Keep Your Brain Sharp With These 15 Exercises

As people age, their mental faculties begin to diminish. Assisting Hands Care Services Houston recommends keeping your mind body active to stave off the effects of Alzheimer’s and other dementia disorders. Here is a list of 15 fun activities that they recommend for you to do to keep your mind sharp. You can also visit our short guide on how to keep the body

1. Create A Daily Memory List

Every day make up a list of several things to memorize, and then commit them to memory before the close of the day. Include such things as films you’ve seen, foods you love, and people you’d like to visit.

2. Complete Small Puzzles

Any brain exercising activity would do, but puzzles, Sudoku, and crosswords are very good for stimulating your thoughts. They help you to develop better mental dexterity and problem-solving skills.

3. Brush Up On A Foreign Language

Learning a new language improves your vocabulary and enhances your problem-solving skills. In many foreign languages, putting a sentence together incorrectly can completely change the meaning of the sentence.

4. Use Your Opposite Hand To Perform Common Tasks

Rather than using your dominant hand to write a letter, for example, do it with your other hand. You’ll have to focus your thoughts more intently on the task at hand. In time you’ll develop the ability to do more routine tasks with your non-dominant hand.

5. Learn To Play An Instrument

Your memory, fine motor skills, and mental dexterity will all benefit from learning to play an instrument.

6. Dig Out Those Coins

Rather than paying with dollar bills, or whipping out your credit card, pay using exact change for your purchase. This forces you to do on-the-spot arithmetic, thereby sharpening your mental dexterity.

7. Have Fun With “5 Things”

This quirky improve game is not only fun, it’s a great way to improve your ability to think on your feet and to become more creative. The object is to create an arbitrary list without taking the time to think about your answer.

8. Memorize A New Recipe

Cooking a new dish from memory is not only impressive, it’s also very satisfying. Memorizing new recipes enhances your problem-solving skills and improves overall brain function.

9. Strike Up A Conversation With A Stranger Every Day

Though it may not be evident at first glance, holding your own in a conversation requires a bit of mental acuity and strategy. It’ll also help you to develop new relationships and expand your social life.

10. Turn The GPS Off

Most of us never want to return to the days before GPS, but turning yours off every so often will help you improve your memorization skills. Study a map, or even plot your route on Google Maps, then mentally navigate to your destination. It’s a great exercise for cognitive health.

11. Find A Mind Training App

The variety of amazing apps designed to exercise the mind is incredible. Search the app store for your device for one, and have fun while improving your cognitive abilities.

12. Solve A Riddle

It takes a huge amount of out-of-the-box thinking to solve most riddles, which promotes mental creativity in a fun way.

13. Examine Magic Eye Paintings

Magic eye paintings force you to focus your attention in order to find hidden abstract objects in the art.

14. Memorize And Share A Joke

Sharing a new joke with someone you’ve just met is a great way to break the ice. Memorizing a new joke helps to increase your ability to retain information and to recall that same information while under pressure.

15. Physical Exercise

The two may not seem connected, but physical exercise is brain exercise too. Exercise increases your blood flow, providing more of the nutrients and oxygen that your brain needs to function at its best. People experience increased cognitive function and mental acuity following a good workout.

Try out these suggestions for a few weeks, and see how much of a difference it’ll make for your mental health. You don’t have to accept a decline in your mental faculties, you can choose to do something about it.

To learn more about how Assisting Hands Houston can help you and your loved ones, please call us today at 281-540-7400 or you may contact us here!