Always Tired? Try These 10 Things to Give Your Brain the Break It Needs

If you still feel tired no matter how much you rest, it might be time to consider whether your brain needs a break. If you do not relieve your brain’s fatigue, your immune and autonomic nervous systems can weaken, making you more susceptible to various diseases. Furthermore, if there are abnormalities in the immune system, it can lead to multiple allergies, gastritis, and even cancer. So, what are some ways to give your brain a rest, and how can you make them a part of your daily routine?

 

Go to Bed Early

Improving sleep quality plays a crucial role in allowing your brain to rest. Sleeping between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. is beneficial because the body secretes growth hormones within 90 minutes of falling asleep, which is essential for fatigue recovery. To avoid fatigue the next day, make sure not to miss this time frame and try to fall asleep early!

Go for a Walk in the Sunlight during the Day

If you want to rest your brain by sleeping well at night, it’s good to go for a walk in the morning sunlight. This is because the light entering the retina synthesizes serotonin, a happiness hormone in the body. This helps synthesize the melatonin hormone that is secreted when you sleep and can also prevent depression.

 

Eat Food Slowly

You can reduce fatigue simply by chewing your food slowly when you eat. The enzyme peroxidase in saliva, secreted when you eat, removes the active oxygen that causes fatigue and keeps cells healthy. If you usually eat hastily or have a habit of eating quickly, why not try to start eating slowly from now on?

 

Refuel Energy in the Morning

The brain uses 20% of the energy consumed in our body. To increase brain function, it is essential to provide ample power, and glucose is necessary for the brain. For brain activity to proceed smoothly, carbohydrates and sugars are needed. If you exhaust all your energy sources by evening, you will be low on fuel for your brain in the morning. Therefore, if you skip breakfast, your brain will remain hungry until lunch. If you skip breakfast and eat lunch, you use more blood than usual to digest food, and the amount of blood going to the brain decreases as you use blood to digest, which can reduce brain activity. For the efficiency of the brain, it is best to have breakfast.

 

Manage Stress Regularly

Reducing stress to prevent brain overload is also important. A certain level of stress arouses the brain and serves a positive function in improving memory and concentration, but if stress becomes too intense, brain function decreases. It is recommended to relieve stress through meditation and maintain regular breathing regularly.

Deep Sleep for a Hardworking Brain

Lightening your load is good if your brain has been working hard all day. During deep sleep, the waste accumulated in the brain is cleaned up, so if you have insomnia, you need to make an effort to treat it actively. Even if you don’t remove the waste in your brain, if you don’t sleep well, your memory and concentration will decrease, and your brain activity will not be smooth. To sleep deeply, get sunlight during the day, exercise moderately, and have a light dinner.

 

Improve Brain Health by Changing Your Diet!

The food we eat daily has a greater impact on our bodies than we think, and it directly helps improve cognitive abilities such as memory. A study shows that people who ate a lot of vegetables, fruits, dairy products, etc. and had high diet scores had larger brain volumes than those who ate processed foods and had low diet scores. It has been reported that as brain volume decreases, cognitive function also decreases.

 

Eat Plenty of Vegetables and Nuts

Consuming protein-rich foods like meat, fish, and eggs is crucial. When there’s a protein deficiency, it can hinder the production of neurotransmitters in the brain, potentially leading to dementia. The recommended daily protein intake is 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. Additionally, antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables, such as lycopene and rosmarinic acid, play a vital role in combating active oxygen and preventing the onset of dementia.

 

Simple Exercise for Brain Health

Pushing the Fingertips

This movement strengthens the function of the five internal organs and six entrails connected to each finger’s blood spot and stimulates the fingertips to activate the brain. When doing the fingertip pushing exercise, focus as much as possible on the sensation of the fingertips, and adding a tapping motion against the fingertips can also help correct concentration.

Pulling the Fingers

This exercise strengthens the fingers and stimulates capillaries’ circulation, increasing blood flow to the brain. Raise your hand to shoulder height, feel the power in your fingers and shoulders, and slowly pull. It is also effective in preventing brain-related diseases and simultaneously strengthens the shoulder muscles, which can help improve shoulder pain, such as a frozen shoulder.
 

By. Sin Young Jeon