There are a few things that you could start doing right now to instantly improve your brain's performance and get you off to a flying start. Let's call them Brain Optimization Tips, or BOPs for short. You can follow these simple suggestions to get your brain firing on all cylinders each and every day. Here are five for starters:

BOP1: Water – Start every single day by rehydrating your brain

Believe it or not your brain is 73% water. The efficiency with which it can send electrical messages around the 100,000 miles of brain wires is compromised when you are dehydrated. The trouble is you wake up slightly dehydrated every single day. How do we know this? Well, if you managed to survive the night then you can't have stopped breathing. The reason that breathing is absolutely vital when it comes to staying alive is because this is the only way you can get oxygen into your body and carbon dioxide out. In order for your lungs to get these gases moving in and out of your bloodstream successfully they must be moist. But that means that upon every exhalation, we release a little bit of water vapour. This of course happens all day and night, but during the daytime we replace the lost water whenever hunger or thirst motivates us to eat or drink. During the night there are fewer, if any, opportunities to replace this lost water; and so by morning time there is inevitably an imbalance to correct.

BOP1: Drink a small glass of water the moment you wake up in the morning and make sure you stay well hydrated throughout the day – for your brain's sake.

BOP2: Exercise – Vital for brain health (and holding onto your marbles)

Exercise is well known to be good for the body but everyone overlooks its immense impact on the health of your brain. In the short term, the moment you start to do any form of even moderately demanding exercise, your body automatically responds by releasing a torrent of hormones and brain chemicals that make you feel good. Even more importantly, an ever-increasing body of evidence suggests that people who take regular exercise enjoy better brain function for longer. It actually increases the rate at which new brain cells are created in the Hippocampus. It's more important than any other factor in helping people to hold onto their marbles well into old age.

BOP2: Do a minimum of 20 mins moderate to intense exercise, every other day.

BOP3: Stress – Control your cortisol to manage your stress

Cortisol is an extremely important hormone that is released in your body in response to the problems of everyday life. It is responsible for making you feel “stressed out,” yet it is most definitely a friend and not a foe. We can all be agreed on the fact that feeling stressed is certainly not one of life's more pleasant experiences. But nonetheless, cortisol is a vital part of any happy, successful life. It helps us to get things done.

If cortisol did not make us feel uncomfortable we would lack the impetus to act. Not only that, but cortisol actually mobilizes body and brain to deal with life's daily stresses. It increases metabolism so that more physical and mental energy is available to deal with the problem. It puts the brain in an uncomfortable emotional state because we humans are fundamentally lazy – working hard only to remove discomfort and/or to gain greater comfort.

There is a natural daily rhythm to the release of cortisol ensuring that we are keyed up during the daytime and winding down towards bedtime. Bad news triggers a boost of cortisol to mobilize the extra resources required to help eliminate the problem.

So, stress is good but chronic stress is most definitely bad. This is because in order to help you deal with life's major challenges cortisol suppresses the immune system. This enables us to postpone feeling ill – which forces us to rest, directing energy and resources into fighting off the bugs – until a stressful situation has passed by or been resolved. Chronic stress describes a situation where cortisol levels remain high for many weeks and months, meaning that body and brain never get the chance to repair and fight disease. Whilst it is virtually impossible to remove the sources of stress in life there are several things you can do to reduce cortisol levels using the power of thought alone.

BOP3: Manage stress by proactively setting aside GOM Time (see All Aboard the Stress Express! chapter), clinically proven to reduce cortisol levels.

BOP4: Sunshine – Soak up the sun's rays to stabilize your mood

When ultraviolet (UV) light strikes the skin the human body can make vitamin D. Vitamin D is used in the brain to make a very important brain chemical called serotonin. Serotonin is crucial because it is involved in a wide variety of brain pathways including those involved in mood regulation. The most widely prescribed class of medications for depression are those that increase levels of serotonin. For instance, SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) like Prozac work by slowing down the rate at which any serotonin that has been released into your brain's synapses gets removed. By keeping serotonin levels up, mood improvement is also kept on the up. Ecstasy, aka MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methamphetamine), is very popular amongst recreational drug users, and also increases levels of serotonin in the brain. However, rather than just blocking the reuptake of serotonin, like SSRIs do, it also triggers a massive increase in the release of serotonin into the synapse (a connection between one brain wire and the next) – leading to feelings of intense pleasure and empathy with others.

Your skin weighs three times as much as your brain.

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Rather than meddling with the release and/or reuptake of serotonin, getting your skin in direct sunlight every day will ensure there's a plentiful supply of serotonin readily available for your brain to regulate your mood more effectively. Bear in mind that your motivation to go out of your way to do this should fluctuate with the seasons. As the days get shorter the likelihood that you will not be getting enough UV to keep your serotonin levels topped up increases and so you should be more vigilant in getting into the daylight. Don't be put off by cloudy days, although cloud cover cuts out a large proportion of the visible light, making it seem a bit gloomy compared to when the sun is out, the strength of UV light is not diminished to the same degree. This is why you can still get a nasty sunburn on the beach even when it is overcast.

BOP4: Get your skin in daylight for at least 5–15 mins every day.

BOP5: Caffeine – Good for your brain in many ways, in moderation

It is estimated that more than 50% of the world's adult population consume caffeine on a daily basis. That's despite us all having heard at some time or other that coffee is bad for our health. Rumours have also circulated to suggest that coffee does not actually wake us up. So what's the story? Recent scientific evidence indicates that if you regularly drink tea or coffee then the active ingredients do indeed wake you up, but only to the levels that people who have never touched a drop in their lives enjoy every single day! But don't let this put you off – there are other brain benefits that have only recently been unveiled.

BOP5: Moderate consumption of caffeinated beverages is actually good for your brain.