Even though your brain changes with time, especially as you get older, you can certainly keep your mind young and sharp. Essentially, your brain is not limited in function and ability as it can adapt and evolve—that’s why we have neuroplasticity.
Since good health is not exclusive to maintaining physical vitality, keeping your mind young and sharp is a significant milestone for maintaining overall health.
So whether you want to live forever young or want to improve your mental health on a general level, this blog post has you covered.
Eat healthy to keep your mind young and sharp.
We will never be able to overemphasize the relevance of good food for a healthy and functional mind. Essentially, your brain derives all its energy from one food nutrient—glucose. The glucose needed for your brain to function comes from your digestible food. As a result, when the brain is short of glucose, your body breaks down your glucose reserves through a metabolic pathway called gluconeogenesis to supply glucose for your brain to carry on. Therefore, you should ideally eat what the earth naturally provides for you and avoid most processed foods. The reason is that processed foods contain trans fats, sodium, sugar, and empty calories. In contrast, natural organic foods are nutrient-dense and supply the essential vitamins, minerals, macros, and micros that your brain needs to stay young and sharp.
Daily exercise keeps your mind young and sharp.
As much as exercising keeps your physical body young and strong, it affects your brain. When you exercise, you engage your muscles and your mind. Also, while you exercise, your heart pumps more blood around your body, flushing away neurotoxins from your brain and supplying more oxygen and nutrients. As a result, the first part of brain regeneration—neuroplasticity, occurs, leaving the second part for when you engage your mind in learning and experiencing new stuff. Ideally, the average person should be getting not less than 30 minutes of cardio every day. However, a regular daily exercise as brief as 10 minutes daily will do, provided you are consistent.
Engage your mind
If you sit quietly for a moment, you will observe that your mind keeps being busy. Some schools of thought, like the students of Zen philosophy, affirm that the mind is like a chattering monkey. It extensively proves that your mind needs engagement. Mental stimulation is a vital process for keeping your mind young and sharp. You can take or sign up for new courses, online courses, or read many books. You can also learn new skills like playing instruments, painting, knitting, dressmaking, baking, etc. There is no end to what you can learn and do to keep your mind super engaged.
Final thoughts
Good food, exercise, and new experiences are three critical ways to keep your mind young and sharp. But, more importantly, neuroplasticity which is the formation of more neurons by your brain, takes place during learning and exposure to new experiences.