“Do you often find yourself looking for something and you forgot what it was? Do you wake up with brain fog and mental fatigue? Do you frequently forget what you were going to say or find it difficult to focus on a specific task?”
Well, we can put all the blame on age. But the truth is that this goes hand in hand with our habits and the care that we give our brain. Although aging is a factor, we can manage our ability to concentrate and improve our memory. How? Well, here are some tips.
Sleep
First, it is essential to talk about the quality of sleep. Sleeping at least 7 hours a day allows our brain to rest and cleanse itself. It is important to take care of and respect sleep since it influences various brain functions and our entire body. A tired brain cannot focus nor maintain a good memory.
Exercise
Exercising or going for a walk in nature helps oxygenate and produce several hormones, including serotonin, the happiness hormone. This works in our brain as a neurotransmitter. It allows neural connections to occur, which is essential for concentration and memory.
Diet
Although it might not seem linked, there are foods that can promote or disturb concentration. So try to eat as clean as possible, consuming organic and unprocessed foods. In particular, avoid neurotoxins such as aspartame and monosodium glutamate (MSG) that directly affect brain functions.
Around 60% of our brain is made up of fat. So consuming healthy fats such as fish, omega-3 supplements, and nuts and dried fruits greatly benefits your brain. Also anti-inflammatory and antioxidant foods such as berries and dark green leafy vegetables will help detoxify and promote greater oxygenation.
Drink
Try to consume more green tea than coffee. Although coffee contains more caffeine than green tea, the latter contains L-theanine. This is an amino acid that increases attention, mental focus, and helps increase alertness. Another advantage is that green tea releases energy in a constant way for a longer sustained time. This avoids the energy peaks and falls that coffee produces and which cause that feeling of needing to drink another cup and raise the energy peak again.
Create order
The next step is mental order. Our life can be full of work and pending tasks. However, if you maintain habits that help you achieve order and peace of mind, it will be very healthy for your brain.
So, order your ideas, using an agenda or a diary to write down what floods your mind. It is also important to use meditation and breathing techniques. And we should apply the principles of living in mindfulness and awareness of our present to our day-to-day lives. For this, we must avoid “multitasking” or going on autopilot without paying attention to what we do.
Yes, we are women, by nature our mind is complex. We have the ability to do and solve several things at the same time. But calm down! To improve concentration and be more efficient, focussing all your attention on a single task at a time will gain better results.
Reduce stress
Now, let’s talk about the famous “stress”. These days we are exhausted. Bad news, worries, problems, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, bad diet, and I can go on forever. They cause our limbic system in the brain to become overactive producing countless automatic negative thoughts and feelings of depression, anxiety and negativity.
This is what exhausts our mind and takes away our concentration. The good news is that this is where essential oils directly act and work their magic!
- Inhaling rosemary essential oil is spectacular for promoting mental clarity and improving memory retention.
- Citrus essential oils such as lemon, tangerine and grapefruit are also wonderful for calming the mind, lowering mental stress levels, and stimulating positive mood. They lower tension, which triggers greater concentration and focus on our daily tasks. A few drops of one of these oils in a diffuser at your workplace will do wonders for your performance. You will feel more focused and productive. I do not advise applying them topically as citrus fruits can irritate the skin if you apply them undiluted. Another reason is that they are photosensitive and can stain the skin when exposed to the sun.
- Peppermint, although not specifically to calm the mind, has the ability to wake it up. If you are experiencing brain fog and you need a “boost” of mental energy, you can apply a drop in the palm of your hand and inhale the oil. Always be very careful that it does not come into contact with your eyes and mucous membranes of the nose. You can also rub a couple of drops of this oil on the lower part of the skull and the nape of the neck. This will help you release tension and feel more clear.
Detect which of these aspects you should improve and work on it. Your peace of mind is the foundation of your health, don’t let anything take it away from you.
Mary Carmen Zaidan.
Aging. Body Health. Lifestyle. Mental Wellbeing
Photo by @pablo-merchan-montes.
