Many men are devoted to exercise to bulk up their bodies, but the phrase “use it or lose it” applies to more than just the muscles in our bodies -- it also applies to the neural pathways and connections in our brains. There are a variety of exercises and activities that can successfully work each of the brain’s five major cognitive functions on a daily basis. In addition to the tasks you can perform daily, you can also train your brain with HAPPYneuron online brain games and a personalized brain fitness program.

    Our minds consist of five main cognitive functions:

    * memory,
    * attention,
    * language,
    * visual-spatial skills,
    * and executive function.

    It’s important to challenge, stimulate and effectively exercise all five areas to stay mentally sharp as our brains age. Here are 5 daily brain exercises that can help you do this.

    1- Memory

    Memory plays a crucial role in all cognitive activities, including reading, reasoning and mental calculation. There are several types of memory at work in the brain. Taken together, these are the cognitive skills we may notice most when they begin to fail. To maintain a good memory, you need to train for it, which can be easier than you think. Listening to music is not only enjoyable, but by choosing a song you don’t know and memorizing the lyrics, you boost the level of acetylcholine, the chemical that helps build your brain, and improve your memory skills. Challenge yourself even more by showering or getting dressed in the dark or using your opposite hand to brush your teeth. These challenges help build new associations between different neural connections of the brain.

    2- Attention

    Attention is necessary in nearly all daily tasks. Good attention enables you to maintain concentration despite noise and distractions and to focus on several activities at once. We can improve our attention by simply changing our routines. Change your route to work or reorganize your desk -- both will force your brain to wake up from habits and pay attention again. As we age, our attention span can decrease, making us more susceptible to distraction and less efficient at multitasking. By combining activities like listening to an audio book with jogging or doing math in your head while you drive forces your brain to work at doing more in the same amount of time

    3- Language

    Language activities will challenge our ability to recognize, remember and understand words. They also exercise our fluency, grammatical skills and vocabulary. With regular practice, you can expand your knowledge of new words and much more easily retrieve words that are familiar. For example, if you usually only thoroughly read the sports section, try reading a few in-depth Business articles. You’ll be exposed to new words, which are easier to understand when read in context or easier to look up on a dictionary site if you are reading the news online. Take time to understand the word in its context, which will help you build your language skills and retrieve the word more readily in front of your boss in the future.

    4- Visual-Spatial

    We live in a colorful, three-dimensional world. Analyzing visual information is necessary to be able to act within your environment. To work this cognitive function, try walking into a room and picking out five items and their locations. When you exit the room, try to recall all five items and where they were located. Too easy? Wait two hours and try to remember those items and their locations. The next time you’re waiting on your coworker or friend to arrive, try this mental exercise. Look straight ahead and note everything you can see both in front of you and in your peripheral vision. Challenge yourself to recall everything and write it down. This will force you to use your memory and train your brain to focus on your surroundings.

    5- Executive Function

    Without even realizing it, you use your logic and reasoning skills on a daily basis to make decisions, build up hypotheses and consider the possible consequences of your actions. Activities in which you must define a strategy to reach a desired outcome and calculate the right moves to reach the solution in the shortest possible time are actually fun activities you do daily -- like social interaction and, yes, video games. Engaging in a brief visit with a friend boosts your intellectual performance by requiring you to consider possible responses and desired outcomes. Video games require strategy and problem-solving to reach a desired outcome -- like making it to the final level. “It’s not just Halo, honey; I’m exercising my executive brain functions!”

    cerebral workout

    As we age, it’s important to flex our mental muscles as well as our physiques. Now that you’re aware of the five main cognitive functions and how to exercise them, it will be easy to find daily activities that will help you break a mental sweat and keep your brain in shape. If you need a little structured help, HAPPYneuron has fun and challenging games to work the brain in all five areas, as well as a virtual coach to serve as a personal trainer and ensure you get the most optimal brain workout for you.

