Science :: Top 10 tips for a healthy brain

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In this section

• Do not smoke
• Maintain regular physical examination
• Learn new information
• Engage in regular exercise
• Socialize, have fun and slow down
• Be financially stable
• Spirituality
• Dieat and health
• Maintain strong family and friendship networks
• Maintain a role and purpose

Introduction

Ten tips are proposed as primary if not critical components to a lifelong lifestyle for brain health. These behaviors are pulled from existing research on aging from the biological, psychological, social, and gerontological sciences. It is important to recall that our brain does not operate in isolation from the rest of the body. Rather, the human body operates as a symphony producing a behavioral harmony of life. The heart has a particularly important relationship with the brain with nearly 25% of the oxygen and blood from every heartbeat designated for the brain. Accordingly, some of the lifestyle behaviors proposed for brain health have similar benefit for the cardiovascular system

Do not smoke

• Smoking is bad for our health, increases the risk for cancer, and can lead to an early death.
• Cancer itself is the second leading cause of death after heart disease and smoking represents a risk factor for both heart disease and stroke.
• Many children begin smoking at an early age often because of peer pressure.
• Despite this serious warnings from their physicians, patients often cannot stop.
• We need to be supportive of those who are trying to stop.

Maintain regular physical examinations and follow your physician’s advice

• We need to take control of our health and understanding that we are in charge of the management of our bodies.
• Some believe their physician or some other person is actually responsible for their health and they will defer important decisions to these other parties.
• Physicians and all clinicians are our employees and with regard to our bodies we are the boss!
• Once we establish our own role in the management of our health, the importance of a close and trusting relationship with our physician becomes critical.
• A team approach can help establish a united front against illness and more importantly promote our health.
• Open communication can help the physician make sound decisions regarding our health.

Learn new information and engage in the complex and novel

• Remember the importance of complex and novel stimuli and development of a healthy brain can help us avoid neurrodegenerative disease late in life.
• Activities that have the highest value for brain health will be those that are novel and complex for the particular person.
• It is the novel and complex that will challenge the brain, stimulate learning, and promote synaptic density.
• With practice of the activity, synaptic density increases and what was once novel and complex slowly becomes passive and rote.

To understand what might be personally novel and complex versus rote and passive:

1. Take out a sheet of white paper and divide the paper in half.
2. On the left side of the page place the three or four activities that you enjoy most, are comfortable doing, have fun with, and do most frequently.
3. The list generated on the left side of the page represents activities that are rote and passive.
4. On the right side of the page list the three or four activities that you don't engage in frequently, are complicated, and are not easy. You may not be particularly skilled at these activities. These activities represent the complex and novel for you.

Engage in regular exercise to include daily walking

• Exercise is a significant contributor to overall health and a direct

  Lifestyle Behavior that helps to counter risk of disease.

• Exercise has been demonstrated to have a positive effect on humans across the lifespan and to enhance successful aging in general.
• Recent studies have also demonstrated the positive effect of exercise upon disease states of the central nervous system.
• Exercise performed on a routine basis may not only reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disease, but may also help to slow the course of an existing disease such as AD.
• Building a modest exercise program that features walking can be life extending if not life saving.
• Exercise can improve our energy levels, sense of well-being, sleep, and brain health.
• Identifying our personal roadblocks to exercise represents the first step to a more healthy and robust body and brain.
• Identification of why we do not exercise, however, permits us to systematically breakdown our resistance and to slowly change our behaviors towards health promotion.

Socialize, have fun, and slow down

• Society is faster and faster with greater pressure to keep up for a variety of questionable reasons.
• The importance of relaxation is underestimated and vacation time is considered a luxury.
• Chronic stress has been implicated in negative affects upon the human body and brain.
• Our ability to limit our exposure to stressful environments depends on our ability to say “no.”
• Reducing demands we place on ourselves is a critical step towards stress reduction.
• Our brains require time to process information more deeply and to be introspective.
• Engage in recreation and increase the number of hours you sleep in a day!
• Use Meditation, prayer, yoga, and other relaxation procedures to guide you towards relaxed states.
• We can also reduce stress in our lives by dedicating parts of the day and the week to ourselves.
• Make more time for those experiences that are fun and make more time for ourselves in general.
• Slow down!

Be financially stable and hire a financial planner

• Women at both young and older ages are at increased risk for poverty relative to men.
• Women tend to outlive men.
• A well developed plan for financial security in late life promotes health.
• Call a financial planner to begin this process.

Engage in daily prayer, meditation and other forms of spirituality

• Studies have documented a relationship between spirituality and immune system, to longevity and attendance at formalized places of worship, and to the general well being of those who may be ill.
• Despite these and other findings on the potential power of prayer to health, we have not integrated such behavior into the mainstream of our “health care system.”
• A whole new field of study referred to as “neurotheology” has been advanced to study the neurophysiological correlates of prayer and meditation.

Diet and Our Health

• Over-consumption of food is a major issue for modern society. Try to avoid going to bed feeling stuffed from eating and consume only 80% of what you intend to eat at every meal.
• Research has established a strong relationship between generalized caloric restriction and longevity.
• Understanding why we eat and what we eat is a critical component to our health.
• Studies indicate children spend more time in front of the television than they do at school or with their parents.
• Foods that may be brain health promoting include omega-3 fatty acids such as salmon and almonds.
• Foods with naturally occurring vitamin E and Vitamin C have an antioxidant effect.
• Folate may help to reduce the risk of some neurodegenerative illnesses and developmental disorders.

Maintain strong family and friendship networks

• We are not meant to be alone and isolation is bad for our health.
• Research demonstrates the importance of a social network in reducing the risk of dementia.
• Our ability to continually develop relations and sustain them across the lifespan represents a real proactive, health promoting behavior.
• Our ability to communicate with and interact with a network of friends is critical.
• Friends provide opportunities and enable a sharing of experiences, learning, challenge, emotion, trust, and understanding.
• Role development often occurs when friends engage in new pursuits. Such activities also provide us with an opportunity to enjoy, laugh, and have fun.
• Friendship can provide the necessary motivation towards activity and involvement.
• Places of worship, parent-teacher organizations, sports, clubs, and entertainment represent some of the forums where we can participate and develop relations with other people.
• These types of activities are health promoting as they offer stress reduction, new learning, and emotional expression.

Do not retire from life and maintain a role and purpose

• A conscious decision to stay actively involved is a good idea that further conveys a proactive approach to lifelong brain health.
• Attitude plays a significant role not only in general success in life but in health and ability to recover from illness.
• In order to maintain involvement and strong participation in society across the lifespan it is important to develop multiple skills and interests early in life.
• Having a reason for getting up each day should never be underestimated and a role and purpose in life are critical components to longevity.
• It is our responsibility to nurture different roles and developing ourselves as persons with many purposes.
• That talents emerge late in life supports neural plasticity and contradicts the traditional belief that the brain has little capacity late in life.
• Work may be a necessary activity for human beings and provide more meaning to our overall condition than we appreciate.
• Matching our passions in life with an occupation is powerful and can promote our talents and potential in significant ways.
• Our developing understanding of the human brain as a dynamic and reorganizing system makes a proactive lifestyle necessary for brain health.