12 simple ways to supercharge your brain

Cassin

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http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/1 ... in-293892/

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely couldn't remember their name? Sure, it happens to all of us.
Despite being the strongest computer on the planet, our brains do lapse. It's hard to blame them really. As humans, we spend much of or existence stuffing our brains with stuff.

No matter how powerful our brains are, they need recuperation time to be kept in shape. Think of it as a tune up for your brain. Skipping brain maintenance is as silly as the person wandering the parking garage because they forgot where they parked. Is that you? Are you that person? If so, fear not; we are all that person at some point.

Now I am not a brain surgeon and I am not going to suggest you do anything surgical or dangerous. I am however an astute student of human behavior so I always look for simple ways to super charge my brain.

Here are some things you can begin doing as soon as today to begin the great brain tune up:

Eat Almonds
Almond is believed to improve memory. If a combination of almond oil and milk is taken together before going to bed or after getting up at morning, it strengthens our memory power. Almond milk is prepared by crushing the almonds without the outer cover and adding water and sugar to it.

Drink Apple Juice
Research from the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) indicates that apple juice increases the production of the essential neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the brain, resulting in an increased memory power.

Sleep well
Research indicates that the long-term memory is consolidated during sleep by replaying the images of the experiences of the day. These repeated playbacks program the subconscious mind to store these images and other related information.

Enjoy simple Pleasures
Stress drains our brainpower. A stress-ridden mind consumes much of our memory resources to leave us with a feeble mind. Make a habit to engage yourself in few simple pleasures everyday to dissolve stress from your mind. Some of these simple pleasures are good for your mind, body and soul.

Enjoy music you love
Play with your children
Appreciate others
Run few miles a day, bike or swim
Start a blog
Take a yoga class or Total Wellness routine
Exercise your mind
Just as physical exercise is essential for a strong body, mental exercise is equally essential for a sharp and agile mind. Have you noticed that children have far superior brainpower than an adult does? Children have playful minds. A playful mind exhibits superior memory power. Engage in some of the activities that require your mind to remain active and playful.

Play scrabble or crossword puzzle
Volunteer
Interact with others
Start a new hobby such as blogging, reading, painting, bird watching
Learn new skill or a foreign language
Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower.

Reduce Sugar intake
Sugar is a non-food. It’s a form of carbohydrate that offers illusionary energy, only to cause a downhill slump once the initial burst has been worn off. Excess intake of sugar results in neurotic symptoms. Excess sugar is known to cause claustrophobia, memory loss and other neurotic disorders. Eat food without adding sugar. Stay away from sweet drinks or excess consumption of caffeine with sugar.

Eat whole wheat
The whole wheat germs contain lecithin. Lecithin helps ease the problem of the hardening of the arteries, which often impairs brain functioning.

Eat a light meal at night
A heavy meal at night causes tossing and turning and a prolonged emotional stress while at sleep. It’s wise to eat heavy meal during the day when our body is in motion to consume the heavy in-take. Eating a light meal with some fruits allows us to sleep well. A good night sleep strengthens our brainpower.

Develop imagination
Greeks mastered the principle of imagination and association to memorize everything. This technique requires one to develop a vivid and colorful imagination that can be linked to a known object. If you involve all your senses - touching, feeling, smelling, hearing and seeing in the imagination process, you can remember greater details of the event.

Control your temper
Bleached food, excess of starch or excess of white bread can lead to nerve grating effect. This results in a violent and some time depressive behavior. Eat fresh vegetables. Drink lots of water and meditate or practice yoga to relieve these toxic emotions of temper and stressful mood swings.

Take Vitamin B-complex
Vitamin B-complex strengthens memory power. Eat food and vegetables high in Vitamin B-complex. Stay away from the starch food or white bread, which depletes the Vitamin B-complex necessary for a healthy mind.

I don't believe these are that tough. If you find yourself increasing stumped, give a couple of these a try.

Written by Shilpan Patel of Success Soul and cross-posted from Dumb Little Man, a web site that provides tips for life that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.

