How To Exercise Your Brain: Games For Better Thinking Skills

how to exercise your brain

The road to a fit mind is not paved in those crossword puzzles alone. Actually, there are a lot of ways on how to exercise your brain that can bathe neural tissue in oxygen-rich blood, enhance the production of chemicals that boost memory power, and problem-solving. Whether you are trying to get the brain back into shape or you just want to make it stronger, it is easy to train your brain if you know it well. With the purpose of helping you learn how to train your brain for better thinking skills, Vkool.com introduces a complete list of tips and games on how to exercise your brain that will make your brain stronger.

I. How To Exercise Your BrainBrain Training Tips

1. Eat Dark Chocolate how to exercise your brain with eat dark chocolate

To make use of the benefits of dark chocolate for your brain, from now, you should add some dark chocolate to your diet. When eating chocolate, you will activate the systems in your own brain which pump dopamine, a critical brain chemical. The activated systems will enable memory and learning, and keep your brain sharp and fit. Also, chocolate also provides eaters a brain enhancing antioxidant compounds called flavonols, which are found in berries and red wine. For getting the best result in term of brain boosting from chocolate, you should take advantage of the darkest chocolate available without or with the least sugar as well as other ingredients.

2. Visit A Museum

This seems so strange, but if you are serious about boosting your brain power, why don’t you go on a tour of a museum or any site of interest? During the tour, you need to pay attention to what the tour guide says and when getting back home, you can reconstruct the tour by listing down the outline which contains everything you memorize.

Studies pointed out that memory activities which engage all levels of brain operation – getting, remembering, and thinking can improve the function of the human brain.

3. Memorize Songs

When it comes to learning how to exercise your brain, this is considered as one of the most relaxing ways to still boost brain function while getting a peace of mind and soul. Choose a song with lyrics you love but do not have remembered. Then, listen to that song as many times as you want to memorize the lyrics. After that, learn to sing the song along. When you have just mastered one song, keep moving to another.

Learning to memorize songs will develop your habits of careful listening, helping improve your understanding, thinking and also remembering. Besides, reconstructing the song also requires intentional focus plus with active memory. As you concentrate, you will release a brain chemical called neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which can enable the plasticity and memory. As a result, you will prevent the development of neuropathy disorders beforehand naturally.

4. Exercise Peripheral Vision how to exercise your brain with exercise peripheral vision

To do this technique, you sit in a place outside the house, like in a coffee shop or a park bench. Start straight without moving the eyes. Focus on everything you could see while keeping your eyes still. Upon finishing the process, you sit down and list down what your saw.

It is said that neurotransmitter acetylcholine is crucial to memory and focus, but is mostly absent in those patients with Alzheimer’s. This activity will help you reinvigorate the release of acetylcholine in the human brain through a powerful visual memory duty.

5.Learn A New Instrument

Playing a new instrument will help you exercise many interrelated dimensions of the brain function, such as listening, control of refined movements, and translation of written notes to music. So, if you are considering learning to play a certain type of instrument, then now is the great time.

Read more: how to play guitar

6. Do A Jigsaw Puzzle

Choose to do a jigsaw puzzle with no fewer than 500 pieces – this will be challenging to you. Fact is, jigsaw puzzles could provide real help for the human brain. In order to complete one, you need to have good visual judgments about where each piece belongs. It shifts your attention and focus from those small pieces to the big picture.

7. Use The Other Hand

If you are a right-hander, then you should learn to use your left hand more regularly and vice versa. Simply begin with brushing the teeth with the left hand, and practice to do so until you have perfected it. Then, try to do more complicated tasks, like eating.

This type of exercise must be done in a demanding and new learning context. Doing it could drive the brain to make such positive changes. As a result, you will eventually build up better control of the other hand.

8. Eat Fish how to exercise your brain with eat fish

Fish is really good for the brain and memory power. So, you had better add fish to your diet plan right now, particularly those fatty fish like salmon. Research indicated that the cold-water fish such as anchovies, salmon, trout, and sardines are considered as the most healthy and beneficial source. Furthermore, it is also important for you to avoid fish with high mercury content like swordfish and sharks because they could be bad for your brain.

9. Do Exercise 

Brain health is a reason to get you ride bicycle, going to the swimming pool or whatever you want to do to exercise your body. New studies pointed out that exercise has positive effects on the hippocampus – a brain structure, which is important for memory and learning. It could stimulate your brain to create new healthy cells.

10. Choose Those Rocky Road

Experts and scientists strongly believe that walking on the uneven surfaces such as cobblestones could improve the vestibular system of inner ear that plays an important role in equilibrium. Walking on cobblestones also challenges vestibular system in such ways that boost its function that translate into better balance, helping prevent serious injuries

11. Imagine

Did you know that thinking about doing something is also as effective as doing it, when it comes to learning how to exercise your brain.  This might sound crazy but it is real. Many studies have claimed that those participants who spent their time on thinking about playing the piano said that they feel as if they played it. The mere act of imagining movement could build strength in muscles.  In fact, the human brain could be profoundly impacted by the thoughts which pass through it. So, do not overlook the value of your imagination and thoughts.

