How to Train Your Brain and Improve Your Mood
If you were an athlete days away from a championship game, what would you do to prepare? You’d pour lots of time into training, of course. You would try hard to train your body and practice your moves over and over so that you’d have the best possible chance of winning the game.
The same thing can happen with your brain. If you try your best to train it, you’d be surprised how powerful your brain can be! October 13th is Train Your Brain Day. You may have heard that you can improve your thinking skills by training your brain. But did you know that training your brain can also shift your mood? Train Your Brain Day is the perfect time to explore the potential of your amazing mind.
Sharpen your mind with brain training
We’ve all had times where we forgot to do an important task, then realized it later when there’s barely any time to do it. Forgetfulness is an annoying part of life, but you can enhance your thinking and memory by doing brain training exercises. Common brain training exercises include crossword puzzles, word searches, and math puzzles like sudoku. Those things are great, but there are also other things you can do to sharpen your thinking abilities.
Harvard Health talks about the connection between exercise and brainpower. Exercise not only benefits your body, it makes your brain stronger, too. When you do exercises such as swimming for example, your brain works hard trying to improve the precision and effectiveness of your movements. Dancing is another example of exercise that involves a lot of brainpower. If you exercise regularly and think carefully about your movements, you’ll give your brain a major boost.
There’s also a strong link between creativity and brainpower. Concentrating hard on a creative activity like painting, drawing, or playing a musical instrument works wonders for your thinking abilities. Creative activities give your brain a challenge, making it work to think of new ideas and figure out how to bring them to life. Whether it’s painting, swimming, sudoku, or something else, it’s pretty awesome to know that you have the ability to supercharge your brainpower!
Improve your mood by training your brain
Maybe you’re skeptical of the idea that you can train your brain to be happier. But it’s surprisingly true. NPR explains it this way: “Over the past decade, neuroscientists have begun to shift how they think emotions arise. Rather than being inevitable, hard-coded experiences, researchers now think emotions are malleable, and people have more influence over them than previously thought.”
This means that you can actually do things that, when repeated over time as a habit, make it easier for your brain to think happy thoughts. NPR’s article describes how memories are one thing your brain relies on to create the emotions that you feel. If you regularly tell yourself positive affirmations and reframe negative thoughts and limiting beliefs, when future bad situations arise, your brain will have “muscle memory” that helps you think positive and be happy.
Gratitude journaling is another way you can train your brain to be happier. If you make it a habit to journal about the things you appreciate in your life, big and small, you’ll be able to dwell less on your problems. Gratitude is an important part of your emotional wellbeing, which is why gratitude journaling is such an effective way of helping your brain get into a better mood.
I hope you’re feeling inspired now to train your brain and see what it can do! This kind of training doesn’t give you big muscles, but it gives you the power to think of new ideas, remember things more easily, and strengthen your positive mindset when life gets tough. Start training your brain today in whichever way you choose, and you’ll realize how truly brilliant you are.
