Happy first day of school to whoever has started, and good luck for those of you whose 1st day didn't come yet! Regardless of where you are in your academic journey, it will be useful to know a few simple non-academic life hacks to improve your brainpower. Those things you can practice on a daily basis, and it would be interesting if you'd set up a little self experiment where you would record and track any changes brought to you by those life hacks. Anyway, let's get into them:
FOODS
Food exists to give our organisms the energy to live, but certain foods, like superfoods, exist to give us the brain power by providing our bloodstream with antioxidants and vitamins. Since cooking might not be an option for a busy student, you can enjoy snacking on the following items:
- blueberries (memory)
- pumpkin seeds (memory)
- walnuts (mental alertness)
- tomatoes (antioxidant)
- dark chocolate (concentration)
etc.
I highly recommend this website for all important superfoods.
Water is also crucial "brain food" because it keeps our brain hydrated at all times. If you are a coffee drinker, make sure that for every 100mL of coffee, you consume 200mL of water.
ACTIVITIES
Exercising makes our heart pump the blood all around our bodies faster and this is how our brain gets more Oxygen. This must improve our cognitive functioning, memory, focusing, as well as faster information processing. If you are not a sports fan (like me), starting off with 10 minutes of jumping jacks and/or other cardio exercise a few times during the day, will improve the neurogenesis (creation of nerve cells) and therefore, improve our mental capacities.
Sleeping 7-9 hours daily at a more or less organized time frame will also contribute some brain power to our organisms. Not only we will have more energy, but also our memory and cognitive functioning will improve, contributing to higher academic standing. It is important to maintain a specific time frame for your sleep, since it will set our brains to function more efficiently during a needed period of time (during lecture, for instance).
Breathing exercises a few times during the day will help deliver more Oxygen to your brain, so even if you're not into meditating, try to breathe deeper at some points of your day.
ORGANIZATION
Having an organized desk, laptop, room, backpack, locker, or whatever it is you have is important to simply save you time while looking for something. But that's not it. Organization = efficiency. Even if you think that you will find your item within the debris in your room, your brain uses more energy to visually go through the disorganised objects, which exhausts you a little later. Not only organization itself is important, but you should also try to keep your workspace minimalistic for the same as above reason.
I will be posting about desk organization really soon, so don't forget to check it out.
The colour scheme of your work area is also important. Green is a good choice in order not to overwhelm your eyes. Same goes for the majority of light, cool colours. In terms of your desk lamp, or computer screen, though, assure that it is adjusted to a duller and warmer shade at night to avoid eye pain and exhaustion.
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