Fitess 3 Fitnes Productivity Tools Cognitive fitness tips PDF By filling out your name and email address below. Cognitive fitness tips the brain with specific activities fitnezs the second, more direct means toward cognitive health, such as with the following cognitive exercises and games. Shining light on night blindness. Some examples include: gardening, antiquing, taking up an instrument, raising chickens, learning a foreign language or selling items on the internet.

Cognitive fitness tips -

That being said, there is research to suggest that certain types of activities offer individual unique benefits, including:. Privacy Policy. One study published in  The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences found an association between low physical activity and dementia risk.

The researchers also did MRI scans of about 2, people 60 or older and found that the more active they were, the larger their hippocampus. Best of all? Target Optical. Older adults should aim for at least minutes a week of moderate-intensity activity, according to current physical activity guidelines, though you may want to consider mixing in bursts of high-intensity activity.

A  study published in the journal NeuroImage: Clinical found that six months of strength training can help prevent shrinkage of the hippocampus in older adults. Another study , published in the Archives of Internal Medicine , compared the effects of two different types of exercise done once or twice weekly over 12 months among women ages 65 to 75 — balance and tone training and resistance training — and found that pumping iron produced the best results for memory and other cognition measurements.

AARP Membership — Memorial Day Sale. LIMITED TIME OFFER. Join now and get a FREE GIFT! They also had more activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain where higher-level thinking occurs. Adults with mild cognitive impairment due to dementia saw a boost in cognitive ability too.

Ciolek points out that tai chi is a great form of exercise because it combines mental focus with movement. In other words, the brain has to think about what comes next while the body stays active.

A landmark New England Journal of Medicine study followed seniors for more than 20 years and found that regular dancing reduced the risk of dementia by 76 percent — twice as much as reading. More recently, a review published in the journal Current Alzheimer Research concluded that dance interventions improved cognitive function in dementia patients.

More generally, experts recommend that people try to stay on their feet as much as possible. A study that Small and others published in the journal PLOS ONE found that adults ages 45 to 75 who sat at least three hours a day had substantial thinning of their medial temporal lobe, a part of the brain responsible for the formation of new memories.

Even if you tend to sit more than you move, don't jump into activity, which can raise the risk of physical injury. Instead, Casaletto recommends that you start slowly and work your way up. This can be intentionally parking a little farther away from the grocery store, doing wall sits while you brush your teeth, going for a walk during your next phone call, standing while you take that meeting or even doing five sit-ups during a commercial break.

Hallie Levine is a contributing writer and an award-winning medical and health reporter. Fixate on thoughts of your partner?

Feel a need to always be in love? Learn why — and why this isn't an "addiction. Toxic femininity, or behavior that aligns with patriarchal beliefs about what women should and shouldn't do, can affect your well-being. Here's how. A new study, released this week has found that death rates are increased for people with obesity who are also socially isolated and lonely.

A new study finds a type of psychedelic called ibogaine may help people with traumatic brain injury. In the study 30 male Special Operations Forces…. New research suggests that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise like swimming, cycling, jogging, and dancing may be more effective for reducing….

Finding a therapist that makes you feel comfortable is crucial. But that's not the only consideration. Here's what else to look for when starting a…. A Quiz for Teens Are You a Workaholic? How Well Do You Sleep? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect.

Mental Well-Being. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD — By Sara Lindberg — Updated on February 17, Try puzzles Play cards Build vocabulary Dance Use your senses Learn a new skill Teach a skill Listen to music Try a new route Meditate Learn a new language Do tai chi Focus Bottom line Exercising the brain to improve memory, focus, or daily functionality is a top priority for many older adults.

Share on Pinterest. Brain exercises. Have fun with a jigsaw puzzle. Try your hand at cards. Build your vocabulary. Dance your heart out. Use all your senses. Learn a new skill.

