How To Keep Your Brain Ageless
During this episode we look at how mental workouts and lifelong learning strategies can keep your brain young, agile, and adaptable. Our brains can grow older, but in some ways grow better. Since the brain continues to create new brain cells as we age, we can also create new connections through neuroplasticity; making our brains stronger and healthier.
"Change your brain, change your life."
Jim Kwik
Subscribe To My Podcast:
DIY Brain Improvement Tips
- Learn a New Language
- Lose the List – Working to remember things without physical lists
- Get Into The Game – Playing strategy/mental games
- Online Brain Training – Furthering your education/learning
- Stay Curious
- Learn to Play a Musical Instrument
- Try a Brain Healthy Sport You’ve Never Tried
- Try a New Brain Healthy Recipe
- Breaking Your Routine – Exploring new ways of doing daily activities
Here are workouts the I recommend to balance the 6 different areas of your brain:
- PFC – Strategy Games, like chess or checkers. Meditation. Hypnosis.
- Temporal Lobes – Crossword puzzles, word games/memory games.
- Basal Ganglia – Deep Relaxation. Meditation. Hand-warming techniques. Deep diaphragmatic breathing.
- Deep Limbic System – Killing A.N.T.s. Any kind of gratitude practice. Vision board building. Library of positive experiences to enhance mood states.
- Parietal Lobe – Juggling. Interior design.
- Activate Cerebellum – Dance. Table tennis. Martial arts. Handwriting. Calligraphy.
20 Brain Tips to Become a Lifelong Learner
- Find your motivation to learn something new. What do I dream of doing with my life?
- Think of books as a college courses between two covers.
- Turn your car into a university on wheels. (download podcasts/books)
- Stop telling yourself you have a poor memory. (Memory is an art and I can practice it)
- ‘Don’t let school get in the way of your education.’ – Mark Twain
- When memorizing lists associate it with the craziest picture you can think of to help your brain remember it later. Your brain remembers in pictures. Activate more of your visual cortex.
- Remember someone’s name. Repeat the name, visualize it, use it!
- Use a visual pacer while you read. Can boost your speed by 20-50%.
- Sharpen your brain by enjoying leisure activities that also keep you thinking. (reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, dancing)
- Break up your routine by doing something novel or different. (Try a new sport, new recipe, new route home)
- Teach your new skills to someone else.
- Note taking increases comprehension and retention.
- Lifelong learning involves becoming more curios of life.
- Don’t ask yourself how smart am I? Instead, ask yourself how am I smart?
- Everyone has a preferred learning style. Find your style.
- Don’t stop challenging your brain.
- Meditation. (Even just a few minutes a day can make a huge difference.)
- Boost your prefrontal cortex by making clear goals everyday.
- Boost your brain’s flexibility and creativity centers by asking your to look at everyday activities in new and different ways.
- Get enough rest.
TAKE ACTION
Circle two or three ideas you are going to act on now! Change your brain, change your life.
