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1. Exercise Regularly
Exercising regularly helps you stay healthy- but it can also make you smarter.
Steve Wozniak plays Segway polo. Marc Benioff does yoga. Sergey Brin does trapeze.
Running, weightlifting, cardio, yoga, and even just walking all have long-term brain benefits and help you be a better entrepreneur.
Even just walking improves creativity.
2. Play a musical instrument
Confucius said a long time ago, “Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without”. Music stimulates your brain, and this has been proven by research as well.
Music has the power to invoke complex emotions and psychological states. Various researchers have shown that both listening to music and playing a musical instrument increases memory capacity.
Playing a musical instrument also teaches you patience and perseverance for it takes time and effort to learn to play a musical instrument. It also sharpens your concentration.
3. Start playing chess
Since the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for creativity, it should come as no surprise that activating the right side of your brain helps develop your creative side. Specifically, chess greatly increases originality. One four-year study had students from grades 7 to 9 play chess, use computers, or do other activities once a week for 32 weeks to see which activity fostered the most growth in creative thinking. The chess group scored higher on all measures of creativity, with originality being their biggest area of gain.
4. Take up gardening
You don’t need to have much of a green thumb to enjoy the mental benefits of gardening.
Gardening can be regarded as a type of meditation, which reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, within the body. Being around plants, in the sunshine, increases your exposure to oxygen and Vitamin D, helping the brain perform its functions with ease. The most impressive part, however, is that gardening is known to decrease the likelihood of dementia by 36%.
5. Reading
While reading can help improve your vocabulary, writing skills and knowledge of the world, enjoying literature can also help you excel in other areas.
Studies have found that reading can additionally improve your empathy, decrease stress, and help prevent memory decline.
6.Make sure you get enough sleep:
Numerous studies have shown that lack of sleep can impair mental function in the areas of alertness, attention span, concentration, short-term and long-term memory, problem-solving, reaction time, visual and auditory acuity, and so on – i.e. pretty much every area of mental function! Sleep – and especially the right mixture of deep and REM sleep – is vital for maintaining good mental health. (Note that both physical exercise (see above) and meditation (see below) can promote healthy, regular sleep patterns.)
7.If you are a smoker, STOP!
The various toxins in cigarette smoke can impair brain function in various ways and have been linked to long-term cognitive decline.
8. Sex
Sex has long been linked to a number of health benefits, including reducing stress, and it may aid in helping burn calories. But it also may be good for your brain.
The findings of the first study are one of those good news/bad news types of deals, depending on your feelings towards commitment and monogamy. Findings from an Italian study suggests that sex does make us smarter, but only when you have sex with a new partner. Researchers found that nerve growth was significantly higher in couples that just started dating and were in love, versus people in long-term relationships.
But there is good news for people who are in a long-term relationship. Two other studies using rats and mice concluded that sex helped mental performance and increased neurogenesis, which is the production of new neurons in the hippocampus, an important part of the brain where long-term memories are formed.
So, as if you needed another reason to have sex besides it being, you know, sex, it could actually make you smarter and improve your long-term memory. And if you’re having enough sex to consider it a hobby, well, good for you.