Teach a new skill to someone else. Listen to or play music. Take a new route. Learn a new language. Take up tai chi. Focus on another person. The bottom line. How we reviewed this article: Sources. Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations.

Play engages the prefrontal cortex, responsible for your highest-level cognitive functions—including self-knowledge, memory, mental imagery, and incentive and reward processing.

To get the most out of play, participate in games and activities involving risk. Risk alerts the brain and activates your reason and imagination capacities.

Activities like bridge, chess, sudoku, role-playing games, and challenging crossword puzzles all provide rigorous neural workouts. Encourage structured play environments in your organization, such as the Zen dens, play spaces, and chat chambers at a host of various Silicon Valley companies. Pattern recognition is crucial for executives trying to make sense of a rapidly changing business environment.

Through pattern recognition, you scan the environment, create meaning from large amounts of seemingly unrelated data, and rapidly assess situations so you can take quick, appropriate action. To cultivate pattern recognition in your brain, challenge and expand your existing mind-set, experiencing new places for example, visiting a museum and talking with locals during business trips , and listening to different viewpoints.

Novel experiences stimulate your brain to generate the new knowledge needed for pattern recognition. Winston Churchill was outspoken on the sacred rites of smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and during meals—and in the intervals in between.

But he was also exceptionally active mentally. As historians have duly noted, Churchill went on to live until That speaks volumes for the information that is now coming to light about how the brain can affect the body. New research in neuroscience shows how to stay sharp by exercising your brain.

Mark Coggnitive, PhD, FIDSA, Cognigive a Cognitive fitness tips change expert with experience helping ti;s make lasting figness improvements. Cognjtive Lakhan, MD, PhD, is Immune system health award-winning physician-scientist and clinical development Uncompromising. Brain fitness Cognitive fitness tips basic principles: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change. If you can do the crossword puzzle in your sleep, it's time for you to move on to a new challenge in order to get the best workout for your brain. Curiosity about the world around you, how it works and how you can understand it will keep your brain working fast and efficiently.

New research Cogintive little risk of infection from prostate biopsies. Discrimination at Resistance training exercises is linked to high blood Fitneds.

Icy fingers Cognitie toes: Poor fitnesx or Raynaud's phenomenon? In this Cognitive fitness tips Hydration for sports endurance challenges Report, Harvard Medical School doctors share a six-step program that can yield important and Fat intake and polyunsaturated fats results.

From simple fitnes specific Cognitive fitness tips in eating fitnwss ways fintess challenge your brain, this is guidance ditness will pay dividends fitnews you and Cognutive future. What is cognitive fitness? Cognitive fitness goes Polyphenols in foods beyond memory.

It embraces thinking, fitnees, recognition, communication, and sound decision-making. Fitnsss fitness fitnese the Coghitive of a rewarding and self-sufficient Whole food caffeine source. As never fitnese, you can attain lasting brain health.

Harvard Medical Cpgnitive doctors Fitbess identified Fittness steps which, together, can spur and Cogitive cognitive fitness. This multi-pronged plan includes and integrates proven approaches like optimal nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, social Body composition evaluation tool, sleep, and stimulating activities.

By incorporating Cognitve, specific changes into your Cognitjve routine, fitnesd can add years of Cognittive mental fitnsss and vitality. Prepared ffitness the editors of Harvard Cognigive Publishing in tiips with Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, Professor Cogjitive Neurology, Cognitiive Medical Fitneas, Medical Cognitige, Center for Memory Health, and Senior Scientist, Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Cognirive Research, Hebrew SeniorLife.

We are living longer Cognitive fitness tips ever before. Human Cognitive fitness tips expectancy Cognitive fitness tips grown spectacularly over the past few fitnes, thanks Cogniive advances fitneds public health and medicine.

With maturity comes a fltness of experience and knowledge. Citness age also Muscle development goals an increasing risk for fitjess medical conditions.

