Top 9 tips and exercises to sharpen the mind and boost brainpower
The brain needs constant stimulation to remain alert and active. Practice good habits that can sharpen your memory and help you stay alert and on top of your game at all times. Simple lifestyle changes that involve the number of you sleep or what you eat or how you relax can play a great role in how your brain functions. Find out what you need to do right, to get the best out of your grey cells.
It is said that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks, but the same doesn't hold true for the human brain. Scientists have unravelled an amazing facet of the human brain, which involves, its capacity to adapt and change, based on the stimulus, it receives. This is something that continues to happen even as we grow older.
The amazing characteristic of the brain's ability to adapt to changes is known as neuroplasticity. Provided with the right stimulus, the human brain forms new neural pathways, while restructuring the prevailing neural connections, and adapts and reciprocates to the newly introduced modifications.
The human brain possesses a phenomenal capacity to restructure itself and this ability comes to the fore especially when it involves learning and retention. You can harness and exploit the brain's innate property to upsurge your cognitive abilities. Additionally, neuroplasticity boosts the brain's capability to absorb and retain new information, even as you age.
However, for this to happen, the brain needs to be effectively roused and stimulated. Anyone can sharpen their brain and boost their memory by following a specific stratagem, involving very easy to adhere to, tips. Exercise the brain
The human brain remains alert and active and receptive to learning when it's given the right stimuli. An everyday brain workout can do wonders for your ability to learn and remember things. Brain exercises help create new neural pathways that boost the brain's capacity to memorise and recall things.
Activities that involve thinking and rationalising are good brain workouts that help sharpen mental skills. New and complex activities that challenge the brain, each time, serve better than brain exercises that you have already mastered. 
What are good brain workouts? Any activity that allows you to use your grey cells is good for the brain. Different types of memory games, various kinds of puzzles and solving whodunit mysteries etc., which challenge the brain, are good brain workouts. Reading and watching informative videos are also known to enhance brain power. Play board games, scrabble, chess and sudoku etc. Basically, any activity that demands active brain participation will help build new neural pathways that consecutively sharpen the brain.Remain physically active
Physical exercise is essential for your overall well-being – this means your physical and mental health. Exercise need not be restricted to hitting the gym and pumping iron or running on the treadmill. Nor should it involve activities that you detest. Keep your activities fun – do things you like doing. How about cycling or swimming or a game of badminton or tennis? Walking or dancing count as physical activity too, as do, doing housework – stuff like doing the dishes or sweeping and mopping and ironing. 
Join a gym - run on the treadmill or lift weights. Physical activity keeps your body healthy and a healthy body builds a healthy mind. Exercise allows the lungs to take in more oxygen and the heart pumps out more blood. The brain releases feel-good hormones which set in positivity and makes you work better and think sharper.
So keep moving.Get good sleep
Working late hours and not catching enough shut-eye could be detrimental to your physical and mental health. Sleep is important because the body needs rest. Lack of sleep can play havoc with your health, making you slow down. Sleep deprivation can impair an individual's capacity to focus on a task and/or grasp new things ably. Sleep is essential to strengthen and reinforce a memory, so it is easily recollected at a future time.
Create the right atmosphere to get a good night's sleep, keep the bedroom well ventilated and choose a good bed mattress and pillow and you're sure to sleep tight. Don't forget 'me' time
Finding time to do activities that you enjoy is a great way to unwind. A relaxed body boosts the brain's ability to perform better. Indulge in activities that you love, be it reading or gardening or anything else that you enjoy. Do it as often as you can and you'll find its benefits showing in how you can remember things better. 
Bond with people
Make friends and build friendships. Interacting and being around friends who share common interests act as a booster for relaxation and a better life. Studies indicate that friendships help safeguard us against breakdown, tension and fatigue. Friendships give us an opportunity to chill out and relax, away from our professional lives and careers that can often be 'toxic' to our health and happiness. Friends help us create a balance in our lives which is without question vital for good mental health.
Meet with family and friends over a meal, at home or outside. Keep stress levels in check
Stress affects your body more adversely than you can imagine. A stressful life can lead to ill-health and problems such as high blood pressure, insomnia, palpitations, hair loss and premature greying are often associated with it. Stress also has repercussions on your brain. It can slow it down and make taking correct decisions a tad more difficult. Too much stress can hamper the brain's cognitive ability. Stress can hamper the way your brain stores information. It can make you forgetful and increasingly difficult to remember things.
De-stress yourself the holistic way - practice meditation, listen to soothing instrumental music or sounds of nature (gurgling water, birds chirping etc.), take a walk, breathe fresh air, eat healthy foods that help fight stress or do anything else that works for you. Talk to your spouse, if that helps you ease the tension you face.
Make sure your mind and body are stress-free, for only then will you be able to augment your mental capacity. Laughter is the best medicine
Laugh with gay abandon, laugh as often as you can. Laugh at funny things – don't hold yourself back. Laughter induces a biochemical process in the brain that releases feel-good chemicals such as dopamine, epinephrine, endorphins, cortisol and serotonin. The 'happiness-hormones' bring down stress levels, relieve pain and enhance cells that produce the antibodies, creating a robust immune system.Eat foods that stimulate the brain
Food is what makes us tick – healthy food habits, result in a healthy body and a healthy mind. Eat a variety of different coloured foods and keep yourself hydrated, by drinking enough fluids. Water is vital for our overall health, including brain health.
Your diet must be healthy, so the body receives the right nutrients to keep the brain sharp. Eggs, walnuts, salmon, olive oil etc. These foods have protective antioxidants, apart from minerals and vitamins and help promote brain health.Take measures that support learning and memory
A conscious effort is required to enhance brainpower and sharpen the mind. Practice methods to improve memory skill. Practice techniques that make it easy to store information and recall it when required. It helps to listen, take notes and be attentive. Run things over in your mind when you hear, read or learn of them. These are simple tricks that can help imprint them into your brain. You can read about more memory improving tips and begin practicing them.
Hope you find these mind boosting tips helpful. When I pay attention to the minute details or replay an event or a subject in my mind, I am better able to remember and recall those things. Do you have a trick that works for you? Let's hear about it, in the comment section.
Nice article from the author which gives wide tips on how to maintain a sharp mind and also enhance the brain power. What I feel is that when we are with the peer group, our eagerness to learn more enhances and that sharpen our minds. So knowledge transformation takes place with right earnest. And when we are with the peer group we are not going to waste time on varied matters and thus every moment is precious to us and that is devoted to quality learning which is nothing but giving a boost to the brain.