How To Make Every Day A 'Good Brain Day'

Greg Rakozy/ Stocksnap

Power-up your brain for inspiration every day

Ever wonder why some days, you have bags of energy and feel super-productive, making decisions with ease and brimming over with creative ideas? On others, you struggle to think with clarity and feel mentally and physically sluggish? Sometimes, you might be aware there’s an obvious reason: a bad cold, or a hangover. But at other times, the explanation may be far less obvious.  It’s not uncommon for business leaders to be so work-focused that everything else is done on autopilot. Bad habits slip under the radar, and even if they have only a small impact, this has a cumulative negative effect on energy levels and brainpower. Often, these habits may be sabotaging the quality of your work and hampering your cognitive resource.

I’m a big believer in the importance of marginal gains – making small daily tweaks to behavior and habits that add up, over time, to boost energy and foster the internal conditions for optimal brain function. To illustrate what I mean, I’ve set up a series of good day vs bad day scenarios, to demonstrate the impact that all those small decisions have on your brain:

GOOD DAY: You wake up refreshed after a deep 7-8 hours of sleep

BAD DAY: You wake up tired after a fitful night, having gone to bed later than intended

Research shows that getting between 7 and 8 hours sleep is optimal for adults. Each hour of sleep lost will deplete your cognitive resource the following day. Long-term sleep deficit builds up into a ‘sleep debt’ over time. But you can have too much of a good thing. Oversleeping (more than 9 hours) can make you lethargic and increases a tendency to obesity and other cardiac risk factors. Keep a sleep diary for a week to see if you are getting the balance right.

GOOD DAY: You climb out of bed and do some yoga stretches

BAD DAY: You stumble out of bed after pressing snooze for 40 minutes, with no time to stretch

Stretching boosts blood flow to your muscles and your brain. Even five minutes of sun salutations (flowing yoga sequence) will increase your energy and concentration, and if you have more time, so much the better. In a study, subjects who did 20 minutes of yoga per day saw dramatic improvements in both working memory and inhibitory control, two measures of brain function that relate to our ability to assimilate and retain new information and maintain focus.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/taraswart/2018/06/15/how-to-make-every-day-a-good-brain-day/