According to the popular idea, we only use about 10% of brain functionality. Most neuroscientists say it is an exaggeration, but one thing can be said for sure: the majority of people really don’t use their brains to the best of their abilities, never reaching the state of complete clarity that should be, more or less, a norm.
Here are a few tips that will help you at least make several steps to utilizing your gray matter to the fullest.
1. Brain Food
Some foods have been proved to improve your cognitive function, improve memory and overall condition of the brain when consumed on a regular basis. Wholegrains, fish rich in omega-3 fats, turmeric, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, nuts of all kinds, ginger, blueberries, blackcurrants, pumpkin seeds, sage – all these products are good for brains and, frankly speaking, for your health in general, so it may be a good idea to include some of them in your diet – at least if you want to improve the quality of your life.
2. Nootropics
Now that we’ve touched upon traditional methods, let’s talk science!
There is a way to greatly increase your brain function without changing your eating habits (although, frankly speaking, it won’t hurt either). The so-called cognitive enhancers do exactly what it says on the tin – they improve cognition, make for better memory, boost alertness, enhance learning capabilities and so on. However, just like in all other cases, the effect can only be reached after you’ve been taking them for a while.
3. Brain Workouts
Luminosity is a project aimed at improving cognition in people all over the world by means of simple regular exercise. After you enter the information about the areas of brain function you want to improve, you create an account and receive a workout program designed specifically for your situation. By repeating it regularly you may greatly improve your memory, pattern recognition, speed and quality of decision making in usual and unusual situations, enhance your abilities in multitasking and focusing attention on one problem at a time.
4. Reading
TL;DR has quickly turned into a universally accepted answer to almost any piece of writing that exceeds the length of a Twitter entry – which shows just how catastrophically our average attention span has decreased over the last decade or so. One can argue, saying that it is a symptom of increasing speed of life, but reality is that we have hard time reading long texts even when it is crucial for us to read them and process information from them. By reading longform articles you will train your attention span, memory and ability to concentrate.
5. New Skills
Think about something you’ve never tried or even considered before, something as far from your usual field of activity is possible – and try to do it. Painting, modeling, dancing, football, web-coding – whatever you may think about, either useless or useful, it doesn’t matter. Bonus points if it requires coordination and good reaction. This will allow you to think outside the box, get a new window to perceive life through, develop the areas of your brain you previously didn’t use and so on.
6. Games
Games are generally associated with useless waste of time and things going boom, but it isn’t necessarily so. Both special brain games aimed at training specific areas of cognition and more complex conventional video games requiring a lot of thinking and planning can help in developing your brain function.
As you may see, if you want to improve your memory, become more alert and in general increase the quality of your life there are a lot of ways to do it – probably more than you’ve ever thought.
