What if you could look 10, 20, or even 30 years into the future and see the effects of stress and anxiety on your brain?  Would you change anything if you could improve the quality of your mind?  If maintaining a healthy brain is essential, this article discusses ways keep your mind sharp.

We will look at the long-term effect of brain activity as we age and guidelines you can take now to allow yourself to have a more powerful, sharper mind.

These are the 5 ways to keep your mind sharp:

1. Keep exercising your brain
2. Never stop learning
3. Maintain a healthy diet
4. Have regular check-ups with your Doctor
5. Interacting with other people

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

The long-term effects of stress on our brains

As we age, the long-term effects of stress on the brain take a toll on us.  Often we do not notice this because it happens slowly.  Think of it as dripping water Fawcett.  As long as the Fawcett drips just a little trickle at a time, we tend to ignore it and say we will get around to fixing it later.

Over time, the long-term dripping effects on our brains can result in memory loss, disorientation in carrying out simple tasks, difficulty focusing or concentrating, changes in our moods, and impaired judgment.

We begin setting ourselves up for a more significant problem by ignoring these minor drips on our brains.  This happens little by little, day by day.  However, if we fail to act on these symptoms soon enough, it could lead to more complex situations such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or other brain ailments.

Now let’s take a look at measures you can start taking now to keep your brain more robust.

1.  Keep exercising your brain.

Just as we exercise our physical bodies to stay healthy, our brains also need exercise.  This is because the brain has nerve neurons that act as messengers to transmit information throughout the body.  These neurons impact information going to the gland, muscles, and nerve cells.

In short, these neurons operate a complex communications system.  The prolonged impact of this communication system affects how we act and, ultimately, how our minds and bodies develop over time.

Exercising your brain becomes critically important to brain development.  For example, investing time in doing activities such as aerobics exercises, meditation, learning new languages, or simply using all of your senses to explore new things can pay off significant dividends as we get older.

2.  Never stop learning

In her book, 60 Ways to Keep Your Brain Sharp by Bonnie Beth Sparrman, BSN, Sharp outline many different activities that a person can use to develop a lifestyle of learning new things.

The importance of learning new things keeps the brain sharper by developing habits to keep our minds clear and can improve our memory.  Please think of how you currently know and how your activities become easier as you do them repetitively over time.  At first, the new move may seem complicated, but acting as we master this new skill becomes second nature.

However, the downside of repetition over time is that we can become stagnant.  Our brains become complacent, and our brain muscles soften because it is not receiving new information to grow and develop.

The idea of never stopping learning promotes a healthy mindset, constantly challenging yourself to evolve as a more productive and better you every day.

3.  Maintain a healthy diet

Our diet is the foundation of our physical and mental health.  Therefore, the foods we consume in our bodies will eventually affect our overall performance.

Imagine your mind being a garden.   When you are younger, maintaining your garden is easier because you have a higher metabolism to burn off calories, good or bad.  We consume junk food and unhealthy snacks in a hurry to satisfy our appetites or just because we crave a particular food.

The long-term effect of an unhealthy diet can catch you off guard as you age.  It can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, and other ailments that impact the overall quality of your life.

To combat medical conditions from creeping up on you, now is the time to invest in a healthier diet.  Just a few examples of foods that can improve your brain include:

• Green leafy vegetables such as kale, spinach, broccoli, and collard greens
• Foods that contain Omega 3, such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, walnuts, and flaxseed
• Berries such as cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries
• Drinking tea and coffee
• Drinking plenty of water

This list, of course, is just a few examples of healthy foods or drinks that can enhance your brain’s performance.  If you cannot maintain a healthy habit, you can also use vitamins or other health products to improve your diet.

You can visit your local health food store or use an online health food provider that provides health products to promote brain health, memory focus, and all other areas of your body, including blood circulation and energy.

4.  Have regular check-ups with your Doctor

Have you ever dreaded going to the Doctor out of fear of receiving unpleasant news?  If so, you are not alone.

Going to the Doctor is sometimes avoided out of fear, neglect, or just because we live busy lives.  Yet, the long-term consequences of avoiding seeing your Doctor can result in more critical medical conditions.

Just imagine taking your car in for an oil change or tune-up.  During this visit, the mechanic checks your tires, battery, air filter, and many other components of your car to make you aware of something that may need to be replaced or repaired.  Then, you can decide when to act on these recommendations.

Seeing your Doctor for regular check-ups act in the same manner.  The Doctor can request blood work or check the condition of your heart and other parts of your body to let you know if something with your health needs to be changed or managed with the help of medicine to help us live a more productive life.

5.  Interact with other people

We never fully realize the impact of having people around us until we spend time alone.  While there is nothing wrong with having alone time to recharge, meditate and replenish our energies, there are times when being around other people helps our brains.

Having other people around us is essential because it helps keep us engaged in learning from each other.  Of course, we may not always agree on the same things or even share the same interests.  However, interacting with other people, such as family, friends, and sometimes strangers, can help us learn new ideas or form a broader point of view on different subjects.

The critical takeaway is that we all need human interaction to help us develop, grow and keep our brains operating more sharply.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have reviewed the long-term effects that stress can have on the brain.  Finally, we discussed 5 ways to improve our brain functions to become sharper.  Exercising our brains, never stopping learning, maintaining a healthy diet, having regular check-ups with our Doctor, and interacting with other people can improve our brain’s performance.

Now is the time to act.  If you could make a change today to help your brain function better in the coming future, would you change anything?  If yes, you hold power to make changes now to affect your future tomorrow.

Thank you for taking the time to review this article.  Please feel free to share your feedback on improving your brain function.