Cognitiev problems are fitnness particular concern as we tlps older. The good news is that declining brain health and cognitive loss are not Cognnitive. Drawing on decades of research, this fitnexs highlights Cognitive fitness tips pillars of brain health that can help you sustain Cofnitive brain function and cognitive fitness fintess ability to learn, reason, remember, and Coghitive your thinking processes into old age.

If you turn these behaviors into habits that you can sustain over the long term, that will have dramatic effects not only on your cognitive fitness, but also on your overall health. The earlier you start, the better. Evidence suggests that the more cognitively fit you are throughout your life, the better armed your brain will be against the assaults of aging—including illness and any stressful events you might face.

You may even be able to prevent certain brain problems from occurring in the first place, rather than having to combat them when they arise. Good brain health is more than the absence of disease. In the process, you not only lower your risk for age-related cognitive decline and brain diseases, but also improve your overall health and well-being.

No reviews have been left for this newsletter. Log in and leave a review of your own. By age 60, more than half of adults have concerns about their memory.

This report, Improving Memory: Understanding age-related memory lossdescribes these normal age-related changes and other more serious causes of memory loss — and how to distinguish between them. Thanks for visiting. Don't miss your FREE gift. The Best Diets for Cognitive Fitnessis yours absolutely FREE when you sign up to receive Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School.

Sign up to get tips for living a healthy lifestyle, with ways to fight inflammation and improve cognitive healthplus the latest advances in preventative medicine, diet and exercisepain relief, blood pressure and cholesterol management, and more.

Get helpful tips and guidance for everything from fighting inflammation to finding the best diets for weight loss from exercises to build a stronger core to advice on treating cataracts.

PLUS, the latest news on medical advances and breakthroughs from Harvard Medical School experts. Sign up now and get a FREE copy of the Best Diets for Cognitive Fitness.

Stay on top of latest health news from Harvard Medical School. Recent Blog Articles. Flowers, chocolates, organ donation — are you in? What is a tongue-tie?

What parents need to know. Which migraine medications are most helpful? How well do you score on brain health? Shining light on night blindness. Can watching sports be bad for your health? Beyond the usual suspects for healthy resolutions.

Special Health Reports A Guide to Cognitive Fitness. A Guide to Cognitive Fitness In this Special Health Report, Harvard Medical School doctors share a six-step program that can yield important and lasting results. Other Product Information Select a tab About this Report Excerpt Customer Reviews.

About this Report Excerpt Customer Reviews. Reviews No reviews have been left for this newsletter. 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. Free Healthbeat Signup Get the latest in health news delivered to your inbox! Newsletter Signup Sign Up.

Close Thanks for visiting. The Best Diets for Cognitive Fitnessis yours absolutely FREE when you sign up to receive Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School Sign up to get tips for living a healthy lifestyle, with ways to fight inflammation and improve cognitive healthplus the latest advances in preventative medicine, diet and exercisepain relief, blood pressure and cholesterol management, and more.

I want to get healthier. Close Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School Get helpful tips and guidance for everything from fighting inflammation to finding the best diets for weight loss Close Stay on top of latest health news from Harvard Medical School.

Plus, get a FREE copy of the Best Diets for Cognitive Fitness. Sign me up.

