Shining light on night blindness. Can watching sports be bad for your health? Beyond the usual suspects for healthy resolutions. August 8, Forget about those over-the-counter products that promise better memory. The problem? There's no solid proof any of them work. A combination of nutrients Many brain supplements focus on omega-3 fatty acids such as those found in fish oil , vitamin E, various B vitamins, or various combinations.

Here's a summary of what science has found so far and what it means. Omega-3 fatty acids fish oil There are three types of omega-3s: eicosapentaenoic acid EPA and docosahexaenoic acid DHA — which are found mostly in fatty fish like salmon and mackerel — and alpha-linolenic acid ALA , which is found in leafy green vegetables Brussels sprouts, spinach , vegetable oils canola, soybean , and nuts and seeds walnuts, flaxseeds.

What the leaves say about ginkgo biloba The fan-shaped leaves of the ginkgo tree are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat all kinds of ailments.

Thinking about supplements So, the question remains: with no evidence, why do people still buy in to brain health supplements? Share This Page Share this page to Facebook Share this page to Twitter Share this page via Email.

Print This Page Click to Print. Related Content. Staying Healthy. Heart Health. You might also be interested in…. Improving Memory: Understanding age-related memory loss By age 60, more than half of adults have concerns about their memory.

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Plus, get a FREE copy of the Best Diets for Cognitive Fitness. Sign me up. Ask yourself:. If you can, try getting exercise right before you really need to focus or when taking a mental break. How can exercise benefit your mental health?

If you want to boost your concentration naturally, try to get outside every day, even for a short while. You might take a short walk through a park. Sitting in your garden or backyard can also help.

Any natural environment has benefits. According to the American Psychological Association APA , spending time in nature can have a positive impact on both physical and mental health. Research from found evidence to suggest including plants in office spaces helped increase concentration and productivity, as well as workplace satisfaction and air quality.

Try adding a plant or two to your workspace or home for a range of positive benefits. Children benefit from natural environments, too. Research published in followed over 1, children from birth to age 7.

The study hoped to determine how lifelong exposure to trees and greenery at home or in the neighborhood might affect attention in children.

The study suggests that natural environments could benefit brain development and may improve attention in children. For children with ADHD, research suggests spending time in nature can:.

What are some more natural remedies for ADHD? Meditation and mindfulness practices can offer multiple benefits. Improved concentration is only one of these. A review of 23 studies found evidence to suggest mindfulness training that emphasizes attention focus could help increase attention and focus.

Mindfulness can also improve memory and other cognitive abilities. Yoga , deep breathing, and many other activities can help you meditate.

What are some other benefits of meditation? How can taking a break from work or homework increase your concentration? This idea might seem counterintuitive, but experts say it really works. But your struggle to focus just makes you feel stressed and anxious about not completing your work in time.

Next time this happens, when you first feel your concentration drop, take a short mental break. Refresh yourself with a cool drink or nutritious snack, take a quick walk, or go outside and get some sun. Breaks can help boost these functions and more. What are some signs of burnout?

Turning on music while working or studying may help increase concentration, but this will depend on the individual. What are some more benefits of music? The foods you eat can affect cognitive functions like concentration and memory. To boost concentration, avoid processed foods, too much sugar, and very greasy or fatty foods.

You can find more brain foods on this list. Staying hydrated can also have a positive impact on concentration. Even mild dehydration can make it harder to focus or remember information.

Eating breakfast can help by boosting your focus first thing in the morning. Oatmeal, plain yogurt with fruit, or whole-grain toast with eggs are all good breakfast choices.

Which foods can help if you have depression? If you feel your concentration starting to drop, consider a cup of coffee or green tea. A study found evidence to suggest phytochemicals naturally found in matcha, a type of green tea, not only improve cognitive function but can help promote relaxation.

So matcha may be a good option if coffee makes you feel jittery or on edge. How does caffeine affect your body? Some supplements may help promote concentration and improve brain function. However, there is not enough research to confirm that these supplements are effective or safe for everyone.

Also, the Food and Drug Administration FDA does not regulate supplements. This means you cannot be sure of the precise ingredients or how supplements will interact with other drugs. Always check with a doctor before trying any supplements, especially if you have any health conditions or allergies.

Which supplements can help you focus better? Concentration workouts often help children who have trouble focusing.

This mental workout involves fully devoting attention to an activity for a set period of time. After completing one of the activities, ask your child to write a short summary or sketch how they felt during the experience.

Young children can simply use words to describe their feelings. Talking about where they lost concentration and how they managed to refocus can help them develop these skills for use in daily tasks. Multitasking has become part of daily life.

It seems a good way to get a lot done, but some scientists have questioned this. Studies have suggested that we are not as good at multitasking as we like to think we are.

For one thing, the brain is not designed to cope with doing two or more things at once. What we are actually doing is switching from one task to another.

If you have the chance to tackle one thing at a time, you might find you can concentrate better on each of them. Blocking off time for specific tasks can help you focus on one thing at a time and lower the risk of environmental distractions. Setting time limits can also help you channel your energy toward the task in hand because you know the time you can or need to spend on it is limited.

