You probably know that you should be moving your body on a regular basis. Stretching, lifting, carrying, walking, and bending are all movements that help strengthen your body and keep your health in an optimal place. There’s another part of your body that you also need to be exercising, but people don’t talk about it as much: your brain. The following will explore a few ways you can exercise your mind to help ensure a long, healthy life full of well-being. Many of these tips can be applied in addition to your regular physical workout regime to help boost the results and ensure that no part of you is left strengthened.
Understand The Relationship
Your mind is part of your body, and to benefit from it, you want to be exercising it in several different ways. Bodily exercise helps protect your brain from age-related shrinking and even helps your brain form new cells in the hippocampus. People who move their bodies on a regular basis were found to be 60% less likely to experience cognitive impairment as they age.
Learn A New Language
Learning a new language is one of the best things you can do for your mental fortitude. It improves cognition in a myriad of ways and also opens your mind to new ways of thinking, which can help bolster feelings of happiness and peace. Since our thought patterns are so influenced by our language, having access to a new language can open you up to different perspectives. The digital world is full of language-learning tools like audio lessons and applications that gamify language acquisition. Many people also find they learn quite a lot by watching Netflix in a foreign language. If you’re an auditory learner, you might want to put a language-learning lesson on your phone while you work out.
Learn A Musical Instrument
Many people argue that music is a language and so perhaps this should be included in the above point, and this is fair, but just in case you didn’t consider the similarities between languages and music, this point will be explored here. Learning to play a musical instrument and learning the necessary musical theory that’s part of that can also positively influence your cognition. It also helps you process trauma and other difficult-to-handle emotional experiences. While you probably can’t practice an instrument during exercise, you can listen to ear training audio lessons as well as musical theory discussions.
Process Experiences
Life can be beautiful, but it can also be tough. Most of us have experiences that we wish we didn’t have, and sometimes we don’t have the time or energy to properly process those experiences to keep them from interfering with our daily life. If you find yourself being sucked into negative feelings regarding memories that are more than two years old, this is a sign that those memories haven’t been properly processed. According to www.coaching-online.org, unwanted feelings, thoughts, and behaviors often need resolution at the root level. You may want to do this work privately or with the help of a professional.
Use Your Non-Dominant Hand
This is an unusual exercise but one that is well-supported scientifically. Using your non-dominant hand for a task like writing or drawing can give your brain an excellent workout. Don’t be surprised if you find the task intensely difficult; that’s okay. It’s the attempt that helps improve your cognitive abilities. Even something like trying to eat your dinner with the fork in your opposite hand can be quite the exercise.
Draw A Map Of A Town You Know From Memory
Drawing a map of an area you feel familiar with without looking at another map or driving around can really push your mind to the limit. Try drawing a map of your parent’s home from memory or a friend’s home. You’ll quickly find that it’s a pretty challenging task, but the more you think about it, the more you can recall. You can even attempt to do this with locations that are relatively new to you if you want an extra level of challenge.
The above information should have given you a few ideas regarding mental exercises that can help keep your mind healthy and active. Of course, if you’ve recently experienced an injury related to the brain, it’s important to keep medical advice in mind and accept that progress will happen at the pace that your brain can handle it to happen. While most of the above tasks will produce quick results, their real power exists when they’re done repeatedly over the course of many months or years.
