Not just that, but also the science of a lot of brain-unhealthy ingredients. In the latter case, probably things you already knew to stay away from, but still, it’s a good reminder of one more reason why.
Nor does she merely sort things into brain-healthy (or brain-unhealthy, or brain-neutral), but rather she gives lists of “this for memory” and “this against depression” and “this for cognition” and “this against stress” and so forth.
Perhaps the greatest value of this book is in that; her clear explanations with science that’s simplified but not dumbed down. The recipes are definitely great too, though!
Bottom line: if you’d like to eat more for brain health, this book will give you many ways of doing so
Click here to check out Food for Thought, and upgrade your recipes!
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Food and Nutrition – by Dr. P.K. Newby
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The “What Everyone Needs To Know” part of the title is the name of a series of books, of which this one, “Food and Nutrition”, is one.
In this case, the title is apt, and/or could have been “What Everyone Really Should Know”, or “What Everyone Would Like To Think They Know But Have Often Just Been Bluffing Their Way Through The Supermarket Aisles”.
The chapter and section headings are all in the forms of questions, such that all-together in such volume in the table of contents, they’re reminiscent of the “Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things” meme.
But, this serves a dual purpose—for one, it makes the whole book one big FAQ, which is a very convenient format. Furthermore, it prompts a little thought on the part of the reader before each section, if we indeed question for ourselves:
- Are fertilizers in farming friend or foe?
- How have the Digital Revolution and Information Age impacted our diet?
- Are canned and frozen foods inferior to fresh?
- Does snacking or meal timing matter?
- What are cereal grains and “pseudograins”?
…And so many more. But what’s best about this is:
Dr. Newby doesn’t reference her own preferences, or even have a particular way of eating she’d like us to adopt. She just lays out the science to answer each question, as discovered by high-quality studies and a general weight of evidence.
Bottom line: this book can level-up your nutritional knowledge from bluffing to really knowing! A worthy addition to anyone’s bookshelf.
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Taurine: An Anti-Aging Powerhouse? Exploring Its Unexpected Benefits
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Dr. Mark Rosenberg explains:
Not a stimulant, but…
- Its presence in energy drinks often causes people to assume it’s a stimulant, but it’s not. In fact, it’s a GABA-agonist, thus having a calming effect.
- The real reason it’s in energy drinks is because it helps increase mitochondrial ATP production (ATP = adenosine triphosphate = how cells store energy that’s ready to use; mitochondria take glucose and make ATP)
- Taurine is also anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anticancer.
- In the category of aging, human studies are slow to give results for obvious reasons, but mouse studies show that supplementing taurine in middle-aged mice increased their lifespan by 10–12%, as well as improving various physiological markers of aging.
- Taking a closer look at aging—literally; looking at cellular aging—taurine reduces cellular senescence and protects telomeres, thus decreasing DNA mutations.
For more on the science of these, plus Dr. Rosenberg’s personal experience, enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
- Dr. Greger’s Anti-Aging Eight
- Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?
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Kiwi vs Lime – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing kiwi to lime, we picked the kiwi.
Why?
In terms of macros, kiwi has more protein, more carbs, and more fiber. As with most fruits, the fiber is the number we’re most interested in for health purposes; in this case, kiwi is just slightly ahead of limes on all three of those. So, a modest win for kiwis.
In the category of vitamins, kiwi has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B9, C, E, and K, while lime has a tiny bit more vitamin B5. That’s vitamin B as in, the vitamin that’s in pretty much anything and is practically impossible to be deficient in unless you are literally starving to death. You may be thinking: aren’t limes a famously good source of vitamin C? And yes, yes they are. But kiwis have >3x more. In other big differences, kiwis also have >6x more vitamin E and >67 times more vitamin K. So this round’s a super-easy win for kiwis.
Looking at minerals, kiwi has more calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while lime has more iron and selenium. Another clear win for kiwis.
In other considerations, kiwi has some anticancer properties that lime can’t boast, so that’s another point in favor of kiwi.
Adding up the sections makes for an overwhelming overall win for kiwi, but by all means enjoy either or both, as diversity is best!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer ← kiwi is top of the list; it promotes cancer cell death while sparing healthy cells 😎
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