Mental fitness

When you go to bed after a long day, your body begins to relax. But the mind doesn’t always follow. Visualization can help. You can often achieve a sense of peacefulness through imagery, the process of picturing a tranquil scene or location. This practice can reduce tension in both your body and your mind by challenging neurons in the less-dominant area of your brain.

The less-dominant side of your brain is the area that controls feelings of self-confidence and optimism. When you think about something other than your daily worries, you increase activity in the neural structures of that area of your brain.

Ultimately, visualization can boost your emotional well-being and calm you down mentally.

Keeping your mind mentally fit isn’t as difficult as getting ready for a marathon, but it’s a good analogy. You can add mental exercises to the many activities you already perform, such as: reading, daydreaming and finding humor in life.

You may think that multitasking enables you to get more things done at once, but it actually creates more problems than it solves. Focusing on one task at a time will improve your concentration and help you to be more productive.

Positive affirmation is one avenue to increased mental proficiency. Affirmation, or talking to yourself in a positive way, involves strengthening neural pathways to bring your self-confidence, well-being, and satisfaction to a higher level.

To start, make a list of your good qualities. Remind yourself that you don’t have to be perfect. Set goals for what you want to improve and start small to avoid becoming overwhelmed. New experiences can also set you on the path to mental fitness. You can fit new approaches into your daily life in a variety of ways: Try new foods. Try new ways to accomplish routine tasks. Travel to new places. Take a new way to work or the grocery store.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, research shows that keeping your brain active increases its vitality. Doing new things in new ways appears to help retain brain cells and connections. It may even produce new brain cells. In essence, breaking out of your routine can help keep your brain stay healthy.

Games that test reasoning and other portions of your brain are fun ways to keep your mind sharp. Consider these games: crossword puzzles, board games, Sudoku.

Games are a great way to build up your brain muscle. Even fast-paced action video games may boost your ability to learn new tasks, according to a study in the journal Current BiologyTrusted Source. The study found tentative evidence that video games may increase your attention span, reaction time, and task-switching ability. In addition to video games, try any game that employs the use of: logic, reasoning and trivia

Reading is great for your brain. Even as you’re reading this sentence, your brain is processing each word, recalling the meaning instantly.

Beyond the mechanics, reading helps you visualize the subject matter on the pages before you, and imagine what voices sound like in the written dialogue. This can also be a great relaxation technique.

Reading is a great activity because it can stoke the imagination and ignite so many different parts of the brain. There are endless genres and types of reading material. It’s unlikely that you’ll run out of interesting things to read.

Mental fitness doesn’t have to take up a lot of your time. Spending a few minutes on it every day can help you feel better and think more clearly. Remember that relaxation and visualization are just as important in a mental workout as the more energetic activities, such as memory exercises or game-playing. Try adding one or two activities at a time to your mental workout, such as: relaxing, visualizing, affirming, memory exercises and game-playing.

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