Your brain is an organ and just like the heart and lungs, it requires oxygen and exercise in order to operate at an optimum level. You may be too young to yield to middle-aged worries about ‘ use it or lose it’ or even to start fretting about Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases – however, it’s still important that you focus on keeping your brain in shape.

By regularly engaging in the right types of activities, you can increase your memory, improve your problem-solving skills and boost your creativity. Here are some tips on how to keep your mind active:

Quit smoking

If you are a smoker, quitting is top of the ‘to-do’ list for better mental acuity. This is due to the fact that smokers can add memory loss to the long list of health problems that come from smoking. Smokers may have twice the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease as do people who have never smoked. Therefore, if the state and health of your mind are so important to you – stop smoking now — it is never too late. If you quit smoking now, you can still reduce your risk of memory loss later in life

Learn a language

Say ‘Ciao!’ to a new language. Learning to speak Spanish or Mandarin will keep your brain flexible and your mind sharp, helping to reduce the slowing of the thought processes that come with ageing. Attend lessons, listen to tapes from your library (a place you should be spending a lot of time in by the way!) or seek out friends with whom you can converse in your new chosen language. Instead of watching the same old television programs week after week, take in a foreign language movie with subtitles and immerse yourself in your new experience.

Play games

Thanks to an ageing baby-boom generation, there are now plenty of mentally stimulating games. As their name implies, brainteasers and other such puzzles are good exercises for the brain. At sites like at sites like Free Printable Sudoku you’ll find the best print sudoku puzzles. Always have a crossword book in your briefcase or purse and work on it while you commute, while you wait for an appointment or when you relax on your coffee break. You will improve your cognitive skills and creative thinking as well as your word power and vocabulary. Try also games that force you to strategize like chess, bridge and solitaire.

Learn a new skill

A long-term goal like learning to play a musical instrument stimulates your brain on many levels over an extended period. A skill like learning to tango or foxtrot is great for the brain because it combines music and movement. Make everyday activities slightly harder You can stimulate your brain just by mixing up your daily routine. If you are right handed, brush your teeth with your left hand, shower with your eyes closed — anything that will force you to use more of your senses.

Read

Whether it is a website, a novel or a newspaper, keeping your mind engaged in intellectual activity and expanding your vocabulary are two important ways to keep your brain thinking and working. As an extra exercise, repeat facts to yourself that you want to remember a few times – and try to recall them again later.

Socialize

Your brain is the ultimate party animal and loves social activity. Seek out clubs or other social activities that will surround you with people and have you interacting. New scenery, new topics of conversation and other multi-sensory activities force the brain to literally form new connections, thus increasing memory capacity.

Verbal self-affirmations and visualization are two autogenic conditioning methods that help you train the mind’s eye. The results from these methods is that your subconscious will be locked and programmed to attract whatever goal you give it.

Three super important activities occur as a result of either of the two autogenic conditioning techniques. The first is that your mental filter is set so that your subconscious picks up on in your environment, various means and ways to achieve your conditioned goals. Also stimulating your mind’s massive memory banks to instantly associate all incoming sensory information as it relates to what you’re manifesting, enabling you to perceive your dreams in a way you couldn’t perceive before. You in effect fine tune your mind’s eye with affirmations and visualizations.

Second, you will begin to get all kinds of creative ideas, hunches, inspiration and insight drawn to your consciousness aiding you in goal achievement once you program your subconscious mind with your desires. Your actions will become automatically aligned causing your manifestations to arrive faster.

Third your superconscious mind will become activated. When this happens, favorable circumstances outside your direct physical control seem to miraculously occur. Gifts from the Heavens become bestowed on you. Your conscious, subconscious, and superconscious begin to work in harmony to achieve your goals. This is exactly the mind set you want to be in.

You can wish to be a billionaire, but how do you visualize a billion dollars? Money is only an idea and does not exist as a thing unto itself. Having money and nothing else is exactly the same as having no money with nothing else. There is no difference to be seen at all. You can have exactly the same amount of money today as yesterday but if you were to wear much sharper looking clothes, all of a sudden it seems that your life has become richer. You need to visualize external changes expressing wealth.

Right now, as we speak, we are creating our reality, our future is being formed and materialized so we can experience it tomorrow. This is a Non-stop Cycle and an Immutable one. Your Mind is a Powerful source of Attractive Energy and an Intelligent Person will seek to harness it’s Powerful components for “knock your socks off” results with Manifesting.

