100 Amazing Ways to Hack Your Brain & Body

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September 9, 2009

As a soon to be nurse, surely you know that your brain and body are amazing tools. But did you know that they are capable of achieving feats you’ve never imagined? Read on, and you’ll learn how to hack your brain and body to exceed your expectations.

Brain

With these hacks, you can really use your brainpower. You won’t even need the supervision of a trained medical professional.

1. Exercise: Get regular cardio training in to increase the oxygen in your brain.
2. Avoid caffeine: In the long run, caffeine will dehydrate you and constrict your blood vessels, slowing down your brain.
3. Be curious: Let yourself be curious and your brain will be happier.
4. Get your EPA: This chemical from fish oil becomes brain food.
5. Do yoga: Yoga poses like Downward Facing Dog can get more blood to flow to your brain.
6. Look at old photos: Give your brain a chance to flex its memory muscles by recalling old memories and emotions.
7. Listen to music: Get stimulated by listening to music of your choice.
8. Think in a room with high ceilings: People tend to think more freely in rooms with higher ceilings.
9. Play games: Play word games and puzzles to increase and restore cognitive abilities.
10. Be youthful: Be more like a child to become more full of imagination and discovery.
11. Have regular sex: Increase brain blood flow, reduce stress, and release tension to encourage brain efficiency.
12. Stay away from bad fat: Eat less fat to improve circulation to your brain.
13. Stop brain freeze: Combat brain freeze by pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth.
14. Listen to something new: Stimulate your ears differently with a new radio station or music you haven’t tried before.
15. Do puzzles: Activate and exercise your brain by doing a crossword, logic, or jigsaw puzzle.
16. Open a window: Give your brain some fresh air to work more efficiently.
17. Go for a walk: Clear the brain fog and improve your mental health with a walk.
18. Decorate brightly: With bright colors surrounding you, you’ll be more alert and focused.
19. Listen to Mozart: After listening to Mozart, your mathematical and spatial reasoning will improve.
20. Learn a new language: Maintain healthy neural connections by learning a new language.
21. Eat a peppermint: Activate scent and taste by chewing on a peppermint.
22. Drink moderately: About one drink a day can help improve cognitive function.
23. Learn how to juggle: Expand your brain and alter your brain structure for the better by learning how to juggle.
24. Drink water: Feel more alert by drinking lots of water.
25. Laugh: Stimulate both sides of your brain by getting a good belly laugh every day.
26. Practice aromatherapy: Get stimulated with scents like lemon, peppermint, and cypress.
27. Do something creative: Stimulate different parts of your brain and develop new neural pathways by being creative.

Tricks

These may sound silly to nursing students, but you can entertain yourself and others with these cool hacks.

28. Boost your car remote: Put your remote under your chin, open your mouth, and press the button to amplify the remote with your oral cavity.
29. Hallucinate with the Ganzfeld Procedure: Listen to static, and tape halved ping pong balls over your eyes to deprive sensations and create your own.
30. Practice circular breathing: Breathe in through your mouth while exhaling through the mouth to get a continuous supply of air.

Memory

Memory is a precious and complex function that even medical professionals are still trying to understand. Using these hacks, you can really stretch your memory power.

31. Take notes by hand: By taking notes by hand, you’ll better be able to retain information.
32. Take a journey: If you have a lot to memorize, store them in your memory as if you were taking a journey.
33. Use the Link Method: Link items into a memorable story to easily recall them later.
34. Talk to people: Talking to others for just 10 minutes can improve your memory and test performance.
35. Remember automatic tasks: When you turn off the oven or unplug the iron, say out loud, "oven is off," and you’ll better remember it.
36. Write things down: Keep track of your free-floating thoughts using paper and pen.
37. Remember why you went somewhere: If you forget why you went into a room, mentally or physically retrace your steps to go back to where you thought about it.
38. Move your eyes: Move your eyes from side to side for 30 seconds and improve communication between the two hemispheres of your brain.

Mood

Use these hacks to boost your mood in a big way.

39. Think happy thoughts: Be more positive by filling your mind with happy thoughts.
40. Wipe out bad memories: To reduce emotional scars, just play a game of Tetris right after a traumatic event.
41. Practice relaxation: Take a hot bath, get a massage, and eliminate stress to elevate your mood.

Healing

Sometimes even a nursing student will tell you that simple things can make all the difference in feeling better. Make use of these hacks to help heal your body.

42. Invert binoculars: Look at your wound through inverted binoculars, and your brain will perceive it as smaller, and the pain will be smaller as well.
43. Kill your wart: Use duct tape to kill your wart.
44. Clear your sinuses: Put your tongue up against the roof of your mouth and press between your eyebrows to loosen up congestion.
45. Lessen needle pain: Cough when receiving an injection to lessen the pain of the stick.
46. Stop nosebleeds: Press against the small dent below your nose top stop a nosebleed.
47. Prevent acid reflux: Sleep on your left side to better position your stomach to avoid acid reflux.
48. Heal minor burns: Clean your skin and bring the skin back to normal temperature by applying light pressure with your finger pads.
49. Ease a toothache: Rub an ice cube on the v-shaped webbed area on the back of your hand between your thumb and index finger.