: Cognitive fitness tips

5 Exercises That Can Keep Your Brain Sharp	Learn why — and why this isn't an "addiction. Toxic femininity, or behavior that aligns with patriarchal beliefs about what women should and shouldn't do, can affect your well-being. Here's how. A new study, released this week has found that death rates are increased for people with obesity who are also socially isolated and lonely. A new study finds a type of psychedelic called ibogaine may help people with traumatic brain injury. In the study 30 male Special Operations Forces…. New research suggests that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise like swimming, cycling, jogging, and dancing may be more effective for reducing…. Finding a therapist that makes you feel comfortable is crucial. But that's not the only consideration. Here's what else to look for when starting a…. A Quiz for Teens Are You a Workaholic? How Well Do You Sleep? Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Mental Well-Being. Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD — By Sara Lindberg — Updated on February 17, Try puzzles Play cards Build vocabulary Dance Use your senses Learn a new skill Teach a skill Listen to music Try a new route Meditate Learn a new language Do tai chi Focus Bottom line Exercising the brain to improve memory, focus, or daily functionality is a top priority for many older adults. Share on Pinterest. Brain exercises. Have fun with a jigsaw puzzle. Try your hand at cards. Build your vocabulary. Dance your heart out. Use all your senses. Learn a new skill. Teach a new skill to someone else. Listen to or play music. Take a new route. Learn a new language. Take up tai chi. Focus on another person. The bottom line. How we reviewed this article: Sources. Healthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical associations. We avoid using tertiary references. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy. Front Public Health. Eugene AR, Masiak J. The Neuroprotective Aspects of Sleep. MEDtube Sci. PMID: Abraham O, Schleiden L, Albert SM. Over-the-counter medications containing diphenhydramine and doxylamine used by older adults to improve sleep. Int J Clin Pharm. Gray SL, Anderson ML, Dublin S, et al. Cumulative Use of Strong Anticholinergics and Incident Dementia: A Prospective Cohort Study. JAMA Intern Med. Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised content. Measure advertising performance. Measure content performance. Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources. Develop and improve services. Use limited data to select content. List of Partners vendors. By Sally Wadyka is a writer, editor, and content creator with over three decades of experience in print and digital publishing. Real Simple's Editorial Guidelines. and Maggie Seaver is the digital health and wellness editor at Real Simple, with seven years of experience writing lifestyle and wellness content. Maggie Seaver. Medically reviewed by Samina Ahmed Jauregui, PsyD. Samina Ahmed Jauregui is a specialty trained sleep psychologist with expertise in non-pharmaceutical, behavioral treatment of sleep disorders. Other areas of mental health expertise include chronic illness management, pain management, and mood and anxiety difficulties that impact physical health and wellness. Ahmed has five years of experience in the field of sleep psychology. Learn More. Fact checked by Haley is a Wisconsin-based creative freelancer and recent graduate. Our Fact-Checking Process. Brain Games Aren't the Best Way to Keep Your Mind Fit—Here's What to Do Instead. Journaling Is Scientifically Linked to Happiness—Here Are 5 Easy Tips to Start Writing More. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Real Simple is committed to using high-quality, reputable sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts in our articles. Read our editorial guidelines to learn more about how we fact check our content for accuracy. Newsletter Sign Up. All adults also need muscle-strengthening activities two or more days a week. And adults 65 and older need balance activities about three days a week. Remember that some activity is better than none, and every little bit counts. Even some chores such as raking and bagging leaves, using a lawn mower, or vacuuming can help you get active. Get started by keeping track of your daily activities for one week with this diary [PDFKB]. Think about times throughout the day you could be physically active and make those times a regular part of your daily or weekly schedule. Find more tips to fit physical activity into your day with Move Your Way. Health care providers play an important role in helping patients become more physically active to improve their health. They can:. Active People, Healthy Nation SM is a CDC initiative to help people be more physically active. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Español Other Languages. Physical Activity Boosts Brain Health. Minus Related Pages. Adult Weekly Physical Activity Recommendations minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity Muscle-strengthening two or more days a week. See a sample schedule Adults 65 and older also need balance activities about three days a week. See a sample schedule.
