6 Keys to Boosting Your Brain and Memory for a Better Quality of Life

All of us want to be healthier, happier and live longer, more productive lives. Essential to quality of life are a good brain and memory, greater intelligence and being mentally active. Here are six useful keys to help you in re-vamping your lifestyle, improving your health and boosting your mental capacity.

Minimize the Stress in Your Life
Not only is excess stress bad for your mental processes, it’s harmful to your health and can even be a killer. Other aids to help minimize stress include getting enough sleep along with cutting down on consumption of caffeine from soft drinks, tea or coffee. Not more than two cups of coffee a day is the recommendation. One other stress-busting key is to laugh a lot and have more fun. Have you ever seen a stressed-out person at an amusement park? (other than a caregiver with too many charges). Take time to enjoy your life more.

Become More Mentally Active
Do brain teasers, work a variety of different games or puzzles. Try your hand at some crosswords, anything to get that grey matter working for a change. Play checkers, chess, backgammon, Monopoly or any other of numerous board games. You could also play card games. Bridge, Poker and other parlor card games are making a comeback from the video-game fever that has swept across the cultures of countries around the world. Whatever you do you need to challenge your brain. Only then will it respond, develop and grow

Eat Brain-Boosting foods
Brain-healthy fats like Omega-3, aid can not only in slowing down the onset of mind-debilitating disorders but can promote mental acuity. Consume more Olive oil, fish, and walnuts along with foods high in anti-oxidants as studies show they may actually increase mental ability. You should eat less unrefined carbohydrates - instant and processed foods can spike your blood sugar thus reducing brain function. Get the lowdown on a complete dietary overhaul by visiting a Dietician or Nutritionist.

Become More Physically Active
Links between reduced Alzheimer’s risk and regular physical activity has been well-established by doctors and numerous medical studies. So move it. Go for walks, jog, join a gym, take up a physical sport or go bowling. Be sure to get a medical checkup before engaging in any rigorous physical activity, but by all means do something for your muscles, heart and mind.

Improve Your General Health
Your general health greatly impacts your mental abilities or lack thereof. As your health improves, so will your mental skills in general. Quit smoking, or better yet, abandon any use of tobacco including, dipping, chewing, etc. Nicotine and other tobacco by products are transmitted into your system in different ways so switching from one form of tobacco use will not be of any benefit.

Other health-promoting tips include, but are not limited to:

• Don’t use addictive drugs
• Drink alcohol in moderation
• Have regular medical checkups

Learn and Practice a New Hobby or Skill

Make time to boost your mental activity by:

• Taking a class (preferably not a sedentary one like needlepoint, etc.)
• Learning a new sport, hobby or activity
• Learn an interesting new skill, even a new language

It’s Never Too Late
It’s never too late to grow mentally or learn. If I can be of any further help or you have a specific question, please feel free to contact me at the site listed below. Try these six useful keys to augment your lifestyle to aid you to live a healthier, happier, longer, more productive life.

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an EFL Teacher Trainer, Intellectual Development Specialist, author and speaker. He has written ESP, foreign language learning, English language teaching texts and hundreds of articles used in more than 80 countries. Get your FREE E-books,"If you Want to Teach English Abroad, Here's What You Need to Know" or "7 Techniques to Motivate Your English Language Learners and Make Your Classes More Dynamic" by requesting the title you want at: lynchlarrym@gmail.com Need a blogger or copywriter to promote your school, institution, service or business or an experienced writer and vibrant SEO content for your website, blog or newsletter? Then E-mail me for further information.

The Guinness Book of Records and the English Teacher

Meet Enrique Ortega Salinas

Passing from one to the other of us lined up side by side, Guinness Book of Records memorization record holder Enrique Ortega Salinas came face to face with me. I was about number 17 out of around thirty people.

“What’s your last name?” He asked me in a low key voice.

“It’s LYNCH. You know like when they hang someone?”
I pantomimed a noose-tightening gesture to illustrate.

“Oh, like linchar?” (It’s the equivalent word in Spanish.)

“That’s right.” I responded.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a university English as a foreign language professor.”

“And what’s your first name?”

“It’s Larry.”

“Hmmm.” He thought a moment or two before responding.

“I picture your students pulling you by the tie. They want to lynch you and you’re yelling at them in English.”

I laughed a little and responded, “I hope not.”

Enrique moved on to the next person. He was in the process of memorizing the last and first names of everyone at his demonstration session. He continued until he’d reached everyone. Then a few minutes later, he went back and calmly recited each of our names in turn. There were no mistakes.

Currently listed in the Guinness Book of Records with 320 numbers memorized in one view and 52 playing cards memorized in 49 seconds, Uruguay-born writer Enrique Ortega Salinas travels extensively throughout Latin America training others to accomplish seemingly amazing feats of mnemonic manipulation. Can you mentally multiply 3517 x 6209 with a perfect result in less than 15 seconds? How about something simpler like multiplying 817 x 582 in ten seconds or less? But wait, you’re a foreign language learner, so something more practical like memorizing a quick 100 new words of foreign vocabulary is a snap, right? It is for people like him. “Everyone has the potential to be a genius”, he says. Adding, “Your brain is an incredible computer you can learn to manage”.

Fortunately for us, he shares some of his techniques for rapidly internalizing lists of unrelated words or foreign vocabulary including first and last names. From a phone book or from asking around, find out the most common first and last names in the foreign language you’re learning.

Make a list of the last names you want to learn. Make other lists of male and female first names too. If they seem weird, difficult or unpronounceable at first, don’t worry. You’ll learn to get your tongue around the names soon enough. Begin familiarizing yourself with the names on your lists. Feel free to add more names that come up of people you regularly run across, no matter how trivial the contact with them might seem to be at first.

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is an English language teaching and learning expert author and university professor in Cali, Colombia. Live your dreams in paradise, find romance, high adventure and get paid while travelling for free. For more information on entering or advancing in the fascinating field of teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language send for the no-cost pdf Ebook, “If You Want to Teach English Abroad, Here’s What You Need to Know”, by sending an e-mail with "free ELT Ebook" in the subject line. For comments, questions, requests, to receive more information or to be added to his free TESOL articles and teaching materials mailing list, e-mail: lynchlarrym@gmail.com