Relationships & Interaction

With these hacks, you can use your body to improve your relationships and interactions.

50. Be a lie detector: Look for crossed arms, fast talking, stuttering, nervous twitches, and more in liars.
51. Walk: Go for a walk to practice relaxing and walking with confidence and purpose.
52. Slow your heart rate: Blow on your thumb, and you’ll be able to get your heart rate back to normal.
53. Remember names: When you meet someone new, look at them carefully and repeat their name to yourself at least three times and use it in conversation.
54. Listen with your right ear: Your right ear can better pick up speech patterns, so turn your right ear in to the conversation.
55. Look at the color pink: The color pink is a visual aphrodisiac that can activate pleasure centers in your brain.

Body

Use these hacks to put your body to the test.

56. Stop crying: Hold your eyes wide open without blinking, look upward, or relax your jaw to stop tears.
57. Fight dizziness: Put your hand on something stable to make your brain feel more in balance.
58. Make it to the bathroom: Scratch or rub the back of your calf vigorously for a few moments to interrupt the message to your brain.
59. Improve your vision: Turn your hand into a fist and look through it like a telescope to improve your focus and depth of field.
60. Prevent a hangover: Take certain vitamins and stay hydrated to stave off a hangover.
61. Swallow difficult capsules: Put the capsule in your mouth, drink your water, and tilt your head forward to make it float and easy to swallow.
62. Stop throat tickles: Scratch your ear, and you’ll relieve throat tickles.
63. Hold your breath longer: Hyperventilate before diving into water to trick your brain into thinking it has more oxygen.
64. Improve your posture: Strengthen the muscles around your shoulder blades and mid back to improve your posture.
65. Stop side stitches: Avoid side stitches by exhaling as your left foot hits the ground.
66. Hold your breath longer: Think about sex to preoccupy your brain and temporarily overcome the need to pee.
67. Change your pupils: Dilate your pupils by picturing something that gives you an adrenaline rush, and decrease them by relaxing your stomach muscles.
68. Stop laughing: Cut out inappropriate laughter by thinking of something sad, pinching yourself, or exhaling air from your lungs.
69. Implant your own RFID tag: Automate your home, computer, and more by using RFID.
70. Stop a sneeze: Press your tongue firmly behind your teeth to stop a sneeze before it happens.
71. Cure hiccups: Hold your breath, drink as much as you can, or breathe into a paper bag.
72. Force a sneeze: To induce a sneeze, look into a bright light.

Sleep

You can greatly improve your sleep with the help of these hacks.

73. Rise early: Gradually wake up earlier and keep your alarm clock far away to turn yourself into an early riser.
74. Use light therapy: Use lights to conquer jet lag and more.
75. Eat just before bed: Have a low-glycemic food like yogurt or an apple just before bedtime to cut down on morning fatigue and headaches.
76. Cool your body: Get better sleep by cooling down your internal temperature.
77. Solve problems while sleeping: Review material right before bed, and you’ll have a better chance of remembering or solving the material.
78. Eat at different times: You can reset your body clock by fasting and eating at different than normal times.
79. Take an ice bath and melatonin: Although not necessarily pleasant, this combination will hit you like a tranquilizer.
80. Sleep polyphasically: Distribute your sleep into regularly scheduled blocks instead of around the clock.

Learning

Hack your brain for incredible learning using these hacks.

81. Be around people who expect to do well: Get tips and be challenged in your studies by being around people who want to push themselves to do well.
82. Study throughout the day: Let the gaps in your day add up by using flashcards and carrying notes with you.
83. Proofread: Once you’re done with your work, stop, and look it over again as if it were someone else’s, and pick it apart.
84. Time your studies: Most exams are timed-so block out your study time.
85. Choose effective study materials: Invest in books and other study materials that can deliver.
86. Do dry runs: Before important exams, follow the schedule that you’ll need to be on for the day to find out what works best to keep your mind alert and ready.
87. Know how exams and tests work: Learn about the scoring, timing, and more to do better on examinations.
88. Get a tutor: Spend your time on challenging questions and problem areas by using a tutor.
89. Teach someone else: Offer tutoring to reinforce material.
90. Write your own exam: Sit down and pretend you’re writing the exam to think about the most important bits of information to learn.

Weight Loss

Use these hacks to lose weight the smart way.

91. Stay away from fruit juice: Avoid sugar-packed fruit juice and eat the real thing instead.
92. Sleep enough: Get better sleep habits to improve your health and waistline.
93. Eat slowly: Slow down your eating to give your body time to tell you it’s done.
94. Keep up a variety: Have a variety of meal choices and keep your options open.
95. Drink water: Cut out excess calories by drinking water as your primary beverage.
96. Eat smaller, more frequent meals: Kick start your metabolism by eating smaller meals more frequently.
97. Eat plenty of fiber: Get long lasting energy to slow carbohydrate digestion.
98. Change one habit each day: Get out of bad habits by changing one habit per day.
99. Don’t avoid fat: Eat essential fatty acids for a healthy diet.
100. Eat slowly: Eat your meals more slowly so your brain has time to realize that you’re full.