Neuroscience says these five rituals will help your brain stay in peak condition Sleep with your phone away from your head According to Swart, a senior lecturer at MIT specializing in sleep and the brain, our brains' natural cleansing system requires six to eight hours of sleep. Without it, brains eventually encounter major build-ups of beta-amyloid, a neurotoxin found in clumps in the brains of people with neurological disorders like dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Stretch your brain muscles Like other muscles in your body, if you don't use the brain, you'll eventually lose it. This means it's crucial to exercise your brain and keep it stimulated. Tara Swart, a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes that it's especially important to target areas of your brain that you use less frequently. Good suggestions for stretching your brain muscles include learning to speak a new language, learning to play a new instrument, or even learning