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What Foods Can Improve Brain Activity Before Writing an Exam
If your training schedule is so busy that you stop perceiving even the most uncomplicated information while preparing for exams, it’s time to do something about it. But wait, don’t run immediately to the pharmacy for brain supplements. Instead, you probably need to rest. On the other hand, perhaps your body is missing a piece of fried fish or other food for good brain activity. So here you’ll find out the best ways to prepare your brain for an intellectual load quickly and easily due to healthy foods.
What Foods Need Your Brain
Since you’re studying for exams, let’s remember biology classes to answer a simple question: what does the brain need to work? First, note that attention, thinking, and memory are active and energy-intensive processes. Therefore, the brain requires a lot of oxygen and energy, which it can obtain only from food which breaks down into proteins, fats, and carbohydrates during digestion.
And this is where the vital ATP molecule, formed after the oxidation of microelements, comes to the fore, which carries energy to the cells. So a balanced diet can improve the health of the cells throughout the body. But the brain, first and foremost, needs foods that have essential molecules: coenzyme Q10, lecithin, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and lipoic acid. And below, you’ll find out which foods contain them.
Foods to Boost Intelligence
To develop intellectual abilities, you should train the brain and get a regular intake of coenzyme Q10 which prevents many neurological diseases. So make a good habit of buying beef, herring, trout, peanuts, sesame, or pistachios. If you don’t have them in your kitchen, foods with a little less Q10 will do broccoli, oranges, strawberries, and eggs. In the table below, we’ll focus on the most valuable foods in this group.
Oily fish | This type of fish includes salmon, trout, albacore tuna, herring, and sardines, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. About 60% of the brain consists of fat; half of that fat is omega-3 fatty acids essential for learning, and the brain uses them to build brain and nerve cells. |
Eggs | Eggs are an excellent source of several nutrients related to brain health, including vitamins B6 and B12, folic acid, and choline. The body uses choline to produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood and improves intellectual abilities. |
Oranges
| You can get a daily dose of vitamin C by eating one medium orange. It is essential for brain health since vitamin C acts as an antioxidant, fights free radicals that can damage brain cells, and prevents mental decline. |
Foods for Memory, Attention, and Stress Resistance
And here, the first violin plays lecithin, the real superhero, the savior of damaged cells, and the best brain assistant. It improves memory and increases stress resistance. Thus, during exams, it is desirable to include eggs, liver, caviar, rabbit meat, herring, and unrefined vegetable oils in your diet. In addition, don’t forget buckwheat, chicken meat, beef, lamb, pork, wheat bran and grains, lettuce, legumes, fish, and dairy products. For your convenience, we’ve compiled a table of the most exciting foods in this group.
Avocado | Avocados are high in fatty amino acids and a powerful energy source for short-term memory. Thus, you should eat at least half a fruit a day. |
Pineapple | Both fruits and juices are welcome in your diet. So if you start your day by drinking a glass of juice or eating 1/3 of a pineapple, it helps you keep large amounts of textual material in your memory. |
Carrots | Carotene and high levels of vitamin “A” are perfect for stimulating blood circulation and metabolism in the brain. So eating 150-200 grams of grated carrots is very useful before memorizing systematic information such as dates of historical events, formulas, quotations, rules, and axioms. You can pour carrots with vegetable oil or add sugar and sour cream. But of course, you can also eat raw carrots. Either way, it will play its part in improving your memory. |
Shrimp | It’s enough to eat 100 grams of shrimp daily but without salt. In such a way, it supplies your brain with the necessary amino acids for intensive work, which does not allow your attention to weakening. |
Onions | It would be best to eat at least half a raw onion daily, for example, in salads. Onions improve the oxygen supply to the brain, help to thin the blood and fight mental fatigue. |
Nuts | Nuts strengthen the nervous system and stimulate brain activity. Thus, it’s better to eat them shortly before writing an exam to be in a state of brainstorming for a long time. |
Foods for Creative Thinking
Omega-3 fatty acids not only help the body grow. They are responsible for brain development as well. Want to increase your creative thinking ability and learn to remember a lot? So stuff yourself with fatty fish, meat, eggs, beans, soybeans, greens, flaxseed oil and seeds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, olive oil, and rapeseed oil. See the table below for the most valuable foods in this list.
Figs | Eating figs significantly improves the blood supply; consequently, oxygen to the brain frees the head from new ideas and contributes to creative thinking. |
Cumin | Its essential oils sharply stimulate the entire nervous system, increase the creative activity of the brain, and contribute to the birth of ingenious ideas. Moreover, to foster creativity, it is enough to grind two teaspoons of cumin seeds per teaspoon and drink this infusion after 10 minutes as cumin tea. |
Vitamins for the Brain
It would help if you didn’t also forget about vitamins to help your brain work actively and get the energy it needs. Sometimes foods containing them become the best cure for ailments. So if you feel something is wrong with you (lack of energy, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness), eat vitamins. Here’s a list of foods with essential vitamins for brain function.
