Health
5 cognitive behavioural habits to reduce stress (no yoga required)
Our brain is one of the most powerful organs in our body and it can be kept in shape with daily habits. Give at least 1 of these 5 moves a go to avoid cognitive decline and keep your mind as active as your body.
By Alex Brooks
Our brains are complex and mushy grey organs that can make you feel bleugh, brilliant or something in between.
Your brain is also ‘neuroplastic’ which means it can form new connections, strengthen pathways, and even create brand-new brain cells. You’ve got about 100 billion neurons and with the right daily cognitive habits, you can grow more, no matter how old you are.
So if you want to keep your brain (and mood) in tip top shape, try some of these ideas to see if you can make the habit stick
Upgrading your brain’s software: how to tune your cognition
Your brain’s horsepower – or cognition – fuels memory, quick decisions, and problem-solving. Exciting new research from UNSW’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing published in the journal Nature confirms that with the right coaching and daily habits, you can keep your mind sharp and agile.
In fact, it’s so powerful that it can delay the onset of dementia by a year. It may even potentially ‘re-able’ people who experience mild cognitive decline, according to the data.
Most of the coaching outlined in the study involved improving your nutrition (that Mediterranean Diet comes up trumps again), sleep and strength training, but there were also ‘thinking activities’ or brain training too.
Think of the following cognitive activity ideas as upgrading your brain — the more you use certain parts of your brain for learning, movement, connections and problem-solving, the faster and stronger it can become. (On the flip side, bad habits like stressing out, ruminating or catastrophising can also get faster and stronger.)
Cognitive habit 1: Use the wrong hand
Whether you’re a lefthander or righthander, all of us have what’s called a dominant side. Our brains have 2 spheres and there’s a myth that some of us are analytical and left-brained while others are more creative and right-brained.
In fact, the brain needs to keep the connections between both spheres of the brain alive and zinging, which is why using your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, tie up your shoelaces or write a love letter to your partner can fire up your synapses. You can also try folding laundry, hanging up clothes or opening doors with your other hand to give your brain a workout.
Oh, and just so you know, there is no difference in cognitive ability between lefties or righties. Hand preference is related to cerebral dominance, not your overall cognition or intelligence.
Why it works: Using the wrong hand often feels uncomfortable but it engages your less-used neural pathways to forge new connections - the bonus is that it might improve your coordination and fine motor skills, too.
Cognitive habit 2: Trick your brain to hack better sleep
Are you one of the 48% of Australians who report sleep-related problems? Most of us have at least 2 sleep issues – some of us can’t fall asleep, some wake in the night and others sleep for too long or don’t treat their sleep apnoea.
The Sleep Health Foundation says most adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night, but there are plenty of habits you can develop to improve your sleep, including:
- Set sleep limits – lying in bed when you’re awake can put you in a cycle of poor sleep, so if you don’t fall asleep within 30 minutes, get up and don’t go back to bed until you’re sleepy. And yes, this applies even if you wake in the middle of the night.
- Avoid handheld devices or screens in the bedroom – the body’s circadian rhythm is affected by natural light and the ‘blue light’ from screens. Expose yourself to bright sunlight early in the day to ‘set’ your natural sleep-wake cycle for success.
- Do more physical exercise to make yourself tired.
- Have a late night! Most adults need to be awake for at least 16 hours to sleep at night. Just like the only way to feel hungry is to not eat, the only way to develop your ‘sleep-drive’ is to be awake.
More tips here: Make your sleep habits as clean as your sheets
You can also try this ‘passive-awake’ strategy: when you’re trying to fall asleep don’t let your mind focus on trying to fall asleep. This paradoxical cognitive technique helps ‘trick’ your mind into falling asleep.
The theory of this cognitive habit is that sleep, like breathing and digesting food, is a passive process that cannot be controlled. So when we stop trying to force sleep to happen, it of course does. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl invented this ‘paradoxical intention’ technique and apparently said “sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one’s hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it; if one attempts to grab it, it quickly flies away.”