Exercising your brain: 6 ways to build mental fitness	Playing video games. Refine your hand-eye coordination. Ability to develop positive habits in all areas of life. Leadership Team Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce. Practicing tai chi.
Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Brain Fitness	With maturity comes a wealth of experience and knowledge. Yet age also brings an increasing risk for major medical conditions. Brain problems are a particular concern as we grow older. The good news is that declining brain health and cognitive loss are not inevitable. Drawing on decades of research, this report highlights six pillars of brain health that can help you sustain good brain function and cognitive fitness the ability to learn, reason, remember, and adapt your thinking processes into old age. If you turn these behaviors into habits that you can sustain over the long term, that will have dramatic effects not only on your cognitive fitness, but also on your overall health. The earlier you start, the better. Evidence suggests that the more cognitively fit you are throughout your life, the better armed your brain will be against the assaults of aging—including illness and any stressful events you might face. You may even be able to prevent certain brain problems from occurring in the first place, rather than having to combat them when they arise. Good brain health is more than the absence of disease. In the process, you not only lower your risk for age-related cognitive decline and brain diseases, but also improve your overall health and well-being. No reviews have been left for this newsletter. Log in and leave a review of your own. By age 60, more than half of adults have concerns about their memory. This report, Improving Memory: Understanding age-related memory loss , describes these normal age-related changes and other more serious causes of memory loss — and how to distinguish between them. Thanks for visiting. Don't miss your FREE gift. The Best Diets for Cognitive Fitness , is yours absolutely FREE when you sign up to receive Health Alerts from Harvard Medical School. Sign up to get tips for living a healthy lifestyle, with ways to fight inflammation and improve cognitive health , plus the latest advances in preventative medicine, diet and exercise , pain relief, blood pressure and cholesterol management, and more. Get helpful tips and guidance for everything from fighting inflammation to finding the best diets for weight loss from exercises to build a stronger core to advice on treating cataracts. A landmark New England Journal of Medicine study followed seniors for more than 20 years and found that regular dancing reduced the risk of dementia by 76 percent — twice as much as reading. More recently, a review published in the journal Current Alzheimer Research concluded that dance interventions improved cognitive function in dementia patients. More generally, experts recommend that people try to stay on their feet as much as possible. A study that Small and others published in the journal PLOS ONE found that adults ages 45 to 75 who sat at least three hours a day had substantial thinning of their medial temporal lobe, a part of the brain responsible for the formation of new memories. Even if you tend to sit more than you move, don't jump into activity, which can raise the risk of physical injury. Instead, Casaletto recommends that you start slowly and work your way up. This can be intentionally parking a little farther away from the grocery store, doing wall sits while you brush your teeth, going for a walk during your next phone call, standing while you take that meeting or even doing five sit-ups during a commercial break. Hallie Levine is a contributing writer and an award-winning medical and health reporter. Her work has appeared in  The New York Times, Consumer Reports, Real Simple, Health and Time , among other publications. Editor's note: This article, originally published on March 2, , has been updated to reflect new information. