3 Ways to Power Up Your Brain

You work out and eat smart to build your body so take a similar approach to train your brain: use this plan to sharpen memory, boost creativity, and banish stress.

Thanks to advances in scanning technology, doctors now have unprecedented insights into how a man's brain works. "It's scary, but we can actually see how cramming for an exam, hitting the weights, or partying in Vegas can expand or destroy your mental circuitry," says P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., a neuroscientist with the Duke institute of brain sciences and a Men's Health brain-health advisor. "Throughout your life, your neural networks are constantly rewiring themselves in response to your diet, exercise, work, and social habits." By tapping into this ability of your brain to change its own structure and function, you can achieve peak mental fitness.

WORKOUT STRATEGIES TO BUILD MENTAL MUSCLE

Working out boosts production of the proteins that stimulate brain-cell growth, says John J. Ratey, M.D., author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. "It also revs your heart to pump more blood to your brain, which brings glucose and oxygen to help your neurons work optimally." A variety of research shows that exercise may also improve memory, delay neural aging, and fight depression. 

Forty minutes of aerobic training three times a week for a year can increase the size of an older adult's hippocampus by 2 percent, which may lead to improvements in memory, according to research by Arthur F. Kramer, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "It appears that the type of activity is interchangeable, but we're still trying to figure out the exact criteria for frequency." In his study, the participants walked, but he suggests moderate-intensity cycling, running, rowing, or swimming.

Strength training for 60 minutes, three times a week for 6 months can help improve short-and long-term memory performance and attention as you age, according to a Brazilian study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The need to focus on technique when doing different lifts provides a cognitive challenge you may not get while doing a repetitive exercise like running, says Gary Small, M.D., director of the UCLA longevity center and coauthor of The Alzheimer's Prevention Program.