Increase Your Brain Power

For your brain to work at peak levels, it must have adequate supplies of glucose, oxygen, water, and essential nutrients. Because your brain is mostly composed of fat, you also need the proper amounts of fatty acids in your diet that come from foods like fish and cod liver oil.

Just like any other human cell, the neurons in your brain need water, energy, and oxygen. The lack of any of these 3 basic materials significantly decreases your ability to learn.

Your brain requires proper energy to keep the wheels turning. Glucose is one of the essential nutrients required for an optimum learning state. Your body acquires glucose mainly from the carbohydrates in the foods we eat.

So, how do you keep up good levels of blood glucose? Eat plenty of complex carbohydrates such as grains, bread, vegetables, and pasta. This does NOT include snack bars, fruit juice, and yogurt, which are all simple carbohydrates.

The difference in simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates is that simple carbohydrates are digested quickly and often contain refined sugars.

Complex carbohydrates are digested much slower and are usually packed with fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Some good brain foods include:

… and omega 3 fatty acids which can be found in cod liver oil and krill oil.

In fact, if you want to keep your brain working at top performance, you should avoid the large amounts of sugar that are often found in soft drinks, cakes, chocolate and other refined foods.

Your brain also requires plenty of oxygen for optimum learning. Although your brain is only around 3% of your body mass, it can consume more than 20% of your body’s oxygen intake. This consumption rate increases during mental activities such as learning.

To keep the oxygen flowing for ideal learning, you need good blood efficiency, good lung efficiency, good pulse rate and strength, and good breathing.

One of the keys to good blood efficiency is iron. Be sure to get plenty of iron int your diet, which can be obtained through wholegrain cereals, green leafy vegetables, meat, and breads.

To improve your lung power, center your diet around fruits, vegetables, and grains. These foods will provide the antioxidants needed for strong lungs. Aerobic fitness is another key factor in improving your lung power. Make sure that you are exercising for at least 30 minutes per day.

Recent research shows that cognitive function is improved immediately after just ten minutes of aerobic exercise.

For optimum learning, you also need good pulse rate and strength, which increases the blood flow into the brain.

When studying, be sure to take short breaks and do some light exercise. Better yet, go for a walk while learning new material.

Focus on good breathing. Breathe deep and avoid shallow breathing. This will improve your lung efficiency. This one tip will not only improve your learning, but also your everyday energy levels.

Sit up Straight. Posture affects your thinking process. Sit up straight, keeping your mouth closed and looking forward.

Learn a new language. Learning a new language gives you new ways to think and expands your perspectives. In fact, there are concepts and expressions in each language that don’t exist in others.

You also gain a better understanding through language. Think about it. Who understands the concept of snow better; someone with two or three words for it (snow, sleet, etc.); or an Eskimo with 23 words for it?

Best of all, most people experience a general improvement in memory from studying a language. So, why not avoid the age-related decline in memory by taking up a new language.

Sleep better. We all need approximately 6-8 hours of sleep. Sleep has a major impact on your learning performance. Sleep affects memory and learning both before and after a lesson.

The brain is usually more alert and creative earlier in the morning after a good night’s sleep, making it the best time of day for brain work.

A healthy and balanced diet is one of the most important keys for optimized learning and memory performance. There are a number of supplements being sold today that claim to improve your focus and brain power. Unfortunately, many of them are ineffective.

However, there are a number of different herbs and supplements that do increase your mental performance. Here are the ones that have been proven effective through research.

Gingko Bilboa: Need a quick brain boost? The leaves of this tree have proven to increase blood flow to the brain. This extract improves memory and cognitive abilities in individuals eighteen to forty years old.

Vitamin b1, b3, and b6 all play a significant role in learning.

Brahmi also has been shown to improve memory and learning performance. Studies suggest that Brahmi helps you to retain newly learned information, improves visual information processing, learning rate and memory consolidation.

However, keep in mind that best effects appear after twelve weeks of daily use.

If you want to see almost immediate improvement in your brain power, then I suggest that you focus on eating a nutritious, well-balanced diet combined with a healthy exercise program. These two things alone can greatly improve your cognitive abilities.

Happy Learning!