Keeping up with one’s mental sharpness may feel like a daunting task, especially if you are unsure of where to begin. But not to worry, the professionals at The Brain Workshop can help! Through our thoughtfully developed brain training programs and simple everyday games and tasks, we can show you how to keep your brain as sharp as a tack. Think of these fun tasks as a brain gym exercise to work the greatest muscle in your body.
Keep reading below to check out some of the easiest and most functional brain exercises to help stimulate the brain.
1. Enhance Your Vocabulary
An extensive vocabulary is excellent for everyday conversations, completing written tasks, and sounding intelligent during discussions with friends. It turns out it’s also great for the brain! Grab a dictionary or scour the internet for a new word daily. It doesn’t have to be a tricky word. It just has to be a for that you are unfamiliar with. Look up the definition, familiarize yourself with the context, and use it a few times a day in conversations to stimulate the brain.
To put your new vocabulary and enhanced mental sharpness to the test, play a game of Scrabble with family, complete a crossword puzzle, or search the digital App store for one of the millions of word games to challenge others and yourself!
2. Regularly Complete a Variety of Puzzles
A 2019 study showed that number puzzles, such as Sudoku, can increase the quality of cognitive function for adults between the ages of 50-93 years old, even more so when they are completed multiple times per day. Sudoku is a logic-based number puzzle that requires a combinatorial number placement to be completed correctly. With various difficulties and options, such as timed games, this teaser is sure to provide your brain with the exercise it needs to enhance its mental sharpness! Other fun and challenging brain puzzle options to enhance cognitive processing include word searches, jigsaw puzzles, wordscapes, and more.
3. Use Your Non-Dominant Hand
Brain exercises don’t have to feel like you’re using your brain at all. They can be as simple using your arms and hands! Using your non-dominant hand (the one you use less) for simple tasks strengthens the bundle of fibres (corpus callosum) between the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. Science has shown that this bundle of fibres is visibly stronger in individuals such as musicians who utilize both hemispheres of their brain regularly. So if you’re right-handed, use your left hand (0r vice versa) when you hold your utensils while you eat, write your name, draw or trace shapes, throw a ball, or swing a bat.
4. Practice Learning a New Language
Learning a new language is one of the most challenging things an adult can do, mainly because we’re already stuck in the nuances of our primary language. However, it’s worth the challenge, as learning a new language allows us to socialize and connect with others in a new way, and it also provides us with other benefits.
Studies show learning a language increases the volume and density of gray matter, the volume of white matter, and brain connectivity. The brain is made up of cells called neurons, which each have a cell body and little branching connections called dendrites. Gray matter refers to how many cell bodies and dendrites there are. Likewise, white matter allows messages to travel more efficiently and faster across the networks of nerves in the brain. Bilingual experience makes gray and white matter denser, which indicates a healthier brain.
5. Drive a New Route to Work
Have you ever driven somewhere and thought, wow, I don’t even remember passing that road, or how did I get here? It is easy (and dangerous) to be on “autopilot” while driving to somewhere that has become routine. It’s time to turn off autopilot and challenge that noggin by switching up your route on your everyday trips to places such as work, school, and daycare.
Take a new way, maybe with the help of GPS for the first time. While driving, pay attention to road names, landscapes, and other markers that will help you drive the new route again without assistance. As the new route becomes familiar, try adding new twists and turns to keep challenging yourself. By doing something as small as recalling a landmark, you are activating the left prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Brain Training with The Brain Workshop
At the Brain Workshop, our brain training programs are designed to stimulate brain skills needed to keep you mentally smart in addition to improving attention, memory, clarity, logic, and processing speed. Not only can brain training help children and teens, but it also provides the perfect platform for adults to enhance their professional paths to success. In addition to the helpful tips we mentioned earlier, our brain training programs are designed to increase cognitive functions and help keep you mentally sharp.
Contact a member of our team to learn more.
