In today’s day and age, we’re learning about a lot of things we took for granted before. Thanks to new research and technology, we’re learning better ways to take care of our bodies, and – perhaps more importantly – our brains. We now know that certain foods we eat help to increase our circulation – and thus the blood flow to our brains. This has helped us fuel our minds and bodies to do incredible things. However, thanks to new studies, we now know that we can do a lot more than eat healthily to further our cognitive abilities. These four things can help you boost your brain power and accomplish great things!

Exercise

This probably isn’t surprising to you, since you likely already know what kind of great health benefits exercise brings. What may surprise you, is just how little exercise it takes. Studies have shown that just 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise will send extra blood to your brain. With it, comes the oxygen (and other nutrients) that your brain needs to function at its maximum performance level. And the best part? Preliminary results in research are finding that cardiovascular exercise may even make structural changes to the brain. Talk about a brain boost!

The Paleo Diet

This one might surprise you since the paleo diet is regarded as too intense by some. However, those same intense methods lead to extraordinary results in boosting our mental capacities. The paleo diet calls for people to eat more fats – what many diets try to avoid. However, this is actually very helpful since our brains are actually 60% fat. And guess what? Almost all of it comes from our diet! If you have a low fat diet, you’ll deprive your brain of the much needed fats it needs to fuel itself. But if you provide your brain with enough fat? Get ready for some amazing results!

Get More Sleep

You may know that you don’t feel well when you don’t get enough rest, but do you know why? The answer is long and quite complicated, but the simple version is when you don’t get enough sleep, your brain doesn’t get to spend enough time in REM cycle. Many of us are reluctant to leave our dreams anyway, but this is actually an extremely important process that allows our body to reset. The parts of the brain that reset during this period of time are the areas responsible for our creative thought and problem solving. The solution? Get at least 20 more minutes of sleep. You may have to miss the Late Night Show, but if it means you’re going to feel better it’s worth it, right?

Try Dual N-Back Training

This new sort of brain training has been shown to increase both productivity and intellect. Those who have tried this method of boosting their brains have been very pleased with the results. For the best results, you should try to set aside 20-30 minutes of each day to devote to training your brain. The results will be well worth it! Many people report decreased instances of losing their train of thought as well as being able to concentrate better while working. It also helps to improve your short term memory abilities.