You can do some simple and practical brain gymnastics in your life to cultivate a healthy lifestyle and make your brain more flexible. Let me tell you below, let’s take a look!
Ways to make your brain flexible
1. Play with creativity
Even for beginners , facing games that require brain thinking, judgment, and layout, such as guessing puzzles, you can come up with more than ten ways to play each step. Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City: A 21-year study found that elderly people who played games such as chess and bridge at least once a week were 50% less likely to develop dementia than those who did not play games.
2. Cultivate the ability to react quickly
Electric toys such as Nintendo and small steel balls can train the ability to react quickly, and you can be relatively relaxed after quickly focusing on concentration. Rystad, a professor of neurology at George Washington University, recommends playing the paper ball tossing game when you are not working: stand about six feet away from the trash can, hold the paper ball in your hand, quickly turn around and throw the paper ball into the trash can.
3. Create new experiences in life
A rigid lifestyle will kill brain power, Duke University neuroscientist Katz encourages people in "Let Your Brain Be New" Break routines and create new experiences. For example, choose a new route to work and school, and search for the sounds, smells, and scenery on the new road; eat at different restaurants every day to try new flavors and diversify your sensory experience.
4. Experience the fun of self-guided travel
The meaning of travel is to broaden your horizons and experience the excitement of a new environment. Therefore, when traveling abroad, you should avoid joining large tour groups or Chinese-speaking markets. District guided tours. Try to choose independent travel or self-guided travel. It is best to rent a car or take public transportation. Go to the local market, spend more time in the seasoning or herb area, smell the smells you have never been exposed to, and chat with the locals. , to keep the brain in the best state to face new problems at any time. Unexpected challenges will give the brain's nerve cells a chance to develop new connections.
5. Relax with music
It is said that listening to Mozart's music in "The Complete Collection of Children's Classical Music that Influences a Lifetime" can improve the sense of space and promote the development of brain logic. However, the American Xu Qiping, a professional sound therapist licensed by the Music Therapy Association AMTA, said that the so-called "Mozart effect" is the result of the media taking it out of context and market hype. The scholar who originally led the study of the Mozart effect later said that the study sample was too small and the research time was too short. Mozart's music has been shown to have long-term benefits for brain development.
Everyone’s feelings about music are subjective. Currently, there is no direct prescription in the field of music therapy. The main function of music for ordinary people is to relieve stress and relax. Everyone has their own unique experience. Music style; For special groups such as autistic children and Down syndrome, it can further improve body movements, language skills or hyperactivity.
6. Eat the right foods to maintain a healthy brain
Foods rich in Omega3 fatty acids help keep brain cells soft and elastic, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke. For example, avocado, rapeseed oil, linseed oil, olive oil, green leafy vegetables, tuna, trout, etc.
The natural antioxidants contained in fruits and vegetables can protect brain cells from free radical damage and enhance memory, such as prunes, raisins, blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, spinach, plums, broccoli, willow. Orange et al.
7. Reading is a whole-brain activity
When reading a braille book, the visual cortex is activated. The hands need to move to turn the book. The words on the book are converted into sounds and the sounds are stored in the front brain. Turning into meaning, reading improves wisdom. Every word read will stimulate related words, so it can also enhance creativity and imagination.
8. Observe babies learning new things
The steps to enable full sensory experience must be to touch it, look at it, smell it, and bite it.
Experts suggest that using multiple senses to do the same thing, adding rarely used senses such as smell and touch, to avoid the brain's expected patterns can build a new neural connection map. For example, when you go home, you close your eyes and look for the light switch, recall where you put your shoes, where the tables and chairs are, and the location of the room.
When taking your child to buy groceries, first teach him to read the shopping list and train his reading and language skills; compare prices with him and train his calculation and math skills; and then teach him the ability to identify the spatial orientation of product displays.
9. Exercise keeps the brain young
Sports games*** The natural anti-depressant hormone endorphins are released to reduce stress; while regular work such as playing ball or doing housework can suppress and control emotions. The amygdala fires for no reason and doesn’t let bad emotions cause trouble. Aerobic exercise will promote body metabolism and bring oxygen to the brain. University of Illinois neuroscientist Ke Kongbi suggests that brisk walking for 15 minutes a day can maintain good physical condition and slow down the loss of brain nerve cells.