What is subconscious mind power? It can be something as simple as automatically smiling when you meet a person, and so improving the odds of getting what you want from that person. It can be the way you unconsciously approach a problem and solve it. Essentially, it is the power that comes from good programming of your mind.

How do you program your mind, so you’ll have more subconscious mind power? You do so consciously, one step at a time. First, you learn a new technique or “program,” and then you use it until it becomes automatic – an unconscious habit. A couple examples follow.

Use Subconscious Mind Power To Develop Rapport

Speak to someone at the same speed they speak, and they will feel more at ease with you. Mirror their expressions and body position, and they will also feel more comfortable with you. There are dozens of simple techniques like these that salesmen use to develop rapport with customers. They work in all areas of life, though, not just when selling a product.

Of course, you’ll likely get confused if you try to remember and use ten of these techniques when you meet someone. You may even annoy the person. To make the whole process more smooth, you need to train yourself in a technique or two at a time, until they become automatic. Then start working on the next technique. Soon you will be subconsciously doing what needs to be done to have good rapport with the people you meet. That’s subconscious mind power.

Intuition Power

Einstein relied heavily on intuitive hunches. Gary Kasparov can beat the best chess computer even though the computer can calculate positions many moves further ahead. Experience allows him to combine analysis with a “sense” of which move is best. These are great examples of the power of intuition.

Your skill, knowledge and experience determine the potential effectiveness of your intuition. A weak chess player will never intuitively beat that computer. Having enough good information in your mind is the first important part of intuition, then.

However, to regularly benefit from your intuitive mind power, you have to encourage it. Start by watching for it. Stop during problem solving, and note any feelings or hunches you have. Note when your hunches are good ones and when they seem to be just random feelings. Do this until the whole process becomes a habit, and you’ll begin to have more intuition.

The Key To Subconscious Mind Power

Just from these two examples, you can see how you can benefit from “programming” your mind. Even training yourself to regularly ask a simple question, like “How can I best use my time right now,” can be very useful. The key is to simply find any technique that works when you use it consciously, and then use it daily (carry a reminder if you have to) until it becomes an unconscious habit. This is how you develop your subconscious mind power.

Your mind power is not your IQ. It is not the innate potential of your mind, but the actual and habitual use and development of that potential. In other words, it isn’t how smart you are that counts, but how you use it. Here are three things you can do to make your mind more effective.

Brain Exercises

Regular use and “exercising” of the brain has been shown to generate new neuronal growth, and even halt the decline of mental function that often comes with age. Try numerous brain exercises, and when you find the ones that you enjoy, make doing them a habit. A study will someday prove that old people who do their crossword puzzle every Sunday morning maintain their mental function longer. Some other ways to increase that mind power:

- Do mental math while driving.

- Look around at things and redesign them in your mind.

- Sing a song, inventing the lyrics as you go.

- Learn a memory technique and use it daily.

Discipline Yourself

A recent study, reported in the journal Psychological Science, found that while IQ level did correlate with academic performance, there was actually a much stronger correlation with self discipline. Those students with high self-discipline have much better grades than high-IQ students. They also found that there was no correlation between IQ and discipline (they varied independently).

Again, this shows that it isn’t how smart you are, but how you use it. Self discipline doesn’t necessarily mean willpower, by the way. It can be accomplished by starting with simple and easy steps and creating good habits over time. A great mind power practice is to get in the habit of regularly building good habits.

Train Your Body

It has been shown that activities which involve timing and coordination cause dendrite growth in the brain. More dendrites mean more possible connections in your brain. More connections mean your thinking and learning can be more flexible and efficient. Physical exercise, then, of the right type, is also mind power exercise.

The activities most likely to help include any athletic activities that require a lot of coordination and timing, such as basketball, soccer, and tossing around a Frisbee. Other good mind power activities are playing musical instruments, especially when it requires precise timing (piano playing), and painting or drawing, which involve hand-eye coordination.

There are hundreds of ways to improve your mind power. Some have to do with the mind-body connection, some with what you eat, and some with how you train yourself to think. Here is an example of each.

Posture And Mind Power

Your posture affects your thinking process. You can easily prove this to yourself with a simple experiment. Start by sitting in any chair. Then slouch, letting your head hang down and looking at the floor. Now let your mouth hang open. Now, try doing math in your head. Add large numbers or multiply two-digit numbers – just do whatever math you can normally do with some difficulty in your mind.

Now for part two. Sit up straight, keep your mouth closed and look forward or slightly upwards. Try that mental math again. You’ll notice that it’s easier to think with this better posture. Keep this in mind. Whenever you feel that brain fog coming, just sit up straight and close your mouth.

