7 Excellent Strategies For Your Mental Agility – Try Them Now!

What we call your mental agility is all the wonderful cognitive processes that give you the ability to justify and come to conclusions quickly.

This aspect also includes creativity, the ability to analyze things, and your speed to make inferences in your daily life. All of these processes are not gifts or skills that only apply to younger people.

On the contrary! We are talking about concepts that can be trained and that do not disappear when you get older. And that  you have to work with every day to adapt to new environments much better. All you have to do is learn to pay attention to them.

Like exercising, going to the gym or practicing yoga, it is worth dedicating a few minutes a day to these simple strategies. They will encourage communication between the two halves of your brain, create new neural connections, and gradually improve your mental agility.

Read on to find out how.

1. Wear your clothes with your eyes closed

Even if it’s only once a day, give it a try! Wear clothes with your eyes closed. It may seem silly, but it activates incredible processes:

• First, it improves coordination.
• It optimizes the connection between the right and left side of your brain.
• In addition, it improves your fine motor skills.
• It helps you make mental maps, including the distance from button to button, how to use the zipper, where to put your arms, etc.

Always do this exercise in a safe way: Sitting on your bed is better than doing it standing up.

2. The estimation game

We should be clear: Improving your mental agility requires willpower. They may just seem like simple activities, but your brain will thank you for these ways to break up the routine and find new incentives. The estimation game is a common daily challenge that requires you to use three processes: attention, estimation and calculation.

An example is this series of questions:

• How many stairs are there in my workplace?
• On the bus, how many people are wearing black clothes?
• Look at the last two digits on the license plate of the passing car, what is the number when you add these up?
• At the traffic light, how many seconds will it take for the light to turn green?

Funny questions like these are a great way to fine-tune your mental abilities and improve your attention, your estimates and your calculations.

Learn 5 words in a different language each day to optimize your mental agility

It does not matter which language you choose or whether it is different every day. To improve your mental agility, it can be very helpful to learn between 3 and 5 new words a day.

In addition to broadening your global perspective, you will improve your linguistic ability, while creating a new neural tissue that will lead to greater mental reserves to effectively meet the years that pass.

4. Mix the routines as much as possible

One of the brain’s biggest enemies is regular routines where nothing new happens and your brain goes on autopilot. When your cognitive processes are limited to the same thing all the time, without allowing for creativity, freedom or personal joy, these are the consequences: memory loss, lack of concentration, slower reflexes and many more.

You should ideally set aside between one and two hours a day for yourself each day. The small moments for yourself are a gift to the mind and senses.

5. Have a dialogue, pay attention, prioritize, discuss and come to conclusions

Social contact, positive relationships, dialogues and conversations that broaden your perspective and build your knowledge are the “fuel” to improve your mental agility.

Learn to process information faster, and decide what is important when you come to your own conclusion. And it may surprise you, but an occasional discussion can sharpen your mind. All of these help to improve concentration, your ability to react, your self-confidence and even your emotional control.

After all, there is nothing wiser than knowing how to argue with respect and ingenuity.

Write a diary

Many people have already become accustomed to getting their thoughts, ideas and memories down on paper by writing a diary. This exercise is also good therapy for your mind. You learn to turn your ideas and the things that happen during your day into words and stories.

Thinking makes you more agile, introspection gives you a way to “air out”, and all this has an impact on your brain. Your creativity increases. In fact, once you start writing, you will end up writing more. It is like a doorway to many other trails to explore.

7. Go for a walk every day

Your body is in sync with your mind. A tired, stressed, numb body makes the brain a little stiffer. Then it focuses on aspects that hinder creativity and relaxation and concentrates only on external stimuli.

Taking a walk is actually relaxing for your brain. Going for a walk frees your mind and makes your body feel good. When you put one foot in front of the other, your mind opens up, especially because they get more oxygen and nutrients.

If you want a more agile mind, remember this: invest in yourself and make the passion for learning a big part of your life.