Your daily habits hold a surprising amount of weight when it comes to your brain’s performance. Brain and body health are largely impacted by the habitual routine you complete every day. The patterns you follow have the potential to act as brain boosters or brain inhibitors…all depending on your choices. Let’s walk through a few daily activities that you could adjust for better brain health and a few mental performance supplements that could bridge the gap.
Turn Your Habits Into Brain Boosters
Your “bad habits” don’t have to be bad. They just need a few minor adjustments. It’s surprising how much of your daily life contributes to your overall brain and body health. Some of these habits may seem apparent, while others are potentially surprising. The key to making meaningful adjustments is to monitor your daily cycles and integrate minor changes over time. Continuously working towards a better lifestyle is the key to eventual all-around healthy patterns of living.
Multitasking Rewires the Brain
Many individuals may pride themselves in their ability to multitask. It can be a useful tool, but like many things, is best completed in moderation. We’ve grown accustomed to dividing our attention in a variety of ways throughout the day. Maybe you’re checking a text while picking up your coffee, or listening to a podcast while working. These things, albeit the new normal amidst our present technology revolution, actually harm more than help us.
Research shows that multitasking isn’t the brain booster it was once thought to be. Stanford University studies suggest that it actually leads to a lack of productivity and can potentially damage the brain. Individuals consistently handling multiple sources of information are less able to recall information, pay attention, or even swap from one task to another as well as those who tackle a single undertaking at a time.
To put it simply, the human brain is not wired to multitask. Instead, when faced with multiple tasks, it rapidly switches from one item to the other. With each rapid switchover the brain makes, there is a cognitive cost associated. Multitasking ultimately increases cortisol levels, engages fight-or-flight by producing adrenaline, and triggers mental fog or jumbled thoughts. Ultimately, it is detrimental to brain and body health.
Overstimulation Causes Stress
Currently, there’s more information available to the average person than ever before. This can be a wonderful thing…if it’s managed correctly. Unfortunately for the brain, many people are not equipped to handle, much less organize, the constant stream of content they’re faced with every day. The volume of various media that your brain is exposed to on a daily basis may be a leading cause of stress and decision overload in your life.
Overloading your brain with too much information can cause overstimulation. The best way to combat this is through purposeful organization and filtering through until you find what’s actually important. From there, set priority levels and begin processing one step at a time. Remember: not every piece of information is absolutely necessary, so you can discard quite a bit of content that you receive. Doing so will help reduce your stress and increase your brain’s efficiency.
Exercises Are Brain Boosters
It’s well known that sitting for long periods of time isn’t good for your physical health, but did you know that it has mental implications as well? A mostly sedentary lifestyle can lead to several neurological risks: memory, depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. Namely, those who lead predominantly sedentary lifestyles are linked to thinning of the medial temporal lobe, or the section of the brain responsible for memory regulation. Moreover, a general lack of exercise contributes to feelings of brain fog and emotional dysfunction.
To promote better mental performance, you can use daily exercise as a brain booster. Even starting small, such as a 10 minute walk each morning or night, is proven to make a difference. As you feel comfortable, you can increase the duration of your exercise and/or switch out the type of workout you complete. Every small bit counts, even if that means rotating between standing at work vs. sitting in your chair. The more you’re moving, the better.
Too Much Screen Time Causes Cognitive Decline
The average adult spends upwards of 6 hours in front of screens per day. This far exceeds the recommended amount of 2 hours a day– so what are the consequences? Interpersonal interaction is continuously being replaced with screen interaction, which is a cause of cognitive decline in adults and developmental delay in children.
You can stimulate your brain’s performance by using face-to-face interaction as a brain booster. Similar to exercising, social exercises at about 10 minutes per day are proven to improve the brain’s overall memory and cognition. In person conversations have a positive impact on your intellectual abilities and emotional well-being.
Are You Taking Supplements?
Mental performance supplements are meant to help your brain recuperate from declines. They aren’t supposed to replace healthy habits, but they do work well in tandem with improved daily rituals and greater mindfulness of your patterns. Mental performance supplements can help you reach brain performance goals faster and assist with clearing brain fog, improving memory, energy levels, and overall mood.
Reach out to our experts at BIPRI to figure out which mental performance supplements might be best for your situation. We understand the value of brain and body health and want you to reach every cognitive goal you have laid out for yourself. Remember to adjust your habits so that they can act as brain boosters, too, and give us a call at 615-933-5188 for any additional questions.