Edition: June 14th, 2021
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
Excerpts from article by Susan Steinbrecher, published on Entrepreneur.com
From thought patterns to emotions, every facet of human expression dwells within the extraordinary capacity of our gray-and-white matter. While we take steps to look after our physical health, we rarely pay enough attention to maintaining brain health.
When you develop new interests, pursue hobbies or perform specific brain exercises, you enhance your brain’s ability to become more proficient, and at the same time, expand memory.
You have considerable control over your own brain function, since much depends on what you experience, and how you use your brain.
Why boosting brain health is important
- Neglecting your cognitive health and allowing your brain to lose its mental edge has unnecessary and deleterious economic, social and personal ramifications.
- The longer we live, the more competitive the marketplace becomes, the more complex our social fabric grows, the more imperative it becomes that we leverage our most precious resource, our brain.
- More and more people express concerns about feeling mentally exhausted and therefore conclude that we need downtime, when the actual remedy needed may be a boost in brain health.
Signs that you need to take a closer look at your brain health
- A recurring feeling of mental fatigue or low mental energy
- Increased instances of forgetfulness
- Difficulty making decisions
- The feeling that you’re overwhelmed by information
- Inability to plan or create innovative solutions.
Often, these symptoms are reversible. What can help here is to reduce toxic “brain habits” and make the conscious decision to adopt a more brain-fit lifestyle.
Here are 6 habits that can help you boost your brain health:
1. Limit multitasking
Multitasking diminishes mental productivity, elevates brain fatigue and increases stress.
2. Get an adequate amount of sleep
Make sure you regularly get seven-to-eight hours of sleep. Information is consolidated in the brain at a deeper level of understanding during sleep.
3. Commit to an exercise routine
Get 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three to four times a week, to improve memory and increase attention and concentration and brain blood flow in the brain-memory area.
4. Construct bottom-line messages
Summarise your task-assignment reading, training seminars, articles, movies you see or books read. Abstracting novel ideas, versus remembering a litany of facts, builds a brain with an enhanced long-term memory for global ideas and the ability to retrieve fundamental facts.
5. Focus on important tasks
Block out information that is relatively unimportant. Limiting the intake of information is a key brain function associated with brain health.
6. Stay motivated
A motivated brain builds faster and more robust neural connections. Identify your passions and learn more about them.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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It’s a useful information and is for every age group. Written in easy to understand steps makes it followable.
Thanks
Thanks so much, Ms Sharma. Delighted that you found the post useful.