    許多人致力于訓練強壯他們的身體，但是短語使用或者失去它更多的應用于我們的身體肌肉，它也應用天我們的大腦神經系統與連接。有一種訓練與活動能很成功的作用于人腦的一個日常基本認知功能。除了你日常完成的任務，你也可以用快樂神經系統在線大腦運動來訓練你的大腦及應用一個個人化的大腦適應計劃。

    我們的思想由五個主要的認知功能組成：

    記憶，注意力，語言，視覺空間技能及執行功能。

    挑戰，刺激和有效訓練所有五個區域來保持我們大腦的心理年齡是很重要的.以下有五個日常大腦訓練來幫助你做到這些。

    1--記憶  記憶在所有認知活動中扮演著重要角色，包括閱讀，推理和大腦測算。有幾種形式的記憶在大腦中發揮作用。綜合起來，這些認知技巧也許是我們最應該注意到的當他們失去作用時。為了保持一個好的記憶，你需要為此作出訓練，這個比你想像到的更容易。聽音樂不僅讓人愉悅，但是通過選擇一首你不知道的歌和記憶歌詞，能促進憶酰膽堿的水平，及幫助建立你的大腦的化學成分，提高你的記憶技巧。通過在黑暗中穿衣服及反手刷牙你可以挑戰自己。這些挑戰有助于建立不同的大腦神經連接及新的聯結。

    2注意力

    在幾乎所有的日常任務中記憶是必需的。好的注意力可以使你保持高度集中除了噪聲與打擾外，你可以立刻集中精力于幾個活動中。我們可以簡單的通過改變我們的路徑來提高我們的注意力。改變你的工作路線或者重組你的硬盤，也包括使你的大腦從習慣中醒過來又開始集中注意力。隨著年齡的增長，我們的注意范圍會下降，在執行多個任務時我們更易分心。效率更低。通過聽慢跑時聽音頻文件或者心算數學題你會迫使你的大腦在同樣的時間里做更多的工作。

    3語言  語言活動會挑戰我們的認知能力，記憶理解單詞的能力。他們也可以訓練我們的流暢性，語法技巧和詞匯。有著正常的訓練，你能拓展你的新詞知識更容易的找回你熟悉的單詞。舉例來說，如果你經常只是通過閱讀體育部分來試著閱讀更深的商業文章。你可能會能那些新單詞更容易來理解并且更容易去翻閱詞典當你通過上下文當你閱讀在線新聞時你能更容易的查到字典。花時間去理解上下文的單詞含義有助于你建立你的語言技巧和更容易的在你未來的老板面前找到新單詞。

    4視覺空間

    我們居住在一個豐富多采的三維立體世界里。分析視覺是必需的它可以在你的環境里有所動作。為了使這種認知功能有效。試著進入一個房間找出五個項目及它們的定位，當你退出房間時，盡量回憶起所有這五個項目及它們所處的位置。很容易？等兩個小時并盡量的記得這些個項目及他們所處的位置。下次你就等著你的同事及朋友到來，試試這個心里測試。看著前方注意你面前的每一件事你能看到你前面和你的周圍視野。挑戰你自己來回憶每一件事并把它們記下來。這個會使你使用自己的記憶及訓練你的大腦來注意你的環境。

    5--執行功能

    你用你的邏輯及推理技巧在日常基礎中作決定，建立一個假設用考慮一個你行動的可能次序。在一個你必須定義一個策略來達到想要的收入的活動里你要計算出一個正確的步驟來達到最少可能的時間里解決問題，這些實際上是你日常生活中很有趣的活動，就像一些社會作用和視頻游戲。與朋友從事一個簡短的訪問會促進你的智力活動通過要求你考慮可能的反應和希望的收入。視頻游戲要求策略和解決問題來達到一個希望的收入。像使它達到最后的水平。它并不僅僅是一個光環，我正在訓練我的大腦執行功能。

    大腦訓練

    隨著年齡的增長，彎曲我們的體格肌肉就像我們的體格一樣重要。現在你意識到了五個主要的認知功能及怎么訓練他們，就會很容易的發現日常的活動能有助于你打破心里上的障礙使你的大腦保持成形。如果你需要一點建設中的幫助，快樂神經系統有有趣和挑戰性的游戲來使大腦在五個區域工作，就像一個實際上的教練來服務于一個個人的訓練者來確保你能得到最理想的大腦訓練。