How to Keep Your Mind Fresh

Supporting Memory and Mental Sharpness

Exercise your brain with puzzles and games. There’s little evidence that the “memory-boosting” games and apps out there can specifically improve your memory. That said, challenging and exercising your brain is likely to support its overall health. Try activities like the following: Crossword puzzles or Sudoku. Strategy-based card or board games. Quiz- or challenge-based group games.

Seek out opportunities to keep learning. If you want your mind to stay sharp, it makes sense to put it to use as much as you can. Aim to learn something new every day—thanks to technology, the opportunities for learning are nearly endless! Learn a new language, or learn to play a musical instrument. Sign up for a class at your local community center, library, or community college. Volunteer to work with kids in your community—you’ll learn at least as much as you’ll teach! Read random wikiHow articles, or try your hand at writing a few!

Choose activities that engage several or all of your senses. Multi-sensory activities activate more parts of your brain and may benefit your mental sharpness. You may not be able to fully engage sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch with every activity, but try to get multiple senses involved whenever possible. For example, taking a hike on a spring day can engage multiple senses—seeing and smelling the budding flowers, hearing animals scurrying about, feeling the water droplets from an unexpected spring shower, and so on. Cooking and baking are also good multi-sensory activities.

Use mnemonic devices and other “shortcuts” to assist your memory. The easier you make it to remember something, the more likely you are to actually remember it! Mnemonic devices are simple memory techniques that use patterns, images, and other tools to help make remembering something much easier. Try the following: Association. Connect a name or other fact to an easy-to-remember mental image. For example, picture 16 stovepipe hats that are sick in bed to remember that Abraham Lincoln was from Illinois ("ill") and was the 16th U.S. president. Chunking. Break up larger pieces of information into smaller, more manageable pieces. For instance, break up your student ID number (20011492609) into “chunks” that you can associate with other things—like your uncle’s favorite movie (“2001”), Christopher Columbus (“1492”), and your house number as a kid (“609”). Acronyms and acrostics. Famous examples include “Roy G. Biv” to remember the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and “Every good boy does fine” to remember the lines on the treble music staff (EGBDF).

Build and maintain social connections with others. Being socially isolated may contribute to mental decline, while staying socially active may help keep your mind fresh. Interacting with others exercises your brain, improves your mood, and offers encouragement to engage in other brain-boosting activities. Join a club, volunteer, go out with friends, or do any number of other activities to stay socially active. If you can’t socially engage with others in person, use technology—such as phone calls, video chats, and social media—to connect with them.

Believe in yourself and your ability to learn and grow. Can a positive attitude help keep your mind fresh? It’s hard to say for sure, but it certainly can’t hurt! Believe that you can make wise and often simple decisions to help your memory and mental sharpness. You might want to quietly remind yourself: “I choose to go for a jog and do 30 minutes of French lessons today to help keep my mind sharp.” Don’t sell yourself short! Embrace opportunities for growth and learning.

Maintaining Your Focus

Have a healthy snack and drink a glass of water. You may be more likely to find your mind wandering or to experience “brain fog” if your body is even slightly dehydrated or short on nutrients. When you feel out-of-focus, take a quick break. Drink a glass of water and enjoy a nutritious snack, then see if you can focus more effectively. Opt for a healthy snack like a handful of nuts and dried fruit or some carrot and celery sticks. Unhealthy snacks don’t give your body the nutrients it craves. Any beverage will hydrate you, but water is the ideal choice.

Go for a nature walk when you’re feeling unfocused. It’s hard to say exactly why, but getting out into nature really does seem to help with mental focus. A bit of fresh air and sunlight certainly might help, and the multi-sensory experience that the natural world offers may also stimulate your mind and help it to focus. Taking any kind of quick break is a good idea when you’re feeling unfocused, and a short nature walk is one of the healthiest and most invigorating break options out there. When you’re out in nature, try to take it all in. Listen to the birds. Watch the bees moving from flower to flower. Feel the breeze on your cheeks. Focusing here may help you focus better back in the office!