Vitamin A | Melon, papaya, mango, pumpkin, and carrots. |
Vitamin B1 | Most types of meat, fish, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and grains. |
Vitamin B6 | Eggs, milk, dairy products, brown rice, potatoes, turkey, meat, seafood, lentils, peppers, wholemeal bread, peanuts, hazelnuts, nuts, spinach, carrots, broccoli, salmon, trout, and tuna. |
Vitamin B9 | Bananas, oranges, melon, avocados, legumes and grains, spinach, asparagus, brown rice. |
Vitamin B12 | Chicken, turkey, beef, redfish and seafood, eggs, grains, and dairy products. |
Vitamin C | Orange, grapefruit, melon, pineapple, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, cauliflower. |
Vitamin D | Sardines, salmon, tuna, mackerel, mushrooms, and some dairy products. |
Vitamin K | Brussels sprouts, asparagus, parsley, celery, green leafy vegetables, dried fruits, and dairy products. |
Few Last General Tips
So, in the previous paragraphs of this article, we justified the importance of proper nutrition in the period of preparation for exams, divided foods into groups as per their beneficial properties for brain activity, and discussed the vitamin issue. Now it is the turn of general recommendations you can use before writing an exam. Unfortunately, few students stick to healthy habits.
However, before exams, they are ready to believe even in the strangest student superstitions, if only it would help. So we suggest more realistic and practical ways to pass the exam. First, you can use Best Writers Online if you have been waiting until the last, and now you urgently need an essay or course paper.
And the second is to follow a few simple healthy habits that positively affect your brain activity. For example, passing exams and preparing for them puts a lot of stress on the nervous system. But precisely, its work affects your performance while writing an exam. So now you’ll get some tips to help you in the preparation process.
✔️ Eat a salad of grated carrots with vegetable oil before memorizing vast amounts of information.
✔️ If you need to perform a creative task, use cumin as a spice.
✔️ During a study break, drink tea with lemon or half a glass of pineapple juice. Vitamin C helps to retain a lot of information in memory, refresh thoughts and facilitate the perception of subsequent information.
✔️ If you feel mentally exhausted and tired in the evening after classes, cook a meat or fish dish with vegetable garnishes and add fresh onions.
✔️ Instead of tea and a bun, have some fruit, for example, an orange. It gives you the energy to reread your notes before going to bed and restore the acid-alkaline balance, which is disturbed due to the exhausting regime.
✔️ The diet should be varied, balanced, and nutritious, with enough protein, vitamins, and vegetable fats. A medium-calorie diet containing fruits and vegetables is optimal. The right foods help you concentrate better during the day and reduce anxiety.
✔️ Eat at least four meals a day during exam preparation, but portions should only satisfy hunger, so do not overeat.
✔️ For snacks, choose such foods as fresh fruit or dried fruit, a cheese sandwich, unsalted nuts, yogurt, freshly made milkshakes, and small pieces of dark chocolate.
✔️ Avoid sugar, candy, cookies, and other foods high in simple carbohydrates, because they give a short-term energy boost to the body, and the feeling of fatigue comes much earlier.
✔️ Don’t chew gum while preparing for exams, as it worsens memorization.
✔️ Eat dishes from starchy products in the evening before writing an exam. Pasta, rice, potatoes, and bread are easy to digest and help you to sleep well.
✔️ Drink warm milk, preferably with honey, at night. It helps sleep because milk contains the amino acid tryptophan, improving sleep.
✔️ Don’t take strong tea, coffee, or coca-cola because the caffeine in these products leads to exhaustion of the nervous system and reduces the functional reserves of the organism.
✔️ Follow a drinking regime during the exam period. Lack of water in the body dramatically reduces the speed of nervous processes. Even a small water deficit can cause rapid fatigue and headaches.
Now let’s talk about what to eat in the morning before an exam. You first need physical strength to have a clear head and think well. Thus, breakfast should be caloric and nutritious. So, what do you need to eat to pass the exam?
✔️ On the morning of the exam, eat breakfast foods such as lentils, buckwheat, boiled eggs, cottage cheese, or oatmeal. These foods give you power and contain large amounts of B vitamins that improve memory, imagination, and analytical thinking. You can also eat apricots and figs, bananas and walnuts, and cranberry juice with honey. These foods increase stress resistance and accelerate the passage of impulses between the nerve cells, thus the mental activity necessary to maximize your knowledge. In addition, they contain a range of nutrients and improve your mood
✔️ Many students take chocolates with them to eat right before an exam. It helps to improve the retrieval of learned information. But of course, there are far more valuable foods in every way.
✔️ After you have answered all the examiners’ questions and all that remains is to wait for the results, drink green tea. It is beneficial for nervous exhaustion after strenuous mental activity.
✔️ Drink a few sips of water before or during the exam. Still, natural mineral water is the best, as it contains potassium or sodium ions which participate in electrochemical reactions. Also, you can take plain water or green tea.
And finally, we have compiled a helpful memo for competent nutrition in preparation for exams, which will surely more than once be beneficial to you. The table is a very brief list of foods that helps you in all stages of preparation.
Carrots | For memorizing |
Onions | Helps with fatigue |
Nuts
| For stamina |
Hot peppers, strawberries, bananas | Improves mood |
Kale | For calmness |
Lemon | For energy |
Blueberries | For improving blood flow to the brain and visual acuity |
Saltwater fish | For nourishing brain cells |
Conclusion
If you’ve read this article, it means that exams are too close, which means that everything that can somehow improve your chances of getting a good grade comes into play. So instead of rereading your textbooks, use our recommendations better — they are much more effective than all the popular rituals and traditions the tricky students follow during exams.
