5 Fun Hobbies that Will Make Your Brain Work Faster and Smarter

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As years gone by, your brain function will be affected. This is not a surprise for any of you as you may have seen brain function deterioration in older relatives. Some examples are the loss of short-term memories and several executive functions. The main cause is the death of gray matter in your right frontal lobe rendering your brain “gooey”. Nevertheless, scientists have discovered ways to delay this process and even reverse it by simply doing some specific activities. Many of you know them as hobbies. Here are 5 fun hobbies that will make your brain work faster and smarter.

Increment Your Reading Time

Brain experts have discovered that reading any sorts of book or newspaper will actually raise your brain function in many areas. As a hobby, it can stimulate the growth of new neural pathways to absorb all the new information. Reading is a type of mental activity that awakes those parts of the brain that deal with problem-solving, interpreting and identifying patterns in life.

Furthermore, it improves your memory capacity and it exercises parts of the brain that allow imagination. Some studies even point out that speed reading increases synapses (electrical connections in the brain) thus making the processing of information a quicker task.  

Learn to Play the Guitar

For some time now, neuroscientists have conducted plenty of research on the benefits of teaching children how to play musical instruments. It has been proven that this activity improves cognitive functions like memory, sequential processing, problem-solving, and even pattern recognition. Likewise, playing an instrument increases gray matter volume inside the brain and pushes the brain to make more neural connections between the two hemispheres.

For these reasons, experts believe that learning to play an instrument like a guitar will ensure that both sides of your brain work at their best. A point to note is that these benefits not only occur in children, adults can also experience the same neurological effects.

Choose an excellent guitar with the aid of this list of top guitar brands and start putting your fingers to the strings. In just a matter of time, you will feel how your stress disappears and your mind sharpens.

Find Time to Exercise Every Day

Exercising is an activity that produces a protein called BDNF inside your bloodstream. So, as blood travels towards the brain, its cells absorb this amazing protein. BDNF is responsible for the increase of memory functions and the intensification of your focus capability. It is said that exercising is like shocking your brain with electricity. It not only stays awake and sharp but also ready to carry out its functions properly.

You must also be aware of the benefits of exercising for the rest of your body with special regards to your heart and respiratory system. Exercising is a win-win hobby for your organism.

Crack a New Language

Language deals with several areas of the brain as it forces it to receive sound, interpret its meaning, and respond to this stimulus. It is considered a very integral brain task as it is like a power surge for your gray matter. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that bilingual people develop more gray matter in their language centers. This means that these people can focus on multiple tasks at a time because the parts of the brain that deal with reasoning, scheduling, and memory are very developed.

Imagine how much more the brain works in a bilingual person mainly because he/she is forced to take in sounds from two totally different languages, figure out which language it is and then process the meaning.

Additionally, learning a language is not only beneficial in early ages. It is true that children learn the language faster but adults can really help their brains by taking up this hobby. If you decide to start learning Spanish or Italian tomorrow, you are taking a serious step towards improving your memory, increasing your prior learning, and constantly exercising several parts of your brain.

Mediation is Also an Excellent Choice

Meditation has acquired tremendous fame around the world due to its astounding benefits for your brain and body overall. First, it allows an enhanced control of your thinking capacity when not in a meditative state. This control improves focus, concentration, and memory. As a matter of fact, it has been discovered that students who meditate perform better on tests, and adults who meditate do really well at work. When talking about the elderly, just know that meditation will help them keep more gray matter than those who do not.

As you may have seen, all of these hobbies are activities that you can start right away and their incorporation into your daily lives is just a matter of adapting and proper planning. Choose one or two and get cracking. Remember how much you will be helping your brain function.