What can I do to improve the general performance of my brain?

There are five key areas that show some benefits:

• Aerobic exercise
• Anaerobic exercise
• New challenges
• Social contact
• Internal locus of control

Exercise

It increases the blood supply to the brain, giving the brain the fuel it needs. Aerobic exercise stimulates the neurotropic factors we
mentioned earlier, which act as a fertiliser. They help you to grow new brain cells. The other kind of exercise is anaerobic, also known as nonaerobic, exercise, which can be thought of as ‘load bearing’
exercise. This is the sort of exercise people get from those weight resistance machines in the gym. You can also get it from gardening. All of these things are good for your brain.

New challenges

And then there are mental challenges. Most people don’t tend to learn new things just for the sake of learning new things. We tend to stick to familiar things. New challenges, new things, friends, these are all important for the health of your brain.
 

Social contact
 

Having friends is good for your brain. The brain is a social organ. Part of its function is to interact with other people, and the only way to do this is for you to mix with other people. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a broad circle of friends, not just people who are a lot like yourself, but also people that are different.

Internal locus of control
 

This is about taking responsibility. The technical term for this is an internal locus of control, which basically means believing you can do something about a situation. In those unfortunate situations, where perhaps someone has developed cancer or lost all their money, there are those who would respond by saying to themselves: They
did it to me… or: There’s nothing I can do… or: It’s fate. That’s lack of control. Other people, in a similar situation, do take control. Their
response is to say: What can I do about this situation? Whom can I enlist to help me? What books could I read? What else can I do?
People who do that live a more active cognitive life; and that means their thinking skills are retained into old age.