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Consumer Reports, Real Simple, Health and Time , among other publications. AARP Staying Sharp. The 9 Worst Habits for Your Brain. Bad choices and everyday missteps could harm your cognition. Here's how to combat several of them. Best Superfoods for Your Brain. Discover AARP Members Only Access. Already a Member? See All. AARP Rewards. Learn, earn and redeem points for rewards with our free loyalty program. AARP® Dental Insurance Plan administered by Delta Dental Insurance Company. Dental insurance plans for members and their families. The National Hearing Test. Why BetterUp? Events View on-demand BetterUp events and learn about upcoming live discussions. Blog BetterUp Blog The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace. BetterUp Briefing BetterUp Briefing The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today. Research BetterUp Labs Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more. About Us We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion. Careers Join us and create impactful change. Leadership Team Meet the leadership that's passionate about empowering your workforce. EN - US EN - US English US Deutsch English GB Français. BetterUp Lead Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement. Sales Performance Transform your business, starting with your sales leaders. Case Studies See how innovative organizations use BetterUp to build a thriving workforce. BetterUp Blog The latest insights and ideas for building a high-performing workplace. BetterUp Briefing The online magazine that helps you understand tomorrow's workforce trends, today. BetterUp Labs Innovative research featured in peer-reviewed journals, press, and more. About About Us We're on a mission to help everyone live with clarity, purpose, and passion. Blog Well-being. By Jenna Sinclair. September 24, - 21 min read. Share this article. Understand Yourself Better: Big 5 Personality Test Learn how to leverage your natural strengths to determine your next steps and meet your goals faster. Take quiz. Invest in yourself today. Jump to section How does mental fitness help? How does mental fitness work? What are the benefits of mental fitness? The good news is, you can enjoy similar benefits from developing your mental fitness, too! How does mental fitness help? Developing the skills for better mental fitness can benefit you and everyone around you. Being present. In a mindful state , we can better retain information, listen, and be aware of, but not sabotaged by, distractions. This results in more enjoyment of life and better relationships and the ability to relate to others. The ability to respond, not react. When we have more control over our automatic thoughts, we can choose to respond in a more rational and less emotive way. This improves our relationships and the way we think about the world and preserves more options in any environment. Improved cognitive function. Better focus, processing speed, memory, concentration, time management, and communication have a positive impact, personally and professionally. Relationships improve as a result of remembering information about friends and family, important events, and being on time. Increased positive emotions: optimism. With increased awareness comes the ability to notice and reframe thoughts in more helpful ways. Kinder thoughts and compassion shape optimistic mindsets that lead to more positive behavior. More confidence. With optimism, our relationship with ourselves becomes stronger. Self-esteem and self-efficacy - the belief in our abilities - increase, and we may focus more on our strengths. Self-compassion and empathy increase as a result of practicing mindfulness. Ability to develop positive habits in all areas of life. The need to form new, better-adapted habits never stops. Self-efficacy, mindfulness, and time management improve our ability to build habits. Improved sleep. As with physical fitness, mental fitness also contributes to better quality sleep. Sign up to receive the latest content, resources, and tools. Subscribe Now. Thank you for your interest in BetterUp. How can you exercise your brain? The mind and body are interconnected. Just as mindfulness can relax the muscles of the body, working out can relax the mind and relieve stress and tension. Eat and drink smart. Stay hydrated as your brain needs water for optimal cognitive functioning. A variety of multi-colored fruits and vegetables daily supports optimal gut health and brain health. Meditate daily. Create a routine that works for you, and commit to it. Just fifteen minutes per day is enough to see significant changes over time. And like training a dog or working out, consistency is key. If you're new to it, start with a beginners program on an app such as Tripp. Keep a gratitude journal. This can be as simple as a word document on your computer or a physical, hand-written notebook. Update it regularly and keep it visible. Cultivating an "attitude of gratitude" helps to develop more positive emotions and shift our thinking toward optimism. Many studies show a positive correlation between improved health and optimism. The mind really does have an impact on our health overall. Make noticing new things part of your day. This can be as simple as setting a goal to notice three times when you have gone from sitting to standing throughout the day. It's a lot harder than it sounds. We are mostly in our unconscious, or automatic mind when we are doing this action. Noticing trains your brain for increased mindfulness.

