When you wake up in the morning does it take a while for your mind to click into gear or do you scroll through all your problems and worries until you generate enough adrenal stress hormones to get you going?

Here’s a different strategy. Make yourself a hot drink and play a mind game. One of the most popular is Wordle. The New York Times one is freely available here. Others like a bit of Sodoku which you can play online or in books and newspapers.

Two apps that have high ratings are Brain HQ and Lumosity. Brain HQ  adapts according to your needs – do you want better memory, better attention or faster processing? The recommendation is to do at least 60-90 minutes training a week, perhaps in three 20-minute sessions: https://www.brainhq.com

Lumosity is also adaptive and achieves much the same improvement in cognition: https://www.lumosity.com/en/

Both Lumosity and Brain HQ initially require your attention for up to half an hour to give you a series of exercises to establish your baseline. So, when you’re ready to check these out, make sure you have that uninterrupted time available.