Five Ways to Refresh Your Mind

Refresh your mind…how could they truly refresh their minds? How do I refresh my mind?

Five Ways to Refresh Your Mind

Here are five ways I’ve discovered to refresh the mind–five ideas to offer mental or intellectual refreshment. Some of them would work better for someone who needs the refreshment of a little intellectual stimulation, while others would work better for someone whose mind is on overload and needs to find some intellectual rest.

1. Music. I know that the Mozart Effect has been debated and by some experts claiming faulty research procedures, debunked. Still, how do you feel after listening to Mozart? Or Brahms? Or how about James Taylor? Mmmm….sweet baby James.
2. Recreation. This article from the National Park and Recreation website talks about how recreation can offer mental restoration. I’m partial to combining recreation with being outdoors, which makes me a perfect blogger to promote the National Park and Recreation website, as I just did.
3. Physical exercise. Hey, this is a good segue from #2. Lots of articles in everything from Prevention magazine to Modern Maturity explain how physical exercise benefits not only our bodies, but also our minds.
4. Mental exercise. With increased interest in health and wellness for an aging population, research into slowing dementia and Alzheimer’s has resulted in tons of tips for mental stimulation.
   • Reading deserves special treatment as a mental exercise. Stay tuned for another blog entry focusing on reading as a means to refresh the mind.
5. Find a friend. Or two, or three. Human interaction seems to keep our minds refreshed. I’m a writer–a rather solitary pursuit. I find that my night out with friends keeps me mentally alert–those are the evenings I often generate new ideas for books and articles. They ask good questions and get me thinking. There’s a lot of research out there about people…needing people. I sense a song coming on, so let’s move on to the single most important aspect to refreshing the mind.

In fact, any other attempt to find peace and refreshment for the mind must begin here, that may or may not be what those folks were looking for when they were Googling “refresh your mind.” But it’s a start.