How to Make Your Brain Grow

Learn a new language. It has always been known that learning a new language will grow your perspective, but learning a language really can help your brain to grow. Scientists in a brain study at the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy studies the brains of several dozen students. These students are required in this academy to learn a language (including Arabic and Russian) very quickly - in just 13 months! Researchers compared their brains to brains of medical students who must learn a great deal of information quickly, but without the concentration on language. The scientists found that the brains of those learning languages showed large amounts of growth in the cerebral cortex and in the hippocampus. The brains of the medical students did not show such growth.

Exercise. It has been proven: The more you run, the more your brain cells will grow. In 1999, researchers at the Salk Institute proved that mice that were forced to run on a hamster wheel gained new cells in their hippocampus. Interestingly, mice with the bigger brains were then able to better remember the path through a maze.

Dance. Dancing has been shown to be excellent for growing the brain, because it combines several stimuli at once. You are mixing exercise, coordination, music, balance, rhythm and also social contact. In fact, a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 indicated that people who dance have the lowest dementia risk of all activities studied.

Sleep. Sleep time is when your brain has the most time to recover and grow. And on the other hand, sleep deprivation has been shown to actually shrink our brains, and lead to chemical imbalances in the brain.

Eat well. The quality of the food you eat affects the quality of your thought processes. You should make sure you eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and fish, especially salmon, which is high in omega-3 and is really good for the health of your brain.

Be with trees. In zoos around the world, it has been found that cages that have more greenery, such as trees and bushes, makes the animals (such as monkeys) happier and more peaceful. Also, neurologists have observed that their brains show increased neuronal growth when they are in such enriched environments.

Have sex. A study exists that shows that having sex can promote the growth of brain cells. The study notes that having sex one time will actually cause a surge in stress hormones, which is not good for the brain. Only with a lot of sex do those stress hormones fade, and the brain growth begins!

Think. Last but never least, intense thought and learning is believed to stimulate the growth of new brain cells. As mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to grow your brain is to learn a new language. Several studies indicate that increased cognitive activities, from language learning to doing puzzles to reading, can lead to increased neurogenesis.