Many people have adopted some sort of brain fitness program either to avoid or correct cognitive decline. But is your approach working? The focus of many such brain fitness programs are often too narrow to bring about any tangible benefits - although theoretically speaking, they are beneficial to your brain.
The scientific community used to believe that the brain, after a period of time where it experiences rapid development, is fixed and unchanging. That because brain cells die as we age, there is no recourse as to the problems of memory loss and other "age-related" cognitive diseases.
Today, there are new evidence of the brain's ability to change and improve even in older individuals once believed to be doomed. Called "neurogenesis", scientists now know that all brains, young and old, is capable of growing new brain cells - as long as it gets the right stimulation (exercises) and has access to the required raw materials (nutrition).
In this article, I will be talking about 4 pillars crucial to the maintenance of your brain's fitness. These advice are not made up out of thin air - they are developed through years of scientifically research. So sit back, relax and listen up.
1. Stress is a major killer of brain cells. In stress, your adrenal cortex releases a hormone called "cortisol". Cortisol not only increases heart rate and blood sugar, it also reduces immune responses and excites brain cells to death. This is the reason why if you're under stress, you'll have difficulty learning anything new, let alone sustain attention and remembering facts.
By continuously exposing your brain cells to cortisol, you're risking long term memory loss, dementia and a host of other cognitive problems.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to manage stress. One of my favorite is simply listening to soothing baroque music. Some studies have shown these musical symphonies improve various brain functions. A Stanford University study, for example, found that baroque music increases anticipatory intelligence and the ability to sustain attention in subjects.
But perhaps the best way to manage stress is meditation. Often viewed as a "new-age" practice, various scientific studies found a host of unexpected benefits of meditation, which includes brain stimulation and even strengthening of your muscles and skills.
And this brings me to my next point: Brain exercises.
2. Your brain is responsible for every changes that you experience in your body. For example, your heart do not strengthen itself when you exercise. Instead, it's your brain that recognized the need to strengthen your heart to adapt to the environment. It then send a signal to your heart and allocate the resources for it to grow.
The good news for you is that the brain could not tell between visualizations and reality because visualizing you're doing something and actually doing it fires the same network of neurons.
Thus several studies conducted around the concept found that visualizations improved not only a particular skill (such as playing piano and basketball), it even strengthens muscles. Drs Kelly Cole and Guang Ye, for example, asked a group of subjects to visualize doing finger exercises and found their finger muscle's strength increased by more than 22%.
These intense visualizations - also called meditations - stimulate the brain. Stimulating your brain is crucial because if you don't use the skills that you possess, you will lose it as your brain loses the synapses that makes the skill possible - and that includes your skills to memorize, to learn and even to balance yourself.
3. For any part of your body to grow and function at its peak, it requires raw materials. Your diet, of course, is the greatest source of these raw materials.
Consuming a healthy diet that consist mostly of green leafy vegetables not only provides you with the necessary raw materials to maintain your brain fitness, it also provides you with anti-oxidants - something we all need since the process of oxidation destroys brain cells.
4. Because we have evolved in a period of time where we walk a lot (our ancestors used to walk an average of 12 miles a day) physical exercise is required not just for its physical benefits, but also for your cognitive health. When you exercise, your brain releases a plethora of chemicals.
Some reduce stress, of which you already the harm. Some lift your mood. Some increase alertness. Others enhance general well-being.
Two of the most popular neurotransmitters released during exercise are called dopamine and serotonin. These neurotransmitters allow us to feel calm, happy and even euphoric - thus it is often synthetically used to treat people with "psychological problems" such as depression (or do these people just require more exercise?).
These 4 pillars of cognitive improvement is crucial for any brain fitness program to bring about maximum results. If you miss one of them, then there's no doubt that you will not achieve the potential your brain has to offer.
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If you would like to learn more about the specific details of the tips and tricks mentioned in this article, you're welcome to check out Andre Auerbach's website, "Brain Training Made Easy" at http://www.truehealthproject.com/brain-training , where he writes about improving brain health naturally.
