Table of Contents
We tend to give our physical body a lot of attention and try to keep it fit. What we forget is exercising our brain is equally important, and our brain also requires some attention to keep ourselves mentally sharp.
With the boost of technology and the age of smartphones, we have become prone to relying on machines to do our brain work. We have naturally become more forgetful. There was a time when we had the phone numbers of all our relatives imprinted in our brains. Now, though, you can’t even be sure if you locked your house before leaving.
Hence, at this age, we have to actively keep our brains engaged and working. In order to do that, a few fun and interesting activities are listed below.
1. Crosswords
The classic brain teaser – crossword is a fun and effective way to exercise the brain. It also helps enhance language skills, and it requires a certain degree of memory and improves your vocabulary. The newspaper crosswords have a charm to them, but you can access crosswords online as well.
2. Cards
Card games are known to be mentally stimulating. It’s a recommended activity for adults, especially those who enjoy playing cards. It’s been proven that cards can increase brain volume in certain parts of the brain. It helps in engaging our brain in analytical thinking and improves our memory. It’s one of the most fun and diverse brain activities due to the abundance of choices among the card games.
3. Sudoku
Sudoku is another fun number puzzle that requires some logical thinking. It is based on short-term memory skills and hence, enhances them. It further also tests your planning ability and helps in improving upon it. It’s available on many digital platforms, and you can always rely on the newspapers to find one!
4. Jigsaw Puzzles
are the ultimate brain teasers. It requires planning, logical thinking, a good memory, spatial orientation skills. Thus solving jigsaw puzzles are the best way to make our brain sharper. It’s an enjoyable game that even kids play. In fact, it’s a great way to make kids enjoy the game and make them mentally sharper.
5. Escape rooms
Escape rooms are exciting and mentally challenging. They are suitable for all age groups. They require good analytical reasoning and creative thinking, and they can help in boosting memory skills and logical thinking. They are never boring, and you can never get tired of them. They are one of the best contemporary and dynamic brain teasers. Now you don’t even have to physically travel to reach one, and they are available on digital platforms too!
6. Brain Training Programmes
With the growing realization of the need to train the brain, many programs for brain fitness have started. Lumosity is one such program. You can play various games and take tests that help in sharpening your mental skills, and it tracks your results and shows you the advances made.
7. Learn a New Instrument
It is believed that learning a new instrument to the brain is like a full-body workout. It engages all the facets of the brain and works them, and it not only exercises all of them but requires good coordination between them as well. A good instrument to start with would be a guitar or a piano. It also helps in boosting your creativity.
8. DIY activities
Many DIY crafts are not just fun but help in improving our hand-eye coordination. They also make us more dexterous and efficient with our hands. Art and craft, in general, also help in making us think outside the box, more creatively. Creative thinking is a very important and much-forgotten attribute of our brains.
9. Use of the Non-Dominant Hand
While this might actually sound like exercising, using your non-dominant hand can be quite fun. Try doing everyday activities with this hand. It will be quite amusing while training your brain to adapt to new changes. It will be one of the most challenging activities for your brain, and you learn a new a quite beneficial skill.
10. Learn a Foreign Language
Learning a foreign language can be fun and also advantageous. It again requires your brain to work intensely to grasp the nuances and learn an entirely new language, and it improves your memory and vocabulary. It’s a demanding exercise but one which you can have a lot of fun with!
Conclusion
There are many ways to enhance and sharpen your mental skills and exercise your brain. The best advice would be to try something new! The ones mentioned above are fun activities that don’t require a lot of effort and won’t bore you. Practice or play these anytime of the day and save yourself from the scare of dementia! Maybe after a week of these, you will remember where you left the car keys.