Watch That Glycemic Index

Diabetics know about the “glycemic index,” which rates foods according to how slowly the carbohydrates are released into the system. Slower is better, both for diabetics and for those who want to avoid “brain fog” and think more clearly. Foods that slowly release sugars into your system (and have a low index rating) include beans, whole grains, apples, and salads.

There are other factors involved in how some of these foods affect your brain in the short-term. Beans cause drowsiness in some people for example. However, in general, any foods that are rated high on the glycemic index are likely to cause “brain fog.” If you really want to test this, eat a large piece of sugary pie on an empty stomach, and see how your mind feels fifteen minutes later.

Train Your Brain

To develop greater mind power long-term, train yourself to think in certain useful ways. For example, for more insightful analysis, you can train yourself to challenge assumptions. This is one of the most powerful problem-solving techniques.

For example, suppose you want ways to get customers into your store. Ask, “Do I really need more customers?” An assumption-challenging question like this suggests other creative solutions, like finding ways to make more money off existing customers, or ways to cut expenses. Maybe these will lead to more profitable ideas. Challenging assumptions is a great way to increase the creativity of your solutions.

Do this with a given technique for several weeks. Carry a card that reminds you to think a certain way or use a certain technique. Three weeks seems to be the amount of time it takes to make something into a well-established habit, and habitually thinking in better ways is the most effective ways to exercise greater mind power.

You can increase your mind power starting today. There are conditions that are conducive to better thinking, and plants which when eaten increase blood flow to the brain. There are little “tricks” that can give you an immediate brainpower boost, and habits you can develop for a more permanent improvement in brain function. Here are six things you can try right now or over the coming days to prove to yourself that improved mind power is possible.

Exercise Helps The Brain

Long term exercise can boost brainpower, which isn’t surprising. Anything that affects physical health in a positive way probably helps the brain too. Recent research, though, shows that cognitive function is improved immediately after just ten minutes of aerobic exercise. If you need a brain recharge, walk up and down the stairs a few times.

Temperature And Mind Power

Many people have noted that they think better at certain temperatures. In general, it seems that being slightly cool, but not uncomfortable, is most conducive to good thinking. Try experimenting on yourself to see what temperature works best for you.

Become A Problem Solver

Just use a problem solving technique for several weeks and it will become a habit. Redesign everything you see for a while, and that will become a habit. Choose any of the many problem solving techniques and train yourself to use it, and you’ll have a more powerful mind. Many good thinking habits take some effort to develop, but then you will be more resourceful effortlessly from that point on. Use the power of habit to improve your mind power.

Develop Your Intuition

Einstein relied heavily on intuitive hunches. Because of his intuitive grasp of the game, Gary Kasparov can beat the best chess computer even though the computer can calculate positions many moves further ahead. Experience allows him to combine analysis with a “sense” of which move is best.

Your skill, knowledge and experience determine the potential effectiveness of your intuition. A weak chess player will never intuitively beat that computer. When enough good information is in your mind, it will go to work for you with or without your conscious participation, so feed it well. Also, watch for intuition to encourage it.

Sniff Roses or Rose Oil

This is relaxing for some people. The idea here is that sometimes you are too “wound up” for effective thinking. Relaxing can bring you back to a state where you can start again on a mental challenge, this time with more clarity. Again, I haven’t seen any studies done on this one, but it seems safe enough to try.

Adjust Your Mind Power Beliefs

Believe you are smarter, and you’ll become smarter. For this, affirmations may work, but even better is seeing evidence. Make a note of your successes. Tell yourself, “Hey, that was really creative,” when you do something creative. When you have a good idea, make a note of it. Gather the evidence for your own mind power and you’ll start to experience more of it.

An open mind is like an open well. It is easily contaminated by anything blowing in the wind. At least that is the problem with what many call an open mind. For example, you may have heard someone called open minded because he believes in visitors from space, bending spoons with mind power, and “remote viewing.” But isn’t this more a sign of a gullible mind? Let’s look at a healthier definition.

Open Mind – A Definition

We all like to think that we are open minded. Here is what that means according to a couple different dictionaries: 1. Receptive to new and different ideas or the opinions of others; 2. Not narrow or conservative in thought, expression, or conduct.

That sounds reasonable, and we might want to fit those definitions. The problem comes when we take this to mean that we must entertain any idea regardless of merit, or that believing in unlikely things is a sign of open-mindedness. Then we begin to give too much credit to faulty ideas and unsupportable beliefs in the name of having an open mind.