A different version of this trick is to force yourself to keep your eyes open for as long as possible – you’ll soon tire and fall asleep. If that doesn’t work, try progressive muscle relaxation or listening to Jason Stephenson’s guided sleep talkdown (it’s had 26 million views - try it!).
Why it works: Deep sleep cleans out the “gunk” in your brain (yes, it’s a real thing—scientists call it beta-amyloid), which means fewer risks of waking up feeling foggy or developing a chronic condition. (PS: Citro also has some great sleep hygiene and natural therapy tips.)
Cognitive habit 3: Try the 3:3:3 trick
If you’re prone to over-thinking and anxiety, the 3:3:3 exercise can make you quickly change gears while giving your mind a tune-up at the same time.
This exercise involves looking around your immediate environment to:
- name 3 things you see
- identify 3 sounds you can hear
- identify 3 things you can feel
Name 3 objects you can see – for instance, a car, a tree, a dog. Next, name 3 things you can hear – say, a bird, traffic noise or the hum of an air conditioner. Finally, name 3 things you can feel, like a warm wind, hair in your eyes, the chair you’re sitting on.
This mindfulness activity helps you change gears and snap out of any negative thought patterns or doom loops of anxiety. It helps recalibrate your thinking and processing speeds.
The more you practice 3:3:3, the better you get. If you want to take it further, carry around a small notebook to periodically take notes about your 3:3:3. Or mix it up and try to list 3 things you are grateful for or 3 people you love.
Why it works: Engaging your body’s senses helps build connections between taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing at the same time. It shifts your brain from autopilot to focus, and there's research that says it might even improve working memory.
Cognitive habit 4: Game on
From card games or board games, playing in the company of other people bathes our brains in feelgood neurotransmitters like dopamine.
If you’re a physical game-player, break out the quoits, darts or bocce. If you like paper-based games, try noughts and crosses, hangman or just fold paper into a plane and throw it at someone with the message “wanna play with me?”.
Online games can be good and some research has even found that video games can stimulate regions of the brain associated with attention and memory, so dust off that XBox or hunt down an old hand-held version of Donkey Kong or Pacman if it appeals to you. But playing with other people is the real key to unlocking benefits.
Breaking free from your strict “must-dos” or “have-tos” and remembering how to engage and delight your brain while connecting with other people strengthens cognitive resilience. It’s also fuel for a thriving mind.
Why it works: When you're playing with others, your brain gets a healthy dose of dopamine, the ‘reward’ chemical that makes winning, strategising, and social interactions feel exciting and motivating.
Cognitive habit 5: Dream up a goal - then seize it
Some people want to climb Mount Everest, some want to climb the stairs without feeling out of breath. Me? I’m happy climbing up and down on the park bench 10 times to strengthen my soggy quad muscles.
Put your brain to work by dreaming up a challenge that excites you – it might be learning a new skill, trying something artistic like a ballet lesson, joining in at a pub choir, learning carpentry or hooning around in a race car.
The other way to tackle this is to teach something valuable to a person who wants to learn – for example, show someone how to grow herbs, bake sourdough bread, swing a golf club or join the library (hey, it takes all types). Teaching helps you challenge your brain to explain concepts and break down the steps while inspiring others.
Sometimes simply scheduling something – anything – in a calendar can make you follow through and create new motivation. If you’re still struggling to find a goal that motivates you, schedule 30 minutes to dream one up. If dreaming isn’t enough, try journaling or freewriting to see what your subconscious is telling you to try.
Why it works: Setting new goals helps reignite purpose and find ways to enrich your time. The real key is something called ‘sustained engagement’, especially in novel or new activities, which enhances episodic memory. The more time spent engaging in new or novel activities – whether it’s with other people or alone – the more it enhances your memory function.
Feature image: iStock/dusanpetkovic
Try these ideas too: