Have you ever considered how important your brain’s health is?
Especially since it’s ground zero for creative thinking.
We tend to ignore our brains, despite that it’s the center of everything, decisions, feelings, ideas, and all sensation and movement.
If your job demands creative thinking than it’s extra important to make sure it’s in tip-top shape. Why do we overlook the brain when it steers our every decision and action and eventually our destiny?
The quality of our ideas and even of our lives are at stake.
Let’s decide today to start giving our brain the care it needs.
Brain care steps
Relationships
Your social ties help keep away dementia, improve other health indicators like blood pressure and relieves stress. Our brains don’t like it when we feel lonely. Interaction with others give us plenty of new material to be use creatively as well.
Movement
Move it to get your brain in peak form!
New research is showing us just how vital exercise is for your brain health, and your heart will be happy too.
Walking is a great place to start and from there build up to aerobic exercise and strength training. Each type of training has different effects on the brain including regulating mood and emotion, helping with decision making, helping memory and concentration, and creating and maintaining brain cells. All of these functions aid our creativity.
Our brains love exercise!
Watch your diet
We don’t usually get farther than weight worries when we think of food choice.
There is more at stake than a few pounds. What you eat has a great impact on your brain as well as your waistline.
Brain scientists often recommend an anti-inflammatory diet for brain health. Our brains are sensitive to compounds that cause oxidation and diets full of antioxidants are vital in reducing the damage to our cells. A Mediterranean diet with fruits, vegetables, fish, legumes and whole grains helps our brains get the vitamins and omega 3 oils it needs And our microbiome loves this type of food, and those bacteria in our guts have been shown to pump out various neurotransmitters that can effect our mood.
Avoid tobacco and excess alcohol
Your whole body will be grateful.
Sleep
It’s hard for our brains to function well without enough sleep, and our creativity will suffer. It is hard getting enough with all there is to do, but your brain will thank you and your wakeful hours will be of much higher quality.
Stress
Stress is tough on the brain.
Only about 34% people understand that managing stress is vital for keeping your brain healthy. Managing your expectations of yourself and the rest of the world can help reduce stress. Every thing takes its time and there is only so much we can do to force movement. Some of the ideas below can help reduce stress. The key is make time to take care of yourself, and you will be in a better position to take care of others.
Meditate.Quieting the mind is not easy for new meditators but the benefits are for your brain are great. Start with 5-10 minutes and increase from there. The time invested will give you more focus and concentration which is exactly what we need doing deep creative work..
Find happiness and meaning. Managing your emotions is a huge help to your brain. If you can learn to develop your positive emotions, you will be more creative and have more resources and flexibility for making decisions and finding solutions to challenges.
When the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) invade, just let them scurry off. There is no need to believe any of them. Don’t make your brain sad!
Slowdown and turn it off. Take little breaks to reflect, spend time daydreaming, and being out in nature. There are benefits to creative thinking when we slow down.
Memory challenges. Give your brain some little memory challenges. There are many opportunities to do this such as trying to memorize as many numbers as you can, recalling your shopping list, and making associations to help you remember lists.
Learn and build that mental reserve
Become a life long learner!
This is vital for creative thinkers. You need new material to connect and create new ideas with. Fill your mind with new skills, knowledge, ideas, perspectives and experiences.
Add something new to your internal mix daily.
Books and music
Crack open a book!
Did you know that less that % of Americans
read a book in the last year?
And reading is something that really helps our brains! It can rewire it.
Music helps with spatial awareness and if you make your own music, then you’re really doing your brain a big favor.
Use your hands
In the new techno world, we don’t use our fingers and hands hands for much of anything beyond pointing and swiping, which ignores our first tools, our hands. A huge area of the brain is used for their function, and there is a great benefit to doing handwork. It helps not only with coordination, but also with mental skills such as creativity and problem solving, memory and visual and spatial understanding. This will help build that mental reserve as well.
Make time for play
Give yourself some play time. This is one of the cornerstones of building creativity.. Play and discover.
Life isn’t only about being on. Rest and relaxation is important and allows you to rest and experience variety.
Making brain care important will increase our creativity and the quality of our life. Much of what we consider heart-care is good for our brains too, but we must also make sure to challenge our minds with new stimulation and learning, and to make time for quiet reflection and meditation. If we take care of our brains, we are taking care of our creativity.
