the brain is the human bodys operations centre it controls everything from our taste in food to our ability to tie our shoelaces and with most of us living longer than ever and cases of alzheimers set to rise to a million by 2025 its never been more important to keep it your grey matter in tiptop shape physical and mental exercises are believed to be the best ways to do that professor alan gow a psychologist from heriotwatt university in edinburgh says one study i worked on found people who were more physically active had less brain shrinkage fewer white matter lesions damage to the wiring of the brain and higher volumes of grey matter and catherine loveday expert in memory and ageing at the university of westminster adds there is evidence that exercise does more than just keep you healthy it promotes brain connectivity and the growth of new brain cells or neurons but its not just jogging and crosswords that can slow decay researchers have uncovered a wide range of simple activities that can boost creativity sharpen concentration and improve learning skillsfollow our guide to the simple ways to keep your brain cells in shapewiggle your eyes wiggling your eyes from sidetoside for 30 seconds could be the key to boosting concentration thats because the left and right sides of the brain perform different functions and improving communication between them can bolster mental performance scientists at manchester metropolitan university got volunteers to listen to recordings of words then either wiggle their eyes horizontally for 30 seconds vertically for 30 seconds or just stare ahead the horizontal movement group recalled more words than the other twostare out of the window everyone else might think you are daydreaming but staring into the distance can actually improve concentration thats because the brain thinks more clearly about new subjects when it is not distracted by visual stimulation such as a computer screen in a study experts at stirling university got 10 school kids to look away when pondering tough math questions and 10 to look at the teacher or computer screen the results showed the daydreamers got 72 right and those paying attention just 55researcher professor gwyneth dohertysneddon said the difference was especially evident on the difficult questionsgo abroad travel is supposed to broaden the mind but according to psychologists at northwestern university in the us it can also make it work better they gave a series of tests designed to check the brains capacity for creative thinking to a group of students who had lived abroad and another group who had not the results showed those who had spent time studying overseas performed much better possibly because moving to a strange country involves a major psychological transformation that helps to expand the mind but psychologists stress travel only bolsters the brain if the person embraces their new foreign culture just as much as their home onedont brainstorm bosses may love it but research shows brainstorming actually slows the brain down