Here are simple things to do that will enhance your brain power:
Do Your Most Difficult Tasks in the Morning – Our brains work at their best when they are fresh and energized after a good night’s sleep. If you have a task to do that requires a lot of thought and focus, the best time to do that task would be first thing in the morning when your brain is at its freshest. This is one of the reasons why checking emails first thing in the morning is not a good idea. You are wasting your brain’s best hours on a simple task that can be done when your brain is not at its freshest. Throughout the day, you will find the amount of time you can focus for will fall. Your decision making abilities will also begin to weaken as the day progresses. This is called “decision fatigue” and that means the decisions you make later in the day will not be as good as the decisions you make earlier in the day. It’s far better to do your most difficult and creative tasks early taking advantage of your brain’s higher energy levels.
Get Enough Breaks – Our brains are not very good at maintaining concentration and focus for more than an hour. Once you go beyond a certain amount of time doing focused work, you will find yourself making more and more mistakes. This is a sign that your brain is tired and needs a break. Taking the right kind of break is important. Switching from working on complex spreadsheet to checking your social media feeds are not going to give your brain the right kind of break. Instead, get up from your desk and head outside to some fresh air. If that is not possible, go to the nearest window and look outside. Your brain needs a break from the screen, not just the spreadsheet. So, leave your phone behind so you are not tempted to look at it and savor the view.
Read Books, Not Social Media Feeds – There are no shortcuts to improved knowledge and you are certainly not going to improve your general knowledge about anything useful by reading social media feeds. Instead, make reading books a regular habit. When you read good quality books, you increase your ability to use the knowledge you learn to solve problems as your brain will apply the knowledge you have learned to existing situations.
Exercise Regularly – Humans were not created to be stationary beings. You need to move. Had our ancestors spent their days sitting around, they wouldn’t have survived for long. To survive and find food, our ancestors had to keep moving. Our brains have developed to function at their best when we exercise our bodies. When we exercise, we increase the amount of oxygen in our brains and this helps to sharpen our brain’s function. A study shows that when previously sedentary group of people began a light exercise program, their cognitive skills improve as well as reaction times and quantitative skills.
Eat the Right Foods – You probably have experienced the afternoon slump at some point in your life. This is when you feel tired and fatigued in the mid-afternoon. This is the effect of the carbohydrates you ate at lunchtime, stimulating your body to produce insulin which then causes a drop in your blood sugar levels. When you go into an afternoon slump, concentrating for long periods become almost impossible and you just want to curl up and go to sleep. To prevent the afternoon slump, try to eat a protein-rich lunch. Keep some healthy snacks such as mixed nuts and dried bananas around your workspace and when you feel a little peckish, eat a few of these. Not only will you avoid the afternoon slump, but you will also improve your overall general health and feel a lot more energized.
Drink Enough Water – Your brain is made up of about 70% water, so without enough water, your brain will not function at its best. When you are not drinking enough water, you will loose your ability to concentrate, make decisions and stay alert. You will feel sleepy and weak. You brain functions at its best when it is properly hydrated. The solution is to keep a large bottle of water at your work station and sip regularly from it throughout the day. This will apparently increase the number of trips you need to make to the bathroom which indeed is a good thing. It will keep you moving and taking regular breaks from your screen.
Don’t Deprive Yourself of Sleep – You probably don’t need a long scientific study to convince you that if you are not getting enough sleep, you are not going to function at your best. You just need to go a couple of days without getting enough sleep and you feel your abilities reduced. Your decision-making skills become erratic, your energy levels drop and your ability to stay focused on your work diminishes. If you want to improve your brain’s ability to function at its best, then start with getting enough sleep. Six to eight hours is usually enough for most people, so make sure you are hitting that number of hours per night as a minimum.
