Four Exercises to Sharpen Your Brain

Think of your brain as a muscle: Muscle gets stronger with exercise and it is same as our brain.

Try these simple exercises to boost your brain power and clear away the fog of forgetfulness.

1. Use your non-dominant hand

Tackling new tasks improves brain capacity in younger people. Boost your brain power right now by performing everyday activities with your non-dominant hand.

If you're right-handed:

1) use your left hand to eat, drink, comb your hair, and brush your teeth.
2) try writing your name with your non-dominant hand
3) put your mouse pad on the other side of the keyboard.

Why does this work?

By exercising your brain through the use of non-dominant hand, you are stimulating the opposite side of the brain and activating blood flow, which slows down the brain aging process and improves mental capacity.

Stimulating communication between the two hemispheres also even helps physical balance.

1) Tai Chi coach people to use the right and left side of the body equally.
2) when you play badminton or tennis, switch the racquet to your non-dominant side
and play.



2. Work out your brain

You have to use it or lose it! Mental exercises that will keep your brain fit include:

1) doing crossword puzzles,
2) playing chess,
3) memorizing names, shopping lists, and phone numbers.
4) do not use calculator for simple calculation...add manually instead.

Keep challenging yourself with tasks that are new to you.

Whatever mental exercise you choose, the key to success is to practice every day at the same time; you are developing and activating new neural pathways, and consistent cycles will keep the brain on track.

3. Move your fingers to improve your brain

Many people marvel that Asian children seem so intelligent. It could be because they use their fingers more frequently such as:

1) they eat with chopsticks and at one time,
2) they used to compute with an abacus in school.

In fact, some studies have been done with children who use an abacus daily, and findings show that engaging the fingers stimulates nerve endings that go directly to the brain, increasing circulation.

Take advantage of this by practicing motor activities that use your fingertips:

1) do crocheting,
2) knitting,
3) do other arts and crafts where you are manipulating small parts.
4) try playing the piano or a stringed instrument.




4. Stimulate brain acuity with self-massage

To improve concentration and memory try this self-massage that stimulates two easy-to-find acupressure points on your neck at the base of the skull.

1) Cross your hands behind you with the palms cradling the back of your head, your thumbs in the grooves on each side of your neck, and your index fingers crossing one another below the skull, just above the thumbs.

2) Sit in a chair, lean your head back, and let it rest against the pressure of your thumbs and index fingers.

3) Slowly inhale deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth, letting your whole body relax.

Do this for three to five minutes.

You'll increase blood flow to the brain and at the same time relax the neck muscles, which often tense up in response to stress, constricting blood vessels in the area.

So...Let's us sharpen our brain together :)