Healthy Brain

Staying fit is not just for your body. It is also important to keep a fit brain. Brain fitness is about keeping the mind sharp and preventing or battling cognitive disease. You have the ability to promote healthy brain development through brain fitness, exercise, social interaction, and protecting yourself. No matter when you start, whether it's early or late in life, following some simple practices can aid in mental health.

Learning new information and skills throughout your entire life helps to keep your brain strong even in the later years of life. Activities that have the highest value for brain health are those that are novel and complex to each particular person. What is easy for one person may be challenging for another, so the things that challenge you the most have the most value for your brain.

It is the novel and complex that will challenge the brain, stimulate learning, and promote synaptic density, decreasing the likelihood that neurodegenerative disease will manifest. With practice of an activity or skill, your synaptic density increases, and what was once novel and complex can easily become rote and passive. Therefore, continually learning new things will ensure your brain is always expanding and staying sharp!

If you need inspiration, try this mental stimulation exercise. This activity is designed to help you understand what is personally novel and complex for you, versus what is rote and passive.

Take out a sheet of paper, and divide the paper in half.

In the left column, list five activities that you enjoy and have fun with, and do most frequently. This list represents activities that are rote and passive. Your mind is already comfortable with these activities, which lessens the benefit they have on your brain.

In the right column, list five activities that you find complicated, and don't engage in frequently. This list represents activities your brain has not yet formed strong neural connections with; they are the complex and novel. These activities will likely benefit the development of new connections in your brain. Here are some more brain-boosting exercises to try.