If you’ve ever felt hopeless about your mind being foggy, slow, or distracted, don’t worry. You can train your brain towards better memory recall, regained mental sharpness, and healthy brain speed.
Your brain is amazing: it can grow, adapt, and reshape itself with neuroplasticity. In this article, we’ll explore how neuroplasticity works and the best ways to strengthen your brain, through simple, daily habits.
Neuroplasticity and Learning: How They Work Together to Improve Your Brain
Neuroplasticity is the science-backed ability of your brain to change, adapt and rewire itself. It is your brain’s natural brain function, allowing you to form new habits, pick up new skills, and even recover from mental setbacks.
It all starts with your brain’s 100 billion neurons. These are tiny cells that send and receive electrochemical signals. Between them called synapses which are spaces where signals travel. This network forms neural pathways in your brain, allowing you to think, move, and feel.
When you practice a skill or think more deeply, you’re strengthening pathway. This makes it faster and easier for signals to travel resulting in a healthier, fit brain: with better memory recall and faster brain speed.
Maintaining this adult brain plasticity is why lifelong learning is essential. When you stop learning, those mental highways weaken and your brain’s processing speed slows down. But when you keep feeding your mind, you improve your memory, focus, creativity and overall mental agility.
Now that you know your brain can change, the next step is learning how to guide that change.
How to Exercise the Brain: 9 Important Habits
Keeping your brain in top-tip shape is not as hard as you think. Here are a few brain training activities based on our top books in ReadinGraphics:
1) Keep Learning
Whether it’s a new hobby, skill, or creative outlet, continuous learning builds new brain pathways. The varied the learning, the more flexible and adaptable your brain becomes.
Exposing yourself to learning new things keeps the brain active, boosting your critical thinking skills and cognitive skills.
Try this: Pick one new topic each month to explore through books, videos, or online courses. Commit 20 hours of learning to master a basic skill you can use in your daily life.
If you’d like to learn better, read our article on How to Learn Fast: The Ultimate Guide to Gaining Lifelong Learning Skills, or dive into our free book summaries for The First 20 Hours and Ultralearning.
2) Read More
There are more ways to entertain ourselves and get information in our modern lives. But reading isn’t just for entertainment. It’s also a valuable brain training exercise.
Making reading a hobby and part of your daily tasks will boost your comprehension, reading speed, and memory.
Try this: Set aside 15 minutes a day to read something that challenges your thinking. This works better if you read from physical materials, instead of digital screens.
Read our free book summary for How to Read a Book to boost your learning and brain exercise from reading.
3) Explore Cognitive Games and Puzzles
Games like Sudoku, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, or strategy games challenge your brain in fun and creative ways. They help improve memory, critical thinking skills, and problem-solving skills.
Using brain training apps for simple brain exercises for a few minutes per day also helps jog your brain’s mental capacity.
Try this: Choose one brain game to play during your downtime, or host a game night that includes strategy-based play. You can also increase your difficulty levels as you go to maintain the level of challenge.
4) Engage in Physical Activity
A healthy brain starts with a healthy body. Physical exercise increases blood flow to the brain and helps stimulate new brain cell growth. Regular movement and physical activity are their own brain training exercise!
Try this: Include short daily exercises in your routine. To get you started, you can do a few jumping jacks, or go for a quick walk.
Consistent physical activity leads to a better mind and better body, even in old age. You can read more about this and other healthy activities with our free The Blue Zones summary.
5) Get Enough Sleep
Your brain benefits from sleep: it improves your memory, motor task proficiency, and creativity. Sleep is also when your brain processes and stores what you’ve learned. Without sleep, you’re more likely to fail in these cognitive tasks, which leads to forgetfulness.
Proper sleep habits will keep your mind sharp, and your brain active for new information and learning.
Try this: Aim for 7–8 hours of sleep each night, and stick to a consistent sleep schedule—even on weekends.
Sleep is not just the number of hours, but also the quality of sleep. Learn more about the value of sleep in our lives with our free summary of Why We Sleep.
6) Eat Brain-Healthy Foods
Your brain needs the right fuel to maintain cognitive function. Nutrient-rich foods like leafy greens, berries, fatty fish, nuts, and plenty of water support cell renewal and energy production. This feeds a healthy brain and improves your overall physical health.
Try this: Swap sugary snacks and caffeine for brain-friendly options like walnuts or blueberries during your workday.
Healthy foods are great energy sources, not just for brain health. Learn more with our free summary on Good Energy.
7) Practice Meditation
Meditation helps improve concentration, reduce stress and build awareness. It trains your brain to stay present instead of jumping between distractions.
Try this: Make it a daily task to start with 5–10 minutes of guided meditation each morning, or find a quiet spot and take deep, mindful breaths before a major task.
You can learn more about the value of meditation with our free summary for Mindfulness in Plain English.
8) Lower Your Screen Time and Train Your Focus
Too much screen time—especially on social media—trains your brain for distraction. It leads to information overload, degrades your critical thinking skills, and your ability to perform complex cognitive tasks.
To avoid further cognitive impairment, set screen time limits and practice deep, undisturbed work.
Try this: Keep your phone and screens away when they are not needed, and set a timer for deep and focused work blocks.
Avoiding this attention crisis in our modern lives will improve your mental sharpness and keep the brain active for deeper work and activities. You’ll learn more about this in our free book summaries on Stolen Focus, and Deep Work.
9) Manage Stress Effectively
Chronic stress weakens the brain and can impair memory, critical thinking skills, and emotional regulation. Learning how to reset when stress levels are too high helps protect your brain and mental health.
Try this: When you feel overwhelmed, take a short walk, journal your thoughts, or talk to a trusted friend.
Identifying good and bad stress levels can benefit both your body and mind. Learn more about it with The Upside of Stress free book summary.
10) Surround Yourself with Growth-Minded People
The people around you influence how you think. When you spend time with like-minded individuals who value learning and self-improvement, you’re more likely to grow too.
Engaging in meaningful and deep conversations with like-minded individuals will help you engage a new mindset towards learning and growth.
Try this: Join a book club, mastermind group, or simply engage in deep meaningful conversations with people who inspire you to think bigger.
The people around you influence your mind. Read more about how you can shift your thinking about learning with our free book summary for Mindset.
Start To Train Your Brain Today
Your brain isn’t fixed. It can always be rewired and changed. And with the right daily habits, you can train your brain to be sharper, faster, and more adaptable for everyday life.
So don’t wait for the “perfect” time to get started. Pick one small habit today—whether it’s a 10-minute walk, enjoying a daily brain teaser, or getting to bed on time—and build from there. You’ll feel the benefits of brain training in no time.
If you want to keep improving yourself, explore Readingraphics’ detailed summaries of the best books on learning and personal development. Our book summaries will help you absorb powerful ideas faster—so you can train your brain to be smarter and wiser! You can also check out our article,
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