Take a quick nap so you can recharge and refocus. It’s a simple fact: it’s hard to focus when you’re tired. A 20-minute “power nap” may be all you need to lift your “brain fog” and get your focus back. Try to find a comfy napping spot instead of plopping your head down on your desk, though! If you’re frequently unfocused and feeling like you need a nap, you may not be getting enough sleep at night. Make it a priority to improve the quantity and quality of your sleep.

Use citrus scents or ambient noise to potentially improve focus. It’s hard to find clear scientific proof here, but it’s possible that citrus scents may help improve focus. Try using an essential oil diffuser with lemon or another citrus scent and see if it helps. At the very least, your “thinking space” will certainly smell better! While you may think that absolute silence is best for helping you focus, it’s possible that low ambient noise, such as sitting in quiet coffee shop or putting on light classical music, might improve both mental clarity and creativity. Try out some different setups and see what works best for you.

Spurring Creativity

Embrace your inner child and imagine freely. You may be stifling your creativity because you’re afraid of looking or feeling silly. Instead, act like a kid again and let your imagination run wild! The more you allow your creativity to flow freely, the more likely you’ll be to come up with the type of idea, creation, or solution you’re hoping for. Instead of engaging in “anxious mulling” like adults often do, engage in some child-like “joyous doing.” When you’re brainstorming or just letting your mind wander freely, there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Each little spark of creativity helps lead to another.

Connect with people who are different from you. Interacting with people who have different backgrounds and perspectives challenges your assumptions and opens your mind to new possibilities. Being part of a diverse team can boost your group creativity, and it can benefit your individual creative mind as well. The deeper your interactions are with people who are different from you, the more likely you are to boost your creativity.

Write, sketch, or doodle your creative impulses. Getting more physically involved in your creative process may engage your senses more fully and inspire more outside-the-box thinking. Scribbling down your ideas in a notebook may be more tangible and engaging than typing them on a laptop, for instance, although it should be said that everyone’s creative impulses are unique. Whatever it is that works best for you, try to make creativity an activity—engage with it fully, not passively.

Think while you’re walking instead of sitting. There’s some evidence that walking while thinking—whether indoors or outdoors—can spur greater creativity. The reasons why this may be so aren’t clear, but it may have to do with being more actively engaged—both mentally and physically—with your creative process. Walking can also release tension and promote relaxation, which certainly might help improve creativity. Instead of shutting yourself in your room until you come up with that next great idea, try taking a stroll around the neighborhood. Just make sure not to get so absorbed in creativity that you forget to watch where you’re going!

Keeping Your Brain Healthy

Eat a healthy diet to support brain health. Your brain’s health is tied to your overall health. Choosing a healthy diet is one of the best ways to support brain health and potentially support mental freshness. Aim for the following as you plan your diet: Eat more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Some foods may have particular “brain boosting” benefits, including leafy greens, fatty fish, walnuts, berries, tea, and coffee. Cut back on added sugars, unhealthy fats, and processed foods.

Stay physically active to benefit all aspects of your health. Choosing a healthy diet and getting regular physical activity are the twin pillars of healthy lifestyle choices. While doing both can’t guarantee mental freshness, you’ll give yourself the best chance by taking your health seriously. The average adult should aim for 150+ minutes of moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise (such as brisk walking or swimming) per week, as well as 2+ strength training sessions per week. Consult your doctor first if you have existing health conditions or are sedentary.

Make sure you're getting enough high-quality sleep each night. A lack of sleep definitely hinders mental freshness in the short term, and it may have long-term negative impacts as well. Sleep is essential to your overall health, so make getting a good night's shut-eye a priority. Most adults should get around 8 hours of sleep per night. Create a comfortable sleep environment and follow a consistent bedtime routine to help you sleep longer and better. Talk to your doctor if you consistently have trouble sleeping well at night.

Quit smoking and limit your alcohol intake. Smoking is bad for your overall health and your brain health in numerous ways, and certainly can't help you keep your mind fresh. Similarly, while limited alcohol intake is probably okay, drinking too much is harmful to your health and likely to work against mental freshness. Don't feel as though you have to go it alone in order to quit smoking. There are many treatments available, so consult with your doctor to develop a plan that can work for you. Aim to have 1 or fewer alcoholic drinks per day. If you have a problem with excess alcohol consumption, reach out to your doctor for guidance.