While taking care of your health is essential for living healthy, taking care of your brain is equally important. The body’s physical health is useless when the brain is in a mess. Your brain takes control of all your body’s functions. When it’s weak, so will your body be. Some people even believe that the brain holds the power to heal one’s body or create the life anybody wants to create.
Essentially, the brain is a powerful tool that needs to be exercised and harnessed to boost its powers. You never know what you can do when your brain is functioning at its best. Besides, you need to have strong brainpower particularly when you’re in the golden years to remain independent, happy, and energetic.
Mind games, mental challenges, and brain training games are created to exercise the brain. We have compiled some of the easiest brain-boosting activities that not only bring you fun but also improve your brain’s capacity to its fullest.
1. Child’s play
One study shows that engaging in child plays can be beneficial for adults. Most adult games are geared towards competition, which makes them less fun and even stressful. But when you engage in games that are not serious or fanciful, such as children’s games, your level of enjoyment increases, boosting your mental capacity.
Another study reveals that playfulness not only increases the mental power and level of happiness in adults but also an important trait when selecting a mate. Most adults want their potential mate to be playful, fun and having a good sense of humor. This is because women associate playfulness in men with less aggressiveness while men associate playfulness in women with health, youthfulness, and fertility.
2. Skiing
If you’re the adventure seeker, skiing might suit you best. Skiing increases focus and keep you engaged while you’re into it. Anything that enables you to put more focus on can enhance your mental capacity. Skiing can also make you feel that you’re doing something bigger than yourself.
Researchers say this activity can help you grow emotionally and socially because it helps you overcome stress and improve your happiness levels.
3. Coloring books
Adult coloring books are in today because aside from the fun you get while coloring flowers, animals, and others, your brain also benefits from the activity. Coloring books can help you de-stress, relax, and reduce anxiety symptoms.
Psychologists say that coloring has a calming effect. It helps you lower the activity in the brain section amygdala, which controls the emotions affected by stress. Prolonged stress can lower the brain’s functions and even affect cognitive functions.
4. Power nap
Power napping works great not only for babies and small children but for adults as well. Taking naps can increase memory and boost productivity. It even benefits the heart, lowering the risks associated with it.
5. Arts and crafts
Creating something you love is truly fun and gratifying. It stretches your imagination while maintaining hands and fingers dexterity, especially when you’re an older adult. Making birthday cards, Christmas cards, and other stuff not only excites you but also to the people whom the cards are created for. Creating picture collage is another fun way to keep those memories alive and intact.
Arts and crafts can also be stress relieving. When you’re feeling blue, which all of us go through at some point in our life, try creating something that can make other people happy. Experts even confirmed that making creative stuff helped improve the conditions of sick people and enhanced their brain productivity.
6. Word puzzles
Word puzzles can challenge the brain and stimulate it to think a bit more. It’s a good mental workout when you’re bored or are waiting for something. You may not be able to solve everything in the puzzle but the process of trying to figure out things is enough to keep your brain buzzing and working.
You can find word puzzles online or buy some word puzzle books. Having a buddy to play with can add fun and excitement while trying to unmask unbelievably difficult words.
7. Jigsaw puzzles
Jigsaw puzzles are another way of challenging your brain muscles. The activity can help you unwind while testing your brain capacity. Solving puzzles can speed your brain’s working memory because they help reinforce existing connections between brain cells while generating new relationships.
Because solving puzzles develop critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills, engaging in this activity helps you become more skilled in problem-solving. Your visual-spatial reasoning will also improve as you try to figure out the bigger picture and see how things fit in.
With all these positive things going on in your brain, you have a bigger chance of having an improved IQ. Not only that, but jigsaw puzzles are also beneficial for your physical health. Older people who engaged in jigsaw puzzles were found to have low blood pressure and were more relaxed.
8. Reading and retelling
If you’re the bookworm type, reading books would not be a problem for you. Reading comes with lots of mental benefits, such as improving your vocabulary and boosting comprehension and cognitive skills.
When life is not too busy or when you have extra time, such as while waiting for your order to be served, immerse yourself in a good book then add more challenge by retelling to another person what transpires in the story as succinctly as possible, which could test your memory. Then see how good you are at remembering names, places, and dates from the book you read.
9. Online games
The online world offers a variety of brain-boosting games. You don’t have to worry if you’re not tech-savvy. Some games are so simple they only require you to spot the difference between two seemingly similar pictures. This challenges your ability to spot tiny details and enhance the alertness of your brain.
Instead of endlessly browsing your newsfeed, try to replace it with playing games that boost your brainpower.
However, some online games advocate competition, providing gamers rewards once they win the game. Most of these games can be emotionally detrimental. Try to stay away from these kinds of games and choose the ones that are not only fun but also enhance your brain’s mental powers.
