6 ways to exercise our brain
Everyone knows that you need to keep your body in shape to age well . The effort to keep the brain in shape, also essential on this journey, ends up being left a little aside for most people. Neurobics , like gymnastics for the body, is a series of exercises developed with the maintenance of brain health in mind , which should be practiced by everyone who wants to live well and long.
Why exercise do we need to exercise the brain?
According to the coordinator of the Brain Education Laboratory at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Emilio Takase, the human brain went through a long evolution until it reached the point where it is today, and was always driven by needs that made it exercise. , such as obtaining food, the need for shelter, fighting.
“Today, we have everything without needing much effort, or even without having to move our body. The brain understands that there is no point in wasting energy if we have everything at hand”, he explains. What neurobics does is stimulate the production of neurotransmitter hormones such as dopamine, adrenaline and serotonin , which improves connections between nerve cells.
Neurobics improves brain connections, attention and memory.
The more stimulus, the more memory. A decreased ability to learn and remember information is very common among the elderly, and the coordinator of the Active Brain Program at the Instituto Sírio-Libanês, Gislaine Gil, recalls that cognitive stimulation techniques help improve attention and memory . “They also prevent the onset of degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease,” she says.
6 ways to exercise our brain
Creators of the term neurobics, American researchers Lawrence C. Katz and Manning Rubin, list in the book Keep Your Brain Alive (Sextant) 83 exercises that challenge the brain to leave its comfort zone. The idea is to encourage people to perform tasks in different ways than usual. Check out some of these exercises below and others proposed by Takase and Gislaine, which serve to sharpen memory, logical reasoning and concentration .
Breathe better
The rhythm of breathing influences the brain’s electrical oscillations, and practicing correct breathing is a way to “synchronize” the brain frequency. To do this, you need to breathe through the diaphragm instead of the chest, inhaling through the nose until the abdomen is full (which increases the heart rate) and releasing through the mouth for a longer time, until it empties (decreasing the heart rate).
Stand and walk
When carrying out everyday activities that we usually do sitting, such as talking, reading and using a cell phone while standing or walking, we are increasing our heart rate and activating our brain , which becomes alert. The brain needs to feel mobilized for some cognitive, emotional or social motor activity and, thus, we “remind” it that it has a whole body to take care of.
Do activities in different ways
Doing routine activities in different ways is a simple way to give your brain some work , rather than just making it follow a habit. To do this, it’s worth getting dressed with your eyes closed, writing with your “bad” hand, switching your watch from one wrist to the other, looking at photos upside down, changing your route to work.
Make associations
Not remembering where we parked the car is normal in all age groups, as it is something we do without paying attention. An association exercise can help and also stimulate the brain : if the car is on the second floor of the garage (G2) and in space F1, memorize something like “two cats and a seal”.
The association can help solve cases such as forgetting a word that was “on the tip of your tongue”. This usually happens with words that we use little. Instead of insisting on remembering it, look for a synonym, which ends up exercising your vocabulary.
Use cognitive games
Cognitive games teach people to see the errors they make in the way they think, and serve to measure and develop cognitive and emotional capabilities. These can be board games (chess, reversi, Xo Dou Qi), individual challenge games (for example, fitting games, such as pentacubes and Tetris), sensory toys (which stimulate the senses, especially for children), or electronic games and applications that exercise memory and strategy (such as Luminosity, Multitasking and Eidetic).
Learn some art
Learning new languages or an art, such as dancing, are activities that demand a lot from the brain : attention, memory, imagination, mentalization , in addition to training socialization skills, bringing well-being and avoiding symptoms of depression.
