Having a healthy brain or mindset is important as we age – so it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle through eating nutritious foods and keeping fit in or out of the gym.
It has been proven some activities you can do to keep your brain healthy beyond the part of your weekly routine to prevent you from experiencing brain-related health problems later on in life:
Playlist for your brain
Whether you are a business professional, student, or professional athlete – whether it is soul, r&b or indie, etc., music can improve your brain health.
Creating a music playlist of your favourite artists can help manage any anxieties, stress, or cognitive disorders you may experience and bring happy memories for you, along with helping you relax.
According to AgeUK, both music and singing can help dementia patients unlock memories; along with kick-start the grey matter – by reaching parts of the damaged brain in ways other forms of communication cannot.
Refuel your body
Like a car, your body needs to refuel when running low on energy; in relation to brain health, it is always essential to ensure your body gets the correct nutrients as your brain counts as 3% of your body weight, therefore you must ensure your diet consists of vitamins and minerals for all cellular activity.
If you are feeling low on energy, you cannot function and even lose focus – hence it is recommended that you factor in snacks such as nuts or seeds into your daily foods intakes, and in terms of drinks consider smoothies.
With nuts and seeds, nutritional experts recommend them as they contain A-linolenic acid and polyphenols (plant chemicals) for brain health and reduce brain inflammation and illnesses such as depression.
Have a wind-down routine
If you have been training hard in the gym, like your brain you need to allow your body to rest – have a routine of winding down activities in the form of something that will not challenge your brain such as washing up, thus helping you get enough sleep.
Even having positive thoughts can be a part of your wind-down routine to energize you and help to open you up to alternative possibilities.
Mind & Body Exercises
Incorporating either Yoga or Mindfulness, alongside your heavy-duty weight training or resistance training, are great exercises for keeping your brain healthy.
A recent study revealed that Yoga could have positive effects on your brain function given the focus on slow breathing that helps stimulate the vagus nerve resulting in an anti-inflammatory effect.
As for mindfulness, an activity that is becoming popular within the corporate environment has shown to lower anxiety and increase neurogenesis, which helps form new brain cells.
Endurance
Nowadays you will see many people running whether it be during the day or at night – this could be because they planning to do an endurance event such as the London 10k or the New York Marathon.
Either way, running is great for boosting your brain health, if you are in your 30s as your brain will slow down, thus you need to some to keep it mentally strong.
Stay making your healthy brain now
Making time for any of these activities part of your daily routine can reduce any symptoms before you reach your senior years.
Listening to music, you found this activity very popular with the senior generation – from my personal experience; one of my older clients in their 70s loves to listen to their Soca music every day as it brings back wonderful memories and still does the dance moves.
Given we are gradually coming out of lockdown, time will tell whenever we go back to our old routine, brain health is something that everyone will see as important and will take part in some form of non-physical activity to keep their brain healthy for longer.
Should you need any support or advice get in touch with me.