For example, I watched a program on crop circles the other day. These are circles and other geometric shapes of flattened crops that appear in fields around the world. For years many speculated that spaceships from other planets, “energy vortexes” and other outrageous things caused them. “Experts” claimed that they could not have been caused by humans. Much of the public bought into this hype in the name of having an open mind.

Of course when several individuals and groups finally claimed responsibility, and even showed exactly how they made the designs, they were ignored by many. Some people didn’t have an open mind after all -at least not open to the most likely scenario. They wanted a particular answer (space aliens) or wanted the mystery to be maintained. To this day the tricksters make their designs only to have paranormal “experts” tromp into the fields the following day and proclaim that no human could have done it.

Note that being curious about the mystery, and speculating about possible causes is not the problem. Being “receptive to new and different ideas” is a good thing. Adopting beliefs without supporting evidence may not be, however. Being receptive to the idea that previously unknown forces can cause things to happen is open minded, but it would also be very closed-minded to exclude the possibility that there are more normal explanations – especially when the bulk of the evidence points to this.

So what does it mean to have an open mind? To be receptive to new ideas and to avoid narrowness of thought, certainly. But being open minded doesn’t mean we have to accept ideas that make no sense, or adopt beliefs without any evidence or reason. And it has to mean at least that we are open to the possibility that the explanations we would like or which are more interesting may be wrong.

You have a brain that can analyze various possible explanations for things. An open mind may assure you that you consider all those possibilities, but it shouldn’t prevent you from discarding those explanations without evidence in favor of those with evidence. In other words, it should never be an excuse to believe anything in the absence of good thinking.

There are many ways to boost the power of the mind. Some of them are proven by science, some soon-to-be proven, and others that work for one person and not another. That is why I advocate the “shotgun approach” to increasing one’s mind power. Unlike rifle shells, shotgun shells have many pellets instead of one bullet. When fired, these spread out, so you don’t have to be as accurate in your aim. In other words it makes hitting the target easier and more likely.

What does this have to do with the power of the mind? Actually it is a useful metaphor for almost any goals we have, especially when the correct course of action is a bit uncertain. Try many things at once and one of these “pellets” is likely to hit the target. When you need a brain boost, then, and you are not sure what will work best, do more than one thing at a time.

For example, you could sit up straight, breath deeply, tell yourself you’re mentally powerful, have a cup of coffee and take a ginkgo biloba supplement. If one of these “hits the target,” you’re better off right? And if three out of the five of them work, you’ll be thinking much more clearly. When there are cheap and safe things to try, I advocate the “shotgun approach.” With that in mind, here are five more things to try.

Try A New Perspective

Try a new perspective when thinking about things this week. For example, imagine what your actions would look like to a being from another planet. Do they make more or less sense from that perspective? Or think about your income in terms of how much you make per hour or per day, or per action. Each of these ways can suggest different alternatives. New perspectives give you new insight.

Walking Conversation

You have probably heard about the benefits of exercise, and in particular walking, for the brain. You also probably know from experience how much a good conversation can clarify your thinking and help you generate new ideas. Why not combine the two? Take a walk with someone who you can have an intelligent conversation with. It will will be good for your body and the power of your mind.

Do Something You Enjoy

There isn’t much scientific evidence for this idea yet, but fully engaging in an activity you love seems to rest the brain and refresh it. Sometimes your mind is racing here and there – until you focus on something you enjoy doing. This might include building a birdhouse, playing a game of chess, downhill skiing, or a hundred other activities.

I used to get my brain-rest by chopping firewood. Afterwards, I always felt like I could think more clearly. The idea here is to take a break by doing something that fully engages your attention in an enjoyable way. Then you can get back to work, able to use your mind more effectively.

Eat Less

For clearer thinking, try eating less, or eating more smaller meals. The research shows that “brain fog” or the “sugar blues” is a real phenomenon, often caused by eating too many simple carbohydrates. But in addition to this, most of us have the experience of eating too much of any food and feeling mentally sluggish. Try a light food day, to see if you feel more mentally awake.

Solve Your Problems

Every day for a week pick a real problem and solve it, using any of the many creative problem solving techniques, or whatever your own routine is. These can be very simple or minor things, like fixing a sticky door, or finding a new way to organize your desk. This exercise isn’t about mentally inventing things – unless you can make a prototype today. Just creating new ideas can be good mental exercise and entertaining too, but the idea here is to train yourself to be a problem solver, and to relate that thought process to action. This is a powerful way to boost the power of the mind.