Did you know that brain health decreases with age, with the average brain shrinking by approximately five per cent per decade after the age of 40? It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There are ways to speed up our cognitive processes, keep brain cells growing and combat cognitive decline. Here’s how…
Seek silence
Silence not only relieves stress and tension, but it might also help us to grow our brain. Research suggests that as well as replenishing our mental resources, silence may help us to develop new cells in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with learning, memory and emotion. The perfect excuse for a bit of peace and quiet.
Do jumping jacks
When you’re feeling tired and sluggish, jumping jacks are a great way to reboot your brain because they get your blood pumping quickly, improving the supply to the brain. But any exercise, especially aerobic exercise, is great for maintaining brain speed and health as we age. This is because exercise makes it easier for the brain to grow new neuronal connections.
In fact, research shows that working out for just 10 minutes can improve your brain’s performance in a mental task.
Don’t deliberate
Ever sat wondering what to order from a menu before? Dr Thomas Hunt, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Derby, says: ‘Constantly making decisions can tire our brains out and end up slowing our response time down. Instead, for unimportant decisions, rely on your gut instinct. Trusting this saves mental energy and often a quick decision ends up aligning to the decision you’d have made if you’d deliberated for a while anyway.’
Use chewing gum
If you need a quick way to boost your alertness, try chewing gum. Studies suggest that chewing gum may increase oxygen levels in the regions of the brain responsible for speeding up our reaction times, increasing our concentration, enhancing our alertness and improving mental accuracy.
Don’t multi-task
We might think our brain is performing brilliantly when we’re multi-tasking. However, studies have found that trying to do more than one thing at once can actually reduce our mental performance and attention span. Furthermore, researchers have found that multi- tasking decreases our productivity by as much as 40 per cent. Dr Hunt says: ‘This is especially true of tasks which tap into the same cognitive resources, such as texting someone while trying to listen to the news. By doing one thing at a time, not only will you perform each task more effectively, but you’ll get them done faster too.’
Stay cool
Ever wondered why you struggle to concentrate in the heat? According to research, our mental processing speed goes down if the temperature goes up too much. In fact, one study suggests, for optimal thinking and performance, the ideal temperature is 22 degrees.
Get hydrated
Got an important task you need to focus on? According to research, drinking a glass of water beforehand could help your brain work as much as 14 per cent faster.
Exhaust your brain
Research shows that learning a new skill helps our brain to build new connections between neurons. This improves plasticity, our brain’s ability to adapt so that it can develop and grow and may help boost our brain’s processing speed. In fact, feeling exhausted after learning something new is often a sign that you’re stimulating your brain and helping it grow.
Sleep
Sleep is vital for all cognitive processes. If we don’t get enough, it can greatly impact our thinking speed, cognitive performance, concentration, decision-making skills and memory. Even moderate sleep deprivation can reduce our thinking speed and accuracy as much as if we were drunk. For optimal brain function aim for between 7 and 8 hours a night.
Ditch routine
Dr Hunt says: ‘We all get into routines, even just the route we drive to work. But if we have an over-reliance on these automatic processes, we run the risk of becoming stagnant. If we ditch routine and, for example, drive a new route sometimes, we stop our brain working on autopilot, using the same neural pathways all the time and instead give it a workout.’
Edited by Stephanie May