The Trick is to Achieve a Healthy Balance.

This leads me to say all the more, we should first and foremost focus on our mental fitness. This is because we must eliminate any neurotic and obsessive tendencies or other imbalanced behaviours we may have, before beginning any pursuit.

What is mental fitness? Something many people don't keep up. Mental fitness and sharpness games and techniques are meant to keep our mental synapses and brain waves stimulated and working. Like they say, the mind, like the body, without exercise can get quite dull. We must seek to keep it sharp.

What are some ways to keep the mind sharp? I've found 5 key ways to keep the mind sharp:

1. Play a fair share of brain games a couple times a week. Examples include:

Other Important Points

2. Exercise and stay active the right way. More oxygen to the brain, and the better you can think, maintain and remember. So stay active, but properly balance work and rest or inactivity. If you are always on the go, this can also wear you out after a while. If you are always lethargic, you'll surely get dull. Find a way to be active, but also to relax, and you'll strike the right balance.

3. Get the proper rest, like 7-9 hours sleep a night. Also, take a cat nap when the body needs it. Go to bed if you're tired, don't fight it unless it's abnormally excessive. Then see a doctor. Also realize you may be fighting something or recovering from a virus or flu that is almost gone, and makes you more tired than usual.

Be sure to exercise too for less tiredness, just be careful because exercising when sick can over-tax the system and tip the scales to make you sicker. Been there, done that. Illness also seems like the way people are forced to finally get the proper rest again these days. What a shame!.

I've proven it so many times to myself that a good night's rest almost doubles productivity, and that productivity should be the norm and is therefore not really double. Why not? Because we usually are sleep deprived and therefore performing about half as well or effectively as we could be. Don't tell your boss though, or you'll ask for more stress!

4. Get the proper brain nutrition and the right fluid and water intake. This will chemically and hormonally balance the body and stimulate brain activity.

It's proven that certain foods like fish are brain food with nutrients like choline. There are many others, undoubtedly. I personally like Miso soup and tuna, but am not a big seafood fan, so I've still have found a way to get some brain food. The seaweed in Miso soup is full of life, vitality, brain stuff, healthy nutrients and anti-cancer stuff. Try it! More on that later...

5. Read a lot. Yes, reading, and things like editing or note-taking are activities that stimulate mental activity and brain use. Read mostly nonfiction, but also some fiction for left and right brain stimulation. Learn a foreign language. Take a class, learn, mentally build yourself, study, re-learn and refresh in math. Take a class every so often at the local community college or vocational college, at night even. It's great for social networking as well as skill building. All of this helps and can be fun.

Summary

All in all, do the activities and lead the lifestyle that stimulate the brain rather than let it become sedentary. No big secret, not too difficult, yet invaluable!