Examples of lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, leisure activities, and sleep impact cognitive functions such as moral reasoning, problem-solving skills, forms of intelligence, and different types of memory. Diet and exercise impact the systems that help in mental health and synaptic plasticity sustenance. Brain plasticity is the brain's ability to rewire itself or modify its connections with moral reasoning, problem-solving skills, forms of intelligence, and different types of memory being examples of brain plasticity.
Diet
The oxidative metabolism effects are seen through how food consumption regulates cell physiology's oxidative stress levels. Indeed, the frequency of meals or the calories per meal affects mental alertness. People who consume broiled or baked fish more often have increased gray matter in the brain McNeill et al., 2009). The gray matter helps control emotions, memory, decision-making, especially when problem-solving, and even moral reasoning—Omega-3 in fish assists as one of the brain's building blocks. Omega-3 helps in sharpening one's memory that includes episodic memories, semantic memories, and procedural memories. As such, it helps build on the different cognitive functions. A diet that contains reduced levels of omega-3 leads to reduced memory, leading to decreased forms of intelligence such as reduced analytical intelligence, practical intelligence, and creative intelligence. People who take coffee often have improved cognitive function due to coffee components such as antioxidants and caffeine that improve mental health. Blueberries offer multiple health benefits, including mental health. Deeply colored berries offer anthocyanins, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Antioxidants stop inflammation and oxidative stress that could contribute to neurodegenerative and brain aging complications.
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Exercise
Aerobic exercises such as dancing, gardening, walking, cycling, swimming, and jogging help decrease depression and anxiety. Therefore, these exercises impact cognitive functions such as moral reasoning, problem-solving skills, forms of intelligence, and different types of memory. These improvements in exercising create raised blood circulation to the brain and impact the hippocampus, which plays a central role in memory formation. Also, exercise has the ability to enhance memory and learning under certain conditions, from facilitating brain injury recovery to counteracting any forms of mental decline. Another exercise, such as cardiovascular fitness training, enhances the entire cognitive function irrespective of the task type. Physical activity has been found to improve regulate risks associated with dementia and delay functioning, particularly in older people.
Leisure Activities
Leisure activities have a positive implication on cognitive functions. The body and the mind tend to be at rest or relaxed when doing leisure activities such as reading, walking, and journaling one's feelings. With these forms of leisure activities, one avoids depression and issues associated with overthinking that affect cognitive function.
Sleep
Sleep affects cognitive functions such as moral reasoning, problem-solving skills, forms of intelligence, and different types of memory. Enough sleep enhances cognitive functions, while lack of sleep has a negative implication on cognitive functions (Ohayon & Vecchierini, 2005). With no sleep or poor sleep, the brain fails to function properly due to a lack of time needed to recuperate. The neurons are less capable of performing effectively. Poor sleep or lack of enough sleep could be in different forms, such as fragmented sleep or short sleep duration. Both interrupted and insufficient sleep makes sleep cycles difficult to achieve. Poor sleep in the short run leads to affected day-to-day tasks. In the long run, poor sleep or lack of enough sleep poses an increased risk of dementia and cognitive decline.
References
McNeill, G., Winter, J., & Jia, X. (2009). Diet and cognitive function in later life: a challenge for nutrition epidemiology. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition , 63 (1), S33-S37.
Ohayon, M. M., & Vecchierini, M. F. (2005). Normative sleep data, cognitive function and daily living activities in older adults in the community. Sleep , 28 (8), 981-989.
