AVOID THE BRAIN DRAIN
HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT YOUR BRAIN TODAY?
If you stopped to think about it you’d probably like to give your brain
a boost, help improve its performance and get everything running tickety
boo. Here are a few nips and tucks you
can make without really thinking about it to give yourself some renewed brain
health.
SLEEP
Sleep is important as during sleep brain cells (neurons) are
rejuvenated. Loss of sleep, or for those who
regularly experience insomnia, brain health is adversely affected and memory may
be impaired.
MEMORY
Actively use and attempt to develop your memory and you could
experience beneficial effects as powers of memory can be improved. Research proves that we begin to use both
sides of brain capacity to perform routine tasks. This helps with problem solving. Women around mid-life score higher in tests
involving for instance vocabulary, than women a few decades younger. Brain training games and exercises and thought
provoking puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku help to sharpen up perception.
LEARNING
A good way to stimulate and improve your brain’s performance is to
constantly keep it active. Learning
something is a good technique. You might
not fancy taking on a new language or musical instrument but things like
learning all the planets in the solar system, improving your geography knowledge or
memorising all the Prime Minsters or US Presidents are all ways to keep a
valuable new source of information flowing around in your cranium.
EXERCISE
Get up and go, go, go. Exercise it is
believed can actually grow your brain.
How is this? Brain size develops
due to increased healthy blood flow encouraged through aerobic activity and movement. Developing new brain cells helps with ability
and it is thought may guard against developing early onset dementia.
CAN DIET AFFECT OUR LITTLE GREY CELLS?
FISH
We’ve all heard it – fish is brain food – is there any truth in all
this? Get some oily fish into your diet,
twice a week if possible as Omega-3 oils contained in these fish actually help
to maintain brain cells.
WATER
Keep fluids up – that’s what the Doctors tell us and they’re right as
dehydration impacts badly on your brain as it slows the rate at which vital
nutrients are circulated within our system and fed up to the brain. Caffeine is not a harmful stimulant in fact
it can keep your brain lively but only if kept in moderation, however, green tea is
the real hero to bear in mind when choosing your tipple.
SUGAR
What would make real sense would be to give sugar the cold shoulder,
but that’s not always entirely practical as we discover it is hidden in so many variations
within so many foods. However, sugar
causes blood sugar levels to spike and this is not conducive on many levels within the arena of good health. Try
and find ways to switch up to protein snacks and shift down a few gears on your
sugary snack options as there are usually options available.
DOWNTIME
Are you juggling home, work, the kids, social media and family
commitments? If you're feeling that keeping on top of all this multi-tasking is helping keep your brain alert you may be wrong as all this conflicting cerebral activity could be
contributing to your stress levels and producing the hormone cortisol, or
stress hormone, which is actually slowing you down and making you feel befuddled
and woolly-headed. Find a short time
span to de-stress, maybe by doing breathing exercises or take a walk away from mobiles
phones, gadgets and gizmos.
The boffins used to believe that when we were born we had all our brain
cells and didn’t produce any more throughout our lives, but instead they were
gradually depleted year on year. But now
the bright sparks have worked out that this actually isn’t true and that we can
manufacture new brain cells during our lifetime.
THINGS TO DO TODAY
Have some green tea with your oily fish
Get in some exercise and
Wind
down with a crossword before enjoying a
Good night’s sleep
GO ON – IT’S A NO BRAINER
Get Fit
Get the Facts
Facts that Fit
FIT FACTS
No comments:
Post a Comment