You might also note the presence of external factors supporting your cognition, such as a healthy diet, regular exercise , and good sleep habits.

In taking careful inventory of your cognitive strengths, you are in the best position to enhance and deploy them, improving your cognitive health and function. The Harvard researchers emphasize the importance of cultivating these factors together, as they reinforce each other and lead to optimal brain and cognitive health.

The first four factors — concerning diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction — can be seen as indirect support for cognitive health. The last two factors, social interaction and challenging the brain, involve cognition more directly. Social interaction stimulates and challenges the brain in ways that solitary activities cannot.

The amygdala and related structures are deep brain areas crucial for regulating emotions and facilitating memory storage. This and similar studies suggest a strong association between social interaction and brain health in these crucial areas. Maintaining or expanding your social network can, therefore, help ensure overall brain and cognitive health.

Challenging the brain with specific activities is the second, more direct means toward cognitive health, such as with the following cognitive exercises and games. Download 3 Free Productivity Exercises PDF These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to do their deepest, most productive work.

There are various high-tech cognitive exercises available through paid programs such as Lumosity. Such programs offer digitally based brain exercises for most ages and ability levels. However, there are also relatively low-tech, low-cost, effective options for cognitive strengthening, available to most individuals with some ingenuity and effort.

Harvard Medical School has outlined several of these Godman, , including the following:. The supportive factors, exercises, and games cited above remain valid for maintaining cognitive fitness as we grow older, with certain caveats.

For example, a verbal memory task for an older person with encroaching memory problems might be modified to include a 6-item list of words to recall, instead of a item list.

Prompts and cues can spur memory and provide the individual with an experience of success. If it is too hard, you risk overwhelming the person. Finding the right cognitive challenge for such individuals allows them to exercise their faculties and experience some success, rather than becoming overwhelmed and frustrated.

Neuropsychological testing is one way to assess cognitive health. However, this option can be costly and labor intensive.

There are a number of excellent tools available to practitioners for basic screening and tracking of cognitive health. Many of these tools are designed for use with older people, but some are meant for use with younger people as well. This assessment uses patient history, observations by clinicians, and concerns raised by the patient, family, or caregivers.

These measures include the General Practitioner Assessment of Cognition, Memory Impairment Screen, and the Mini-Cog brief psychometric test. These supplements include B-complex and E vitamins, minerals such as zinc, herbs such as ginkgo biloba, and other botanicals.

The Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory study followed 3, older adult participants over the course of six years, randomly assigned to ginkgo biloba or placebo groups DeKosky et al.

The study found no evidence that the supplement slowed cognitive decline or prevented dementia. B-complex vitamins such as B6, B9, and B12 have not been shown to prevent or slow cognitive decline in older adults McMahon et al.

Studies have shown that certain supplements such as zinc can have positive effects on frontal or executive function in children and adults Warthon-Medina et al. Recently, a large prospective cohort study followed 5, participants for 9.

As always, it is best to consult your physician before taking either approved medications or medical supplements. We have a number of resources that specifically apply to strength assessments and a healthy mind.

For some practical resources to get you started, check out some of the following. This handout is a valuable resource you can use to educate children about the benefits of exercise for mental wellness.

In particular, it lists several of the emotional and neurochemical benefits of exercise and recommends several forms of exercise children might enjoy. Use it to facilitate discussion about the link between mind and body when talking about the brain and cognitive health. This exercise invites clients to illustrate the gap between the extent to which they are currently using their strengths and the extent to which they could.

This exercise effectively gives clients immediate visual feedback on their strength use and can facilitate discussion around plans to increase or optimize strengths use. This measure was created with the help of the Activity Builder at Quenza.

Quenza is a platform created by the same team who established PositivePsychology. The Cognitive Fitness Survey can be used for self-reflection.

It is designed to assess and track physical and emotional factors that contribute to cognitive health. It also assesses and tracks specific cognitive health dimensions, including attention; short-term, remote, and prospective memory; and organizational capacity.

Use them to help others flourish and thrive. For much of their history, clinical psychology and related helping professions focused on assessing and treating emotional, social, and cognitive deficits.

With the positive psychology movement in the late s came a different emphasis: finding and building upon strengths. Aspects of health and wellbeing began to be studied more assiduously and became the focus of interventions.

Initially, cognitive health was one aspect of overall health and wellbeing that was overlooked by many researchers and practitioners. Fortunately, more recently, cognitive health has begun to receive the attention it deserves, as both a research topic and focus of intervention Aidman, As with other components of health and wellness, cognitive health, including attentional capacity, memory abilities, and organizational and problem-solving skills, can be enhanced with the right support and exercises.

Staying physically healthy pays large dividends toward such cognitive fitness. Physical health includes maintaining a heart-healthy diet, sleeping well, and exercising regularly. In addition, basic, cost-effective mental activities and exercises can further boost cognitive fitness.

Many of these are enjoyable in their own right and can boost cognitive skills.