In the present day, we’re all bombarded with an enormous amount of information that we don’t necessarily need but still consume. This has led to some critical issues, such as anxiety, FOMO and sleep issues. Consequently, this endless scrolling interferes with our brain health and can alter our cognitive performance (attentional capacities, memory processes and social cognition).
But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stop using social media or consuming content but focus your attention on challenging your brain more, so you can have better brain health in the future. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of five tips on maintaining and improving your cognitive performance.
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Meditate
Meditation is known to help with bringing calm into your life, although it is an underrated method of improving your lifestyle. Many people are not patient enough to see the result of meditation because staying with yourself for a few minutes has become quite difficult. A reason for that is the endless scrolling that gives un comfort in some way, but it’s becoming harmful. Your mind should be able to perceive patterns around your environment, but what you see on social platforms is all under the same format to make your brain less effort to understand what you see. Therefore, meditation can help you break this cycle.
Here’s how to meditate in a few easy steps:
- Find a comfortable spot in your house (inside or outside) and get into a relaxing position. You can sit on a chair or lie on your bed, whatever makes you feel good (but not too good that you fall asleep).
- Start to notice your body’s movements and breath. Do you feel pain or discomfort in some part of your body? Is your breath slowing down or not?
- At some point, you’ll lose focus on your body, and your mind will start to wander. You might think of the latest unpleasant situation in your life or remember what you felt in a particular situation. The key to mindfulness is to let your thoughts come and leave ― don’t try to control them, just observe how they unfold.
As you practice more, you’ll see the benefits in the long run. You’ll be calmer and patient with yourself and others; therefore, you can avoid better stress and overwhelming thoughts.
Try CBD
CBD is one of the latest trends in the market. CBD, or cannabidiol, rose in popularity partly due to its non-psychoactive nature, meaning consumers will reap the therapeutic benefits without the ‘high’ typically associated with cannabis. You can find it in many forms, from oils and sprays to edibles and lotions, each with safe doses of CBD.
For example, in the certain strains grown from autoflowering seeds, you can find the right amount of CBD to improve your cognitive performance, as they contain iron, Vitamin E and other minerals. But the most important benefit of these seeds is the high levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, also known for supporting a healthy immune system function and metabolism regulation.
Autoflowering seeds have evolved so well that you can even plant some at your house and they will thrive without much care. Autoflowering seeds are legal to harvest in most places, and you can even add a new hobby to your list; maybe you’ll get into gardening, which also helps maintain brain health.
Train your mind
Your brain works like a muscle (even though it’s nothing more than an organ). Therefore, it needs to be trained and engaged in activities to grow (not literally). You can do that daily by avoiding scrolling, which doesn’t really help your brain, and start some training exercises that will sharpen your mind, like:
- Memory card games that test your short-term memory and ability to remember patterns;
- Jigsaw puzzles that stimulate some of the brain’s cognitive functions (perception, mental rotation, working memory and reasoning)
- Chess that helps with memory and information processing speed (to get you to play chess, go and watch a series about chess called The Queen’s Gambit that led to a booming increase in chess sets sales)
- Learning a new language is also great for your brain by improving creativity, attention span and decision-making skills.
Get enough sleep
You’ve probably heard that tiredness can alter your cognitive and physical performance, but you might’ve experienced some interesting situations when you felt better when sleeping less. Actually, people who exercise regularly need more sleep than the recommended hours to help their bodies regenerate. This also applies to your brain because your mind needs to heal as mental stress increases through the years. Sleep deprivation can only give you:
- Anxiety
- Stroke
- Sleep apnea
- Diabetes
- Heart issues
As previously mentioned, endless scrolling interferes with your sleeping patterns. Therefore, you need to get off of your phone, tablet or laptop and go to bed. It may not be easy at first to build a new habit of going to sleep at the same hours every day and waking up, but it’s worth it. A good night’s sleep not only will help you think better and be more lucid but will also help you perform better in your day-to-day life.
Socialize
Even if you’ve heard about the world’s geniuses being anti-social and obsessed with their works, this doesn’t apply to the way human beings are made. You’ve undoubtedly seen the consequences of not being sociable when the pandemic struck the world, and people crave feelings of belonging in a community and talking to someone. When we communicate with other people, we become more resilient, and our brain generates dopamine (a chemical in our brain that’s responsible for happiness levels).
So, as socializing doesn’t directly make us more intelligent, it helps with being connected to people and learning new things. As you’ll experience in the future, human connections keep us endorsed in the present, while being lonely and avoiding people can trigger a psychological and cognitive decline in our brains. So, get out there and make connections, and try to make them in the offline world. Get to know people and help your brain produce happy chemicals!
In conclusion, you can do plenty of good things to support your brain’s health and improve cognitive performance; you just have to try something new.
