Acceptance After a Brain Injury
Acceptance is the ultimate goal with regard to the stages of grief, your TBI or concussion, and the new you.
Acceptance is accepting who you are, where you are, how you are. This is it. This is YOU....
Brain fitness has two basic principles: variety and curiosity. When you do something so frequently that it becomes second nature, it is time for a change. If you can do the newspaper crossword puzzle with your eyes closed, it's time for you to find a new challenge to get the best workout for your brain. Being curious about the world around you, how it works, and how you can understand it will keep your mind working fast and efficiently. The tips below will help you on your quest for mental fitness.
Eat With Your Brain in Mind
Your brain needs you to eat healthy fats to maintain itself and function properly. Focusing on fish oils like omega-3 and omega-6 from wild salmon and other oily fish will provide your brain with the essential fatty acids it needs. Nuts such as walnuts are high in healthy fats and other essential nutrients which make them ideal for aiding in brain health, they are also low in calories which makes them a perfect healthy snack. Another healthy brain snack are seeds like flax-seed and sunflower seeds. Blueberries and avocados are brain super-foods; they are high essential nutrients and antioxidants that can help relieve the brain of stress. Eating more of these types of brain foods and eliminating trans fats from your diet can provide your brain with the power it needs to get through the day.
Play Engaging Games
Brain fitness games are an excellent way to challenge your brain. Sudoku, crosswords and mobile apps can all help improve your brain's speed and memory. These games rely on logic, word skills and more. These games are also fun to play. You'll get the best benefit by doing these games for a little bit every day, spending 15 minutes or so, not hours.
Turn Off the Television
The average adult watches about 5 hours of television per day (1 hour and 10 minutes of T.V time accounts towards streaming Netflix). Television can get in the way of making and maintaining personal relationships, overall health, quality of life and more. By turning off your TV and spending more time interacting with your environment and the people around you. By just turning off the television will help you exercise your brain and body in healthier alternatives.
Learn a New Skill
Learning a new skill involves multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes really into play, as you learn new movements and associate them with the talent you're learning. Learning complex skills like a new language or quilting, demand much more utilization of working and long-term memory when compared to more straightforward mental activities like crossword puzzles.
Read Something New
Books can travel well, are free from libraries, filled with infinite characters, information, and fantasies. To help strengthen your brain, try branching out from your usual reading topics. If you typically read history books, try a sci-fantasy novel. Read the classics, foreign authors, or a book recommended by a friend. Not only will your brain get a workout from imagining different periods in time, cultures and otherworldly people. You will also have captivating stories to discuss with friends about your reading, what you think of it, and the connections you draw between everyday life and the words on the page.
Train Your Brain
Brain training is becoming more and more a trend with each passing day. There are formal online courses and books with programs on how to train your brain to work more efficiently and faster. The basic principles of these programs center around memory, visualization, and reasoning. Working on these concepts every day, your brain will be ready for anything the day can bring.
Exercise Your Body to Exercise Your Brain
Physical exercise is a great way to exercise the brain too. By moving your body, your brain learns the new muscle movements, spatial distance estimations, engagements of other muscle groups, and balancing the body while actively performing the muscle movements. There are a variety of exercise moves you can learn to challenge your brain.
Meditation
Daily meditation is perhaps the most significant thing you can do for your mind/body health. Not only does meditation relax you, but it also gives your brain a workout. By creating a different mental state, you begin to engage your mind in new and exciting ways.
Conclusion
Exercising your brain can be as challenging as you would like to push yourself. From simply eating a more balanced diet to physical exercise and meditation, At Cognitive FX, we understand how brain exercises and a nutrient-rich diet can help you keep your mind in shape or whip back into shape. When our patients graduate from our week long EPIC Treatment program. We provide them with exercises and other recommendations they can do at home to continue progressing in their concussion recovery.
