If You Feel Better, Your Brain Performs Better

It has been said that through meditation, you are able to calm not only your body but your mind as well. It may sound too difficult to try, however, there are ways to make meditation as simple as possible. This article for those who are hesitant to meditate because of the perception that meditation is a difficult process. It may be true that in order to perfect your meditation skills you need to practice it for years, however, you can still begin with the simplest relaxation techniques. This will surely make you feel better, your brain relaxed a little and your whole being is rejuvenated.

Meditation is a good way to reduce stress; and as you all know, we can think better if we are not stressed. As many researches have pointed out, you can suffer from brain damage if you are exposed to constant stress. Now, isnt meditation just the right boost to your brain power?
Through mediation, your concentration will be strengthened, thus you can fully focus on any mental activity that you are working on. So you should learn to control your mind and use it efficiently for your own goals, do this by starting with breath techniques moving further to simple meditation.

Breath Watching

Find a spot where you can sit and relax comfortably. There, give close attention to your breathing for a few seconds. Basically, you just have to clear your mind for a moment and have a quiet time on your own. Here are a few tips to assist you.

1) Find your spot

Since you are only a beginner, you may want to find a quiet place where you can meditate. As you become more expert in meditation, you will notice that you can already meditate anywhere you want to. For the mean time, find a spot where you can feel at peace.

2) Be comfortable

Look for your position which will keep you at ease but not asleep. For most people, crossing their legs is their meditation position. If you are the kind of person who can lie down without falling asleep, you may also try lying down for this may be your most comfortable position. Just keep yourself perfectly still and comfortable but not asleep this should be your meditation position.

3) Let Go of the Tension

Observe which part of your body is most tensed. You should learn how to tense up those parts and then release the tension in such part. You may experience the release as your body begins to be drained from all the tension. If you repeat the process, you will later on learn how to relax easily.

4) Breathe properly

Breathe properly through your nose. In doing so, the air can easily pass through your lungs. You may notice that your diaphragm, abdomen and chest expand more when you breathe through your nose. This is how you should breathe.

5) Pay attention

There may be instances when your mind may be disturbed by other thoughts, but you should always remind yourself to go back into paying special attention to your breathing. With constant reminder, the thoughts that may disturb you will soon fade away.

You may want to perform this meditation for at least five minutes. And then as you practice it more and more each day, you may want to perform it for a longer time. You should then be able to realize that these meditations can really help you clear your mind and increase your focus. By feeling better, your brain also performs better.

Intellectually Better: Your Brains Physical Exercise

As you may have known, your brain works in a complicated manner. The left portion of your brain controls the actions and movement of the right part of your body while the right portion of your brain controls that movement of the left part of your body. Thus, it may be possible that the side of your brain which controls you dominant hand is more used than the other side. So, if you use your non-dominant hand into doing some of your daily activities, would it better your brains performance?

If you are a right handed person, then most of the time you are stimulating the left part of your brain. Now, if you use your left hand in doing certain tasks, then you are able to stimulate the right side of your brain as well. By doing so, you are awakening the part of your mental faculties that is intuitive and creative. On the other hand, if you are a left handed person, and you use you right hand in doing simple tasks, then you are stimulating the side of your brain that is rational and organized.

This idea is supported by Tony Buzan, the author of a book entitled Using Both Sides of the Brain. According to him, doing simple exercises or cross-trainings like this bring in additional features to ones mental functioning, and at the same time there will be a total improvement in ones brain power. By doing so continuously, a person may stay mentally young and fresh.

Other activities which can stimulate the other side of your brain may be done without really straining yourself. You can just simply walk around your room with your eyes shut close, or you can get dressed and strip of them with closed eyes. You can also revisit your childhood games; the game when you rub your stomach with one hand while your other hand is tapping your head is also a good brain exercise. Simple tasks like these already constitute physical exercise for your brain, and they can already bring good effects to your brain, no matter how trivial they may be.

So, you may start to wonder regarding the mental condition of those people who are blessed to be able to use both their hands for complicated tasks such as writing, or simply put the ambidextrous. You may think that since they are stimulating both sides of their brain that they are more intelligent than others. This is a misconception; there are no studies or researches which can attest to this idea.

There are people who are able to teach and train themselves to use both their dominant and non-dominant hands to do tasks, and sports like the cricket players. But their training does not necessarily turn them into academic geniuses; so perhaps, this is just too much to ask for.

So, whether or not these simple exercises may make you a little bit more intelligent, these physical exercises are still believed to have good effects on your brain. Academically, the results may just be minor, or even unnoticed, but there can be other aspects which are affected, such as your creativity, organization and other features. One thing worth noting is that by doing these exercises, you are stimulating the part of your brain which is not used as often as the other part. Dont you think it is always best to keep them balanced? If you want to better your brains performance, you might as well try to stimulate you whole brain, and not just a single portion.

Better Your Memory by Eating Right

Leading a healthy lifestyle can cause so many benefits and that include helping you better your memory. This is a very important aspect because if you will not take certain steps in order to nurture it, you may end up with the disorders that are associated with this function of your brain. Your memory is your brain’s ability to encode information, retain and store them and recall vital data whenever needed.

Steps to Improve Memory

There are many things that you can do to help your brain perform at its best. This can be achieved by avoiding unhealthy vices like drinking too much alcoholic beverages, smoking and turning to prohibited drugs. You must learn how to control your vices if you can’t stop immediately. Exercising also helps in giving your brain good supply of oxygen. This will enhance its performance and will make you remember things easier. It is also a must to get enough rest and good amount of sleep. The way you think will be gravely affected if you are tired, especially when you only got some hours of sleep that may leave you feeling weak and you also cannot think straight.

There are exercises that you can do to help your brain improve. You can resort to various card games that promote such benefit. You should also be active in learning new things all the time even if you are already. This must not stop you to learn by reading and training. You must also engage in different physical activities that will help regulate the blood circulation on your brain. You must also learn how to control your emotions, especially the stress that you feel as a result of thinking too much about your problems. Depression causes a major impact on one’s memory as well as emotional instability.

Eating Right

You must eat right for your brain to function well. It will not help if you will be distracted by your hunger for your thoughts to come out fluently. By eating right, it means that you have to eat the kinds of foods that are healthy in proportions that will help you stay fit and vigorous. If you are into some type of diet, just be sure that you follow the recommended intake of the food that you are allowed to eat. Here are some foods that can help you achieve the goal of attaining better memory.

1. Sunflower seeds. Nuts contain healthy fats that you can incorporate on your diet. These seeds contain abundant source of Vitamin E, an antioxidant that help out in improving your memory as you grow older. Other rich sources of Vitamin E include hazelnut, spinach, kiwi, broccoli, wheat germ oil, mango and dry almond.

2. Salmon. This contains Omega-3 fatty acids that are important in developing your brain and helping it to function better. Such acids can also be found in walnut, soybean, shrimp, scallop, tofu, winter squash, flaxseed and walnut.

3. Blueberries. These are rich in phytochemical elements that can affect one’s memory in a very good way. These are also good for your overall health.

4. Lean beef. This is rich in iron that will help you boost and help better your memory if taken in moderate proportions. But make sure that you do not eat much of this because you may encounter weight problems if you do so.