5 Simple (or Simply Crazy) Ways to Sharpen Your Focus

As if you needed another reason to  take care of your self. Your business depends on your good health--not to mention employees.

Here are five techniques to help harness your best you:

1. Drinking coffee

Alleged brain benefits: Improves performance on tests of cognition and memory; protects against age-related mental decline.

Does it actually work? Boosts alertness (as you've noticed); evidence for the other stuff is less clear-cut.

Downside: Jitters, coffee breath, moderate risk of conversations about single-origin beans.

2. Endurance exercise

Alleged brain benefits: Builds resistance to cognitive fatigue, improving ability to concentrate; promotes formation of new brain cells.

Does it actually work? Yes.

Downside: Time-consuming, uncomfortable, high risk of wearing spandex.

3. Audio brainwave training

Alleged brain benefits: Repetitive sound patterns supposedly elicit analogous patterns of cortical activity, promoting states of alertness or focus.

Does it actually work? Solid experimental support for its use as a therapeutic tool; evidence on performance enhancement is mixed.

Downside: Your Spotify recommendations will be all Philip Glass.

4. Multiphasic sleep

(breaking sleep up into multiple blocks throughout the day and night)

Alleged brain benefits: Improved energy and mood from following circadian patterns of evolutionary ancestors.

Does it actually work? It's probably not any better than sleeping through the night.

Downside: Buying a lot of crap from the infomercials you'll be watching at 3 a.m.

5. Inversion therapy

Alleged brain benefits: Hanging upside down increases blood flow to the brain, theoretically improving overall cognitive function.

Does it actually work? Well, no. But don't let that stop you ...