Activities to Keep Your Brain Sharp

Your brain is like a muscle: you have to train it. That work improves memory, cognitive skills, motor control, analytical ability, and more. In fact, many companies give employees daily exercises such as memory games, logic puzzles, and analysis drills so they keep sharpening their skills.

If, like me, you want to raise your performance, grow as a human being, as a person, and as an entrepreneur or future entrepreneur, here are some strong exercise ideas you will find useful.

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1- Newspaper-style games

• Sudoku
• Crosswords
• KenKen
• Word scrambles

2- Simple exercises

• Test your memory: Make a list (groceries, to-dos, or anything else that comes to mind) and memorize it. An hour later, see how many items you can recall. Make the list as challenging as possible for the best mental stimulation.
• Do math in your head: Solve problems without pencil, paper, or a computer. You can make it harder, and more athletic, by walking at the same time.
• Refine hand-eye skills: Take up a new hobby that uses fine motor skills, such as knitting, drawing, painting, putting together a puzzle, and so on.

3- Eat unfamiliar foods

Your olfactory system can distinguish millions of smells by activating unique combinations of receptors in your nose. There is a direct link to the emotional center of your brain, so new scents can trigger unexpected feelings and associations. Mental exercise: pick a cuisine that is new to you and explore the range of new vegetables, seasonings, and packaged products.

4- Read out loud

When we read aloud or listen, we use very different brain circuits than when we read silently to ourselves. Read out loud with your partner or a friend, switching roles of reader and listener. It can be a slower way to get through a book, but as a bonus you also get quality time together.

5- Play “10 things”

Forcing your brain to invent alternatives to the everyday helps keep it strong. Someone hands you a common object and you must show 10 different “things” that object could be. Example: a fly swatter can be a tennis racket, a golf club, a fan, a walking stick, a drumstick, a violin, a shovel, a microphone, a baseball bat, or a canoe paddle.

6- Flip familiar objects upside down

When you look at things right-side up, your left “verbal” brain quickly labels them and shifts your attention elsewhere. When they are upside down, your right-brain networks kick in and try to interpret the shapes, colors, and relationships of a puzzling image. Turn a couple of family photos on your nightstand upside down, or the clock on your desk, or an illustrated calendar.

7- Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand

Studies have shown that using the opposite side of your brain (as in this exercise) can produce a rapid and substantial expansion of the parts of the cortex that control and process tactile information from the hand. Brush, and do not forget to open the tube and apply the toothpaste the reverse way as well.

8- Take new routes

On a routine trip your brain runs on autopilot and gets very little stimulation. Taking an unfamiliar route activates the cortex and the hippocampus, stimulating areas of your brain that drive perception and parts of your memory and analytical skills.

9- Eat with chopsticks

This forces you to eat with attention, which is good for the brain, digestion, and calorie intake. If you are already skilled at it, use your non-dominant hand instead.

10- Start meditating

Of all mental exercises, meditation may be the most challenging and therefore the best. Our brains are nonstop thinking machines that pour out more than 60,000 thoughts a day, and 95% of those thoughts are the same ones day after day.

Training your mind to be still can be hard work! Meditation works much like exercise; it has been called “push-ups for the brain.”

More than 1,000 published studies have shown the health benefits of meditation. Brain benefits of meditation include lower stress, better memory, learning capacity and mood, increased focus and attention, and even a reversal of brain atrophy.