Not only is being bilingual an excellent, marketable skill to have, it's also an excellent way to keep your brain active. A Swedish MRI study found that learning a new language can actually make your brain grow (in this case, bigger is certainly better).

Strange, right? Well, the hippocampus and cerebral cortex are the parts of the brain that were specifically found to grow, both of which are involved in helping you to quickly and comprehensively learn new material. Luckily for us, learning a new language can be done without having to hire a tutor or enroll in classes. There are plenty of free phone apps like Duolingo available that can help you practice a new language during your train ride to work each morning. Talk about a productive distraction.

Humans are creatures of habit, so it makes sense that we'd get stuck in a rut of eating the same foods at the same time of day. However, Katz claims that by switching things up and eating an omelet or cereal for dinner instead of the usual evening meal options, your brain will handle the change as an unexpected challenge, forcing all your senses to become engaged and making the mind work harder to understand the new routine.

Sure, taking time out of your busy schedule to meditate may seem like a waste of time, but growing evidence proves that meditation has more benefits on the brain than just inducing a feeling of inner peace. According to a study conducted at UCLA, life-long meditators had more grey matter volume (this contains most of the brain's neuronal cells, meaning it conducts most of our memory, speech and decision-making abilities) within their brain. Consequently, the brains of meditators are significantly more well-preserved than those who don't take a moment to tap into their inner zen.

Set your alarm clock a few minutes earlier than usual if you plan on trying this brain-boosting hack in the morning. By eliminating your sense of sight (which you would normally use to get dressed), you force yourself to rely on the other senses to complete such an ordinary task. One small adjustment to how you complete this chore can engage, challenge and frustrate your brain in a way that's able to strengthen its overall performance.

"The analytical, 'verbal' part of your brain (sometimes called the "left brain"), tries to label an object after just a brief glance," Dr. Katz explains in his book. "When you look at a familiar picture right side up, your left brain quickly labels it and diverts your attention to other things." However, if you view something upside down, your brain's ability to quickly label something is inhibited, and it has to work harder to read the time since it's not easily recognizable in it's upside down state.