10. Leave a blank space for thinking
Mental gymnastics is not about tiring the brain. A Stanford University study found that long-term exposure to stress hormones in laboratory animals can cause the memory and learning center of the hippocampus to shrink.
Stress will make you unable to concentrate and your brain's memory capacity will also be reduced, said Solomon, a psychology professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.
Experts suggest that no matter how busy you are at work, remember to leave half an hour to an hour every day to sort out your thoughts. Sleeping and meditation are all good ways to relieve stress.
Exercise makes the brain more flexible
The brain was previously an organ that researchers thought hardly changed over time, compared to other organs that are constantly renewing themselves.
After all, if the brain is to preserve all of our memories and feelings throughout our lives, it must remain unchanged to some extent. But in recent years, neuroscientists have discovered that the brain does actually maintain a certain degree of plasticity, and if people exercise, the plasticity of the brain seems to be greatly improved.
Now, a new study finds that an area of ??the brain associated with vision that was previously thought to be quite resistant to change also responds strongly to short-term exercise. This finding is exciting, and it makes you wonder what other effects exercise might have on the brain, especially over the course of a lifetime.
The research team behind the new study replicated previous experiments that had been done on animals: They had subjects wear eye patches and had them either exercise or watch a movie.
Typically, when a person or animal wears a blindfold, the covered eye becomes more sensitive to compensate for the lack of input information.
In the current study, when subjects performed intervals on an exercise bike, their covered eyes became more visible compared to those who sat still. Sharper.
This suggests that the brain may enter a state of increased plasticity in response to physical exercise.
Why does exercise increase plasticity in a brain area previously thought to be non-plastic? Claudia Lunghi, author of the study from the University of Pisa in Italy, told me Exercise, she says, appears to reduce inhibition in certain cells—in other words, "it's as if physical exercise takes off the brakes and triggers plasticity."
Lenghi conducted this research together with Alessandro Sale*** from the National Research Council of Italy.
The inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA is the main inhibitor of neuronal activity, so if its presence is reduced due to exercise or any other activity, then the brain can enhance its own vitality , thus becoming more plastic.
This is certainly not the first study to suggest that the brain is more adaptable than we thought. For example, researchers have done a lot of work studying how antidepressants increase plasticity in certain areas of the brain, and this is thought to be why antidepressants and talk therapy are more effective when used together than when used alone.
Exercise does a similar thing, particularly in helping "grow" new nerve cells in the hippocampus, which shrinks as we age or suffers from depression or dementia. But Lungi says it's too early to conclude that exercise alone should be prescribed for depression or any other condition.
Our study is even more surprising because it shows that moderate levels of physical exercise can enhance plasticity in the visual cortex, which in adults is thought to lack plasticity. Because of this, she said "The fact that non-invasive methods such as physical activity can improve plasticity in the visual cortex is particularly surprising and important," she added. , using different types of exercise to help treat brain-injured patients is an obvious application, especially when "new neural connections and circuits need to be 'built' for recovery, or in pathological conditions where the brain-death process must be slowed down. In the case of aging. Maintaining plasticity in the brain may actually be important in preventing pathological aging of the brain. ”
Time will tell how exercise might be used to help by increasing plasticity. Brain function restored.
Her immediate plan is to study amblyopia, a condition thought to be treatable only in childhood because the brain does not recover as well in adulthood as it did in childhood.
But now that may all change. "If by combining traditional treatments for amblyopia, shading the non-amblyopic eye with physical exercise, we can enhance visual plasticity and thereby restore visual function in the amblyopic eye, then we will give these patients a chance."
< p>At the same time, exercise can only benefit your body and brain, whether or not we understand all the molecular mechanisms involved.So if you can, take a walk or ride an exercise bike. This may even benefit your nerve cells more than science currently understands.
Place name riddles to make your brain more flexible
Everyone laughs at you for guessing the place name of Heilongjiang - Qiqihar
Have a safe trip and guessing the place name of Liaoning - Lushun
Thousands of miles of Gobi, guess the place name of Hunan - Changsha
Flowers blooming throughout the seasons, guess the name of Jilin - Changchun
Oasis on the sea, guess the name of Shandong - Qingdao
All dissolved and guessed the place name of Jilin - Tonghua
Comprehensive rectification guessed the place name of Yunnan - Dali
The background is clear and guessed the place name - Beijing