[photo credit: Getty Images}
 

abcdefg

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I dont really believe eating any of that does anything. None of those scientists can explain how any of that works in any detail. I honestly havent seen much research or science that explains anything on the brain beyond what region does what in some vague way so I doubt we know any of that actually controls or does anything.
Yes im a pretty big pessimist when it comes to science and applying it to humans mainly because it just doesnt work very well. Looking at our current attempts at prescription drugs I think thats a pretty fair view of it.
 

squeegee

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Practice Yoga or Meditation ... LOL Yeah right

So, Almonds and Milk mixed together= Super Memory WTF? Why?

Start a new hobby such as blogging, reading, painting, bird watching. Ok, I am not that bored yet!
 

HughJass

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I agree with the above sentiments, what science knows about the brain could fit inside a thimble. Most of these articles about brain boosting foods are a croc imo, usually just used by the supplement industry to sell you their latest destress/brain booster/memory enhancer remedies

I'd say the few exceptions would be things like the catastrophic effects of sugar on the body, research showing benefits of fish oil and the emerging science on the positive effects that meditation has on the brain (a supercharged brain can't exist without a supercharged mind)
 

Cassin

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aussieavodart said:
I agree with the above sentiments, what science knows about the brain could fit inside a thimble. Most of these articles about brain boosting foods are a croc imo, usually just used by the supplement industry to sell you their latest destress/brain booster/memory enhancer remedies

I'd say the few exceptions would be things like the catastrophic effects of sugar on the body, research showing benefits of fish oil and the emerging science on the positive effects that meditation has on the brain (a supercharged brain can't exist without a supercharged mind)

Agree somewhat regardless whether or not I agree with these write ups I alwasy enjoy them....

But you can't say "what science knows about the brain could fit inside a thimble" and then dismiss this as being wrong. Right?
 

HughJass

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Cassin said:
But you can't say "what science knows about the brain could fit inside a thimble" and then dismiss this as being wrong. Right?

I don't dismiss it entirely, but I think it's importance is overemphasized- these kind of claims about 'brain foods' work on a very materialistic and flawed model human functioning- that we're all essentially just a bunch of chemicals etc so the best way to achieve optimal cognitive performance is through minerals, vitamins when good nutrition is only a tiny part of the picture and can only get us to a certain point

It's the hallmark of a materialistic society looking for solutions and explanations in all things material, when the solutions and explanations are often immaterial in nature. I think it's just more convenient for us to hear that we can just maximize our concentration, happyness etc from eating right rather than learning how to meditate, studying philosophy and psychology etc

just my 2c!
 

Cassin

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aussieavodart said:
think it's just more convenient for us to hear that we can just maximize our concentration, happyness etc from eating right rather than learning how to meditate, studying philosophy and psychology etc

just my 2c!

To quote the above article.......

"Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower."
 

ali777

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aussieavodart said:
research showing benefits of fish oil

The benefits of Omega fats to the brain functionality have not been SCIENTIFICALLY proven... Apparently, someone ran a small test on it somewhere in the UK, but the whole test was flawed. The media and a few food suppliers picked on it and made Omega 3 a popular brain food. All subsequent tests have failed to prove its benefits. Even the BBC was hailing Omega 3 as the best thing since the sliced bread.

However, it is a well known fact that we need Omega fats as part of a balanced diet. I believe healthy body is equal to healthy mind. Anything that keeps my body healthy should have a positive effect on my brain as well...
 

HughJass

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Cassin said:
aussieavodart said:
think it's just more convenient for us to hear that we can just maximize our concentration, happyness etc from eating right rather than learning how to meditate, studying philosophy and psychology etc

just my 2c!

To quote the above article.......

"Practice Yoga or Meditation
Yoga or Meditation relives stress. Stress is a known memory buster. With less stress, lower blood pressure, slower respiration, slower metabolism, and released muscle tension follows. All of these factors contribute significantly towards increases in our brainpower."

yeah I realize they were mentioned, my point was that all the 'brain foods' usually come first, suggesting they rank higher in importance or yield a greater effect when the opposite is true. Furthermore, there is a focus on defining and explaining stress in physiological terms, there's never any thing greater than a brief, pop-psychology type mention of stress being a matter of the mind in these kind of articles.
 
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