II. How To Exercise Your Brain – Exercises And Games For Brain Functions

The human mind contains 5 main cognitive functions, including:

  • Memory
  • Language
  • Attention
  • Visual-spatial skills
  • Executive function

It is necessary for you to challenge, stimulate efficiently exercise these areas to stay mentally sharp when your brain ages. Here are some exercises and games on how to exercise your brain, you can consider taking advantage of:

1. Reacquaint Your Mind With The Ball how to exercise your brain with reacquaint your mind with the ball

With this type of exercise, you can practice throwing and catching the ball up in the air. If you are already good at it, then move to take up juggling. Those people who are able to master these types of sensory-guided movement activities could hone their brains’ visual, and eye-hand coordination and tactile responses, with positive effects for the brain.

2. Break Down Long Items Into Many Smaller Pieces

This type of exercise is rather similar to the jigsaw puzzles, but you can create the game by your own. When you are faced with a complicated piece of information, try to break it down into many small problems. The short-term memory will help between 4-7 separate things at once. By using this exercise, you could make each item carry more helpful information. For instance, you can break the phone numbers of someone into many pieces to remember easier, even at a glance. Moreover, if doing so, you can remember it long enough to write it down or keep it in your long-term memory.

3. Play Games Which Focus On Dealing With Information Correctly And Rapidly

Some learning games on the Internet are developed to help people train their memory. Make use of these games to exercise as well as develop a many parts of your brain. Normally, these games are a fun manner to relieve stress and train your brain and memory concurrently. A lot of the games are on the Internet and free that have been proven to boost memory.

4. Exercise For Challenging Your Balance how to exercise your brain with exercise for challenging your balance

Emerging studies uncovers a connection between toning your muscles and toning your brain. So, add a balance and coordination challenge to standard strength movements like simultaneous raising the right arm and left leg. This type of exercise is useful because complex movements will force your mind to work much harder by mobilizing different parts of the brain.

With balancing arm raise, you stand holding dumbbells at sides, your palms back. Lift the right knee equal to hip height when raising left arm up, your elbow straight until it is overhead. Then, lower the knee and do the same with the left side.

Moving to the coordination crunch, initially, you lie on back with dumbbell in each of your hand and near the chest, your elbow bent out to two sides, legs extended over your hips and your abs tight. After that, simultaneously open your legs into the V shape when lifting head and shoulders off the floor and press weights straight up over the chest. Then, lower to the start position, bring two legs together and repeat.

With the step and pull exercise, stand with your left foot about 3 feet in front of right, dumbbells at two sides, your palm back. After bending your knees to lower into a lunge, front knee over ankle. Stand and bend your elbows out to sides to pull weights up to the level of your chest, and bring your right knee forward the hip height. Balance, then step back into another lunge before lowering your arms.

5. Toss A Ball While Walking

It is recommended that if you bounce, throw, or pass the balls with your alternating hands for about 10 minutes can increase your focus  and attention dramatically. You do not have to be a kid to get benefit from such type of exercise. Furthermore, the exercise is so simple and easy to implement at any place and any time.

6. Logic Games

Are you one of those people who love that triangular peg-jumping game? How about solving Sudoku puzzles? If so, you had better spend time on exploring a variety of logic puzzles, tests, games like Tweak, Primal Logic, Quadrants, Pochle, Mindsweeper, and so on.

7. Typing Games how to exercise your brain with typing games

When it comes to learning how to exercise your brain, learning to practice your keyboard skills with typing games on the Internet is a good way to exercise your brain. Or, if you think you are a really speedy typist, then you can compete against other people for achieving high scores and top game-ratings. The possibility to type rapidly and precisely is very critical if you are serious about improving your brain power and making it stronger.  There are many typing games on the Internet that you can enjoy like Focal Points, TypeDown, Keyball, Typing Zone, Falling Words, Keyboarding, etc.

8. Math Games

Practice your number and math skills with those math games to build equations, arrange numbers into relationships, mathematical, and perform speedy mental math and get better thinking skills.

For instance, Stay or Switch is a Monty Hall Problem simulation game that challenges you to determine the best strategy when asked to select one out of 3 doors. Behind one of three door is your prize, two left doors hide goats behind them. After selecting the door, the host will uncover the goat behind one of the remaining doors. The next move is to decide to stay on your first option or switch to the other unopened door. Test your strategy gradually and see if you can be a winner. You can try out some math games, such as Numbles, Numbology, Numbles Search, Mathmatize, Number Crunch, Sumbler, SwitchBoard, or MahNumbles.

9. Spatial Games

Spatial games as well as puzzles are designed to challenge your possibility to arrange, memorize, and generally perceive the position of the objects in space. You can play like SpatialEyes – an interesting spatial game to start boosting your brain power right within your own home.

10. Card Games

Card games are challenging online games or puzzles which are played with the decks of many cards. Pokler, Kardz, and Whitts are some card games available on the Internet that you could play right away.

11. Miscellaneous Games how to exercise your brain with miscellaneous games

Those miscellaneous online games often defy categorization yet will be able to challenge your mind in unusual manners. Just practice it your ability to asses and estimate, your sense of timing, and more by playing these games. Take a try of Sands of Time miscellaneous game to see how interesting this type of exercise is.

12. Search Games

These fun search games, like the game named Sands Of Time, are designed to allow you to look for those hidden objects such as letters, words, patterns, pictures, and more.

13. Mouse Games

Give these unusual challenge and games a try to and you will be able to perform challenging feats with your mouse. When playing this type of game, youshould skillfully dodge the flying objectsor complete many simple tasks with a misbehaving mouse.

The braining training tips and games above aims to help you, no matter how old you are and what your gender is, learn how to exercise your brain safely with ease. Leave your comments at the end of this post to let us know your thoughts about this article or other mind and body subjects. We will feedback soon.

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