1. Use It or Lose It

One of the habits of highly effective brains is to remember that what is to treat your brain just like a muscle that needs to be flexed if it’s going to be healthy. If you don’t continue using your brain, you will start losing the ability to learn as well. Your brain is an incredible living thing that formulates new connections as you take in new knowledge. As you learn, your brain builds new neural pathways. For example, if you are trying to learn a new language, your brain would create new pathways in the language portion of your brain to store the new information.

2. Invite Mental Challenges

Just like when you’re learning something new, mental challenges will also create similar neural pathways. Once these neurons appear in the brain, whether they stay where they are and if they survive will depend entirely on how you use them. Teach your brain to do fundamentally new things -not necessarily new facts and figures, although that kind of thing helps, but new ways to see things and do things.

3. Eat Food Nutritious for Your Brain

It may seem incredible that your brain only occupies only 2 percent of your body mass but consumes over 20 percent of the oxygen we breathe and the nutrients we take into our body. So, eat things that feed your brain, such a nuts, spinach, eggs, lentils and beets. Generally, you don’t really have to take supplements unless they make you feel better, but it’s important not eat tons of snack foods and fat-filled offerings if you want to have a sharp brain. You Should Eat These Foods to Feed Your Brain ... @Neecey

4. Get Rid of Stinking Thinking

Stress, anxiety and other negative thoughts actually kills neurons. Not only that, it prevents the creation of new ones! Whether these thoughts are provoked by external events and situations, or whether you are just prone to anxiety and negativity, you could be doing your brain a big disfavor. Practice positive thoughts oriented toward the future until those thoughts, instead of the negative ones, become your default mindset. You are what you think, so, you might as well think happy thoughts!

5. Develop Stimulating Friendships

We are social animals that need the stimulation of good conversations with people who challenge us, help us learn, or let us see things from new perspectives. Although we benefit from relationships that don’t challenge us and just make us feel comfy, it’s the ones that come from varied educational, cultural and national backgrounds that really exercise our brains. We find comfort in things that are the same as us, but we find growth in things that are different.

6. Exercise

The brain is part of the body, so your body has to be healthy to support a healthy brain. Physical exercise enhances the production of neural pathways. Physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise, facilitates information processing and memory functions. Aerobic exercise brings more oxygen into the body, which the brain gobbles up. It’s also a great pick-me-up, easing depression and anxiety, also a factor in healthy, sharp brains.

7. Don’t Ever Stop Improving

Humans are the only creatures in life that can plan their own way. So don’t stay stationary in life; keep moving ahead. Once you graduate from college, don’t stop learning. If you become too comfortable where you’re working, find a new job that’s more stimulating. Join clubs or organizations that cause you to think. Take classes to learn something new or to hone a skill you already have. Keep learning!

It’s no good doing these haphazardly. For your brain and you to benefit you need to develop them as habits. Are you going to start doing any of these?