There are many actions that result in cognitive improvement. Throughout history humankind has been trying to improve on mental abilities. There have been many improvement to our thoughts in the past. Some of these improvements have been through learning new skills. Some of them have been through trial and error. And generally these are results of our evolution.
At the present moment, we have many opportunities to improve our mental abilities. Our fast paced life requires us to do this. And we have many tools such as technology, security and our social welfare that help us achieve this. It is best to plan our life and our cognitive improvement by stepping back and looking at our life to find ways on how to improve it. We can improve our cognition in many ways. Mind exercises, physical exercises, studying, sleep and reducing stress as well as many more things. Also there is possibility of taking supplements, nutrition, or doing meditation. We need to master our mind and body in order to be able to control and improve our wellbeing. This can be achieved as long as we are motivated and determined to do this. Below are some ways to improve our cognition:
Cognitive training
There are many options for mind exercises. It is important to get both sides of our brain stimulated. There is importance on left side of the brain (our logical side) in terms of finding systematics solutions. There is the same level of importance if not more to our right side of the brain (our creative side). We need to cultivate and take account of both sides of our brain. Both sides of the brain work in correlation, so when we do any task in essence our whole brain is in action. We usually go through life with emphasis on the left brain and its importance. Whereas in life we need to be aware of the full picture and to be creative too. The reality is that left and right side of the brain and their functionality exist but these are not distinct from one another and they complement each other.
We can train our mind by doing design, drawing, puzzles, reading, learning languages, music, dancing and many more activity. Above all the goal is to learn and create a balance in cultivating the brain. This results in our cognitive improvement.
Physical Exercise
Many physical exercises help boost our cognition. We need to ensure we have balance in our physical activity. Furthermore we need to ensure that our exercise routine is not exhaustive. Not exercising stops us from activating our brain cells as well as maintaining them. However exercising helps with our mental health and improves our wellbeing. Regular exercises helps promote changes in brain structure, functioning and memory. Physical exercises can target to help our certain bodily functions as well as boosting our energy level. There are also holistic benefits to physical exercise such as improved mental ability, discipline, planning, determination and many other benefits.
Learning
Learning helps us create more neural networks and connections within our brains. More connections we create while learning better our decision making will become. While learning (depending on the subject) we contribute to improving various part of our brain and as a result better executive action. Learning also helps us improve our daily activities, our thinking process, our sense of well being as well as our socialising. There is direct relation between learning and cognitive improvement because we are able to have better understanding of the world around us. Learning helps with improving our awareness and enables us to better deal with challenges ahead of us.
Supplement and nutrition
Supplements help us cover all areas of our health and to create balance in our vitamin intake. Furthermore there is strong evidence that many brain supplements and certain diets help improve brain functionality. Healthy eating and our desire to eat certain food is behavioural. It is our decision to eat healthy and have a balanced diet to improve our life. However it is strongly advised that we should try our very best to control our diet to take relevant supplements and nutrition. One way to manage our supplements and nutrition is to know what we are eating and the effect it has on our body and mind. In its simplest form what we eat impacts on our energy, health and wellbeing.
Sleep and meditation
Sleep is a very important part of improving our mental abilities. Sleeping well helps us improve our life and wellbeing. Lack of sleeps impairs cognitive performance and focus. Furthermore over sleeping is linked to cognition problems and decision making. There is a close relationship between sleeping and mental health. We need to manage our sleep in away that suits us and life style in order to get best impact on our health. Meditation is a proven method to help stimulate our brain and relax us. It gives us better clarity our mind and our surroundings. Resulting in better life balance and sleep. We can meditate when sitting down, walking or even do some activity that helps us relax ourselves.
Overall cognitive improvement is possible by taking regular initiatives to improve our mind. This can be in many forms such as supplements, sleep, meditation, exercise, learning and many more. There are also many things that can impact our cognition and in some cases distort our thoughts. For example stress, lack of sleep, tiredness, alcohol, drugs, and many other things can contribute to distorting our mind and impacting our brain development negatively. In some cases there is evidence that these may result in brain and/or bodily damage.
Most importantly we need to believe that it is important to improve ourselves. We need to know and be motivated to help improve our cognition. Motivation and our attitude towards cognitive improvement is very important to better ourselves and our life. There maybe barriers to our beliefs, there maybe self doubts, most importantly these self doubts and barriers need to be challenged and removed before we can fully embrace a life where we can improve ourselves and improve our mental abilities.