Your muscles aren’t the only ones that weaken over time. Without proper care, your brain can degenerate as you age too. With time, your brain loses its ability to withstand damage from aging and other factors, exhibiting significant signs of memory loss and making it difficult for you to perform simple everyday tasks. Whether you’re trying to perform better at work, school, or are trying to reduce your risk of age-related cognitive illness, finding ways to boost your mental fitness and brain power can always benefit you. Just as weight training can help you strengthen and retain your muscles for several years, researchers have found that a brain-friendly lifestyle can support your cognitive reserve, increasing your mental agility, coordination, memory, focus, positivity, and creativity.

Keep reading to find out some of our most effective yet simple ways to boost brain power and mental fitness.

1. Meditate

The benefits of meditation have been proven countless times over the years, however, most of us feel that we just don’t have enough time for it.
You don’t need to be a yogi and you don’t need hours to meditate. Simply spending at least 5 minutes a day to focus on your breathing and relax can generate a rejuvenating and calming feeling in your body.
Meditation helps promote peace, clarity, and creativity in the mind while effectively removing unwanted and cluttering thoughts. This makes room for more productive, useful, and meaningful thoughts and ideas, boosting your mental focus, concentration, and problem-solving abilities.
There are many ways in which you can reach a meditative state within minutes. A favorite method in modern times is by using a guided meditation app that also works as a reminder to help you meditate every day. Another excellent approach is yoga, which fits active stretching, focused breathing, and meditation into one system.

2. Read something new

Take a break from your daily emails, go on a social media detox if possible, and visit a library, where books are free, overflowing with stimulating information, stories, characters, and facts. Alternatively, you can read a book digitally, or listen to an audiobook. Try branching out from familiar genres to challenge your brain and exercise it. If you’re used to autobiographies, try contemporary fiction. If you enjoy classics, try science fiction. By picturing different time periods, people, lifestyles, and cultures, you’re not only going to feel like you’re entering a different world, but you’re also utilizing your brain productively to connect your lifestyle with literature.

3. Exercise your brain by exercising your body

Regular exercise improves vascular health, thereby protecting your brain. When you move your body, your brain is constantly learning new muscle skills, practicing balance, and estimating distance and speed. It’s important that you avoid workout ruts and boredom as much as possible. Mix up your workouts and incorporate challenge. The brain craves to learn new things. You’re doing your body and brain a huge disservice by performing sedentary, mundane and relatively passive activities. Change up your cardio regularly. If you’re used to running on the treadmill for 30 minutes daily, try swimming or rowing for your cardio instead. Or better yet, perform bursts of high intensity cardio and mix it up with a strengthening routine.

4. Take necessary supplements

Along with adding vitamin B, C and other vital nutrients to your diet, you can also benefit from taking it a step further with nootropics. Nootropics are supplements specifically designed to boost memory, cognition, and problem solving. They contain antioxidants and botanicals that are clinically proven to increase brain power and mental fitness. In addition, they can also help reduce risk of age-related cognitive disease, strengthen your resistance to stress and boost your mood.

5. Feed your brain

Just as your car cannot run on the same fuel as a lawn mower, your body cannot function at optimum levels with low quality, processed food. Want to boost your memory, productivity, creativity, and focus? Concentrate on good nutrition from minimally processed whole foods rich in antioxidants and low in cholesterol, sugar and sodium. One 2013 study showed that people who don’t smoke, have optimum BMI, consume plenty of fruits and vegetables, take low to moderate alcohol and perform regular physical activity are 60% less likely to develop dementia and cognitive impairment.