Top 8 Strategies to Sharpen Thinking Skills

While stress can negatively impact your thinking skills, contributing to memory problems and fuzzy thinking, These techniques have been shown by research to sharpen thinking skills and cognitive functioning while relieving stress and bringing other health benefits at the same time. Learn effective and natural strategies for relieving stress and improving your thinking skills.

1. Try journaling. Research has shown that journaling has many tremendous benefits ranging from stress and relief to reduction in health conditions like asthma. Journaling can also help you improve your thinking skills and create a better life.
2. Take a power nap. When you don't get enough sleep (as a great proportion of the population doesn't), you have decreased cognitive functioning and can even have the same slowed responses as an intoxicated driver.
3. Lower your blood pressure. Multiple studies have shown that high blood pressure is correlated with poorer cognitive performance in older adults and new research shows that this correlation affects younger people as well.
4. Practice meditation. Meditation provides a great mental workout and can relieve stress and bring other health benefits as well as increasing creativity and sharpening thinking skills. Many people shy away from meditation because it seems challenging or confusing to learn. Fortunately, there are different types of meditation, some of which are easy for beginners.
5. Get some exercise. We all know that exercise has many benefits, but did you know that increased IQ and sharper thinking skills are among them? Newsweek recently did a feature on the recent research that shows a correlation between aerobic exercise and improved cognitive performance, and it's been discussed online as well. Now you can use this information for your own benefit by using exercise for stress relief as well as improved thinking skills.
6. Play some games. Mind games can be good for you! No, I don't mean the relationship mind games we all despise, I mean mentally stimulating games that can relieve stress and sharpen our thinking skills, working out our brains like the muscles they are.
7. Improve your nutrition. A balanced and nutritious diet can be great for your body, but it can also help your mind, improving cognitive functioning, relieving stress, and helping you function at your most efficient levels.
8. Pick up a good book. Reading provides a wonderful escape from stress and flexes your mental muscles.

Taken from stress.about.com  Written by Elizabeth Scott