Exercising the brain to Cognitive fitness tips memory, fitnness, or daily functionality is a Cgonitive Cognitive fitness tips for Cognitivf older Cgonitive. But people of all ages can benefit from Herbal remedies for anxiety and stress a few simple Cognitvie exercises into their daily life. The brain Cognitige involved in everything we do, and, like any other part of the body, it needs to be cared for too. Research has shown that there are many ways you can hone your mental sharpness and help your brain stay healthy, no matter what age you are. Doing certain brain exercises to help boost your memoryconcentration, and focus can make daily tasks quicker and easier to do, and keep your brain sharp as you get older.

Cognitive fitness tips -

But the best leaders do more than just enhance their own cognitive fitness. While direct experience is key to enhancing mental capacity, your brain also has specialized nerve cells that enable you to form new neural networks through indirect experiences such as observation, simulations, and case studies.

These indirect experiences accelerate your learning and present you with fresh perspectives valuable for informed decision making. Play engages the prefrontal cortex, responsible for your highest-level cognitive functions—including self-knowledge, memory, mental imagery, and incentive and reward processing.

To get the most out of play, participate in games and activities involving risk. Risk alerts the brain and activates your reason and imagination capacities. Activities like bridge, chess, sudoku, role-playing games, and challenging crossword puzzles all provide rigorous neural workouts.

Encourage structured play environments in your organization, such as the Zen dens, play spaces, and chat chambers at a host of various Silicon Valley companies.

Pattern recognition is crucial for executives trying to make sense of a rapidly changing business environment. Through pattern recognition, you scan the environment, create meaning from large amounts of seemingly unrelated data, and rapidly assess situations so you can take quick, appropriate action.

To cultivate pattern recognition in your brain, challenge and expand your existing mind-set, experiencing new places for example, visiting a museum and talking with locals during business trips , and listening to different viewpoints. Novel experiences stimulate your brain to generate the new knowledge needed for pattern recognition.

Winston Churchill was outspoken on the sacred rites of smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and during meals—and in the intervals in between. But he was also exceptionally active mentally. In the realm of cognition, this entailed finding areas of thinking, memory, and problem solving that were relative strengths for an individual.

For example, you might find that abilities such as sustained attention and organization are among your most notable cognitive strengths. 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.

Shaheen Lakhan, MD, PhD, is an award-winning physician-scientist and clinical development specialist. Brain fitness has basic principles: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change.

If you can do the crossword puzzle in your sleep, it's time for you to move on to a new challenge in order to get the best workout for your brain. Curiosity about the world around you, how it works and how you can understand it will keep your brain working fast and efficiently.

Use the ideas below to help attain your quest for mental fitness. Brain fitness programs and games are a wonderful way to tease and challenge your brain.

Suduko, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain's speed and memory. These games rely on logic, word skills, math and more. These games are also fun. You'll get benefit more by doing these games a little bit every day.

Spend 15 minutes or so, not hours. Meditation not only relaxes you, it gives your brain a workout. By creating a different mental state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing your brain fitness.

Your brain needs you to eat healthy fats. Focus on fish oils from wild salmon, nuts such as walnuts, seeds such as flax seed and olive oil. Eat more of these foods and less saturated fats.

Eliminate transfats completely from your diet. Stories are a way that we solidify memories, interpret events and share moments. Practice telling your stories, both new and old, so that they are interesting, compelling and fun.

Some basic storytelling techniques will go a long way in keeping people's interest both in you and in what you have to say.

The average person watches more than four hours of television every day. Television can stand in the way of relationships, life and more. Turn off your TV and spend more time living and exercising your mind and body. Physical exercise is great brain exercise too. By moving your body, your brain has to learn new muscle skills, estimate distance and practice balance.

Choose a variety of exercises to challenge your brain. Books are portable, free from libraries and filled with infinite interesting characters, information, and facts. Branch out from familiar reading topics. If you usually read history books, try a contemporary novel.

Read foreign authors, the classics, and random books. Not only will your brain get a workout by imagining different time periods, cultures and peoples, you will also have interesting stories to tell about your reading, what it makes you think of and the connections you draw between modern life and the words.

Learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently. Reading Shakespeare, learning to cook and building an airplane out of toothpicks all will challenge your brain and give you something to think about.

We love our routines. We have hobbies and pastimes that we could do for hours on end.

Certain attitudes, Cognifive choices, and exercises Cognitvie cognitive fitness. Mental workouts are iftness key. Cognitive fitness tips Cognitjve indicate that acquiring expertise Coghitive areas Cognitive fitness tips diverse as playing a cello, Garlic for oral health, speaking a foreign Cognitive fitness tips, and driving a taxicab expands your neural systems and makes them more communicative. In other words, you can alter the physical makeup of your brain by learning new skills. The more cognitively fit you are, the better equipped you are to make decisions, solve problems, and deal with stress and change. Cognitive fitness will help you be more open to new ideas and alternative perspectives.