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Giving your brain a little boost from time to time is very good for your health. However, the need for brain stimulating activities gets lost in the average workout plan. Most people like to focus on their physical strength and cardio, but when it comes to the brain, it can be difficult to get to your mind’s core and make sure you’re working with flexible neural pathways.
And when you think about it, the world of mental health can be a lot more intimidating than the world of physical health. You can very easily strap your trainers on and go for a run, but spending time on your brain tends to require a whole set of right conditions. For example, you need time, you need a quiet and peaceful environment, and you need the ability to focus on what you’re doing.
That’s why we should aim to make brain boosting activities easy to get into and super easy to commit to. From brain teasers to video games to books and art, there are plenty of activities to try out. The more you can do them, the better your brain is going to feel to work with! As such, a list of activities like these is down below; check them out if you want to invest in your mental health and fitness.
Buy a Notebook and Write in it
Physically writing things down isn’t so common nowadays. We all have phones to take pictures of things and a notes app on the same home screen that we can just tap things into. But if you want to give your brain a little boost, buy yourself a new notebook, choose a subject to write on (or write anything you think about in it!), and add a new page once a day.
Think of this as a form of journaling, even if you’re not writing about the day’s experience or the way you’re feeling. You’re writing about something that’s interesting to you and/or affects you in some way, and you’re using a physical outlet to express yourself. That’s very healthy for your brain.
You can then design the pages in any way you like by adding your own illustrations, stickers, or practising calligraphy and writing in various fonts. You might end up needing to buy multiple notebooks to fit all your ideas in!
Download a Language App
Learning a new language is one of the best things for testing your brain. Wrapping your head around new words, grammar, spellings, and sentence structures takes time and effort, but your brain will soak up the differences if you keep it up enough.
And sure, learning a language takes a lot of hard work and isn’t something you can do in a month or two, but you can definitely learn the basics in that time! Brains love words – seeing as it’s our primary form of communication – and you’re likely to learn more than you even think you’re capable of.
Download an app that you can do daily lessons in and you may even learn more than that. This will then allow you to learn your chosen language on the train, during your break at work, when you get into bed, and whenever you get a spare five or so minutes and want to conjugate a few verbs.
Play a Few Rounds of Chess
Chess might seem like a very intimidating game to try out – what with all the grandmasters out there who understand the game like it’s second nature – but there’s a reason it’s stuck around as a game for so long. It has simple rules that are standard across all versions, but the creativity involved in checkmating your opponent takes a lot of practice!
As such, you can get started easily enough but you have to stick at it for a long time in order to master the game. Even if you don’t own a chess board and pieces, you can play online chess completely for free from your phone or your computer. Play a few rounds each day and see if you can pick up on the common strategies and how to make use of them.
Strategic thinking is something we’re all capable of, but you might not realise your ability to think in the moment until you give a game like chess a try! After all, when a game isn’t going your way and you’ve got to make the best of the pieces you have left, you’ll need to learn to be adaptable.
Read at Least One Chapter of a Book Per Day
If you’ve been promising yourself to read a little more in recent years, this is your sign to finally take on the mounting stack of books in your bedroom! Reading at least one chapter of a book each and every day gets you into the habit of parsing narratives and finishing books without even trying.
Not only that, but reading is connected to healthier brain activity, such as stronger memory and empathy skills. But if you feel like you’ll never find the commitment to regular reading, the one chapter a day policy also has you covered.
Whether you want to read fiction or nonfiction, buy yourself a bookmark and dig into a new book you’ve never passed the cover of before. Get your chapter out of the way, pop your bookmark in, then come back again tomorrow to pick up where you left off. Doing this will probably leave you eager to read more and find out what happens, and that’s the best way to build the habit of regular reading!
Give Tai Chi a Go
Tai Chi is an ancient martial art that allows you to slow down and make purposeful movements, whilst focusing on the way you breathe and how that influences the way you move. Tai Chi doesn’t require any specialist equipment and you can follow along with a tutorial at home, if you can’t find a class near you, so it’s affordable and accessible as well.
As far as activities go, Tai Chi makes for a great dual purpose brain and body workout. You’re focusing on your breathing, you’re creating calm in your environment, and you’re going slowly and surely. If your brain is used to things being at a rapid pace and barely gets a break, Tai Chi can bring it back to that area where thinking and feeling can feel easier.
Play a Memory Game
Memory games, as the name suggests, put your memory to task. Even if you feel you’re no good at them and avoid them because of this, playing one or two every week can help you to boost your short term memory. Don’t feel embarrassed if you can’t progress the first couple of levels. Just give them another try – you’re here to boost!
The more you work on remembering a sequence that’s steadily getting longer, the more likely you are to come up with memory strategies. These are useful everywhere in everyday life, especially if you feel you have a brain like a sieve!
Fancy getting into some brain boosting activities? Take up one or two of the ideas in this list. The more you do them, the more natural and easy they’ll feel, and the stronger your brain’s connections will feel. All in all, don’t let your brain go without a bit of stimulation, especially after long working weeks when it feels like you’ve done nothing but fill in forms and type things out!