brain health Archives - Home Care Services

December 8, 2021

Health

How To Train Your Brain To Perform At Its Best

If you could keep your brain optimized, for years or even decades to come, wouldn’t you? Of course! It should be a no-brainer (pun intended).

See, the fact is, many people do not stimulate their brain sufficiently to keep it functioning well into the senior years. In fact, many people do just the opposite; as they grow older, they take it “easy,” which in reality speeds up cognitive decline on so many levels.

Watching Jeopardy isn’t nearly enough, if you want to keep your brain functioning at its best. Try the following tips, and stay sharper than a whipper-snapper (always wanted to say that!)

Keep Learning

Why?

You may be surprised to know that when we stop learning, or refuse to learn, that is when a drastic reduction of brain performance occurs. See, every time we learn something new, our brain develops new neuronal connections, which translate to memories over time.

Failure to keep developing these new networks compromises the ability of the brain to retain, or develop new links, paving the way for dementia or memory loss related disorders.

Exercise

Wait- before you write this off, you need to know why. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “healthy body, health mind,” but may be you never fully understood the context of it. Exercise, provides many benefits, one of which is to increase cardiovascular function, which improves blood flow as one of its benefits.

Without sufficient blood flow to the brain, concentration fizzles, mind fog ensues and your brain becomes less “brainy” and more “grainy.” Health blood flow also reduced the risk of stroke, and supplies efficient oxygen so the cells perform optimally.

Play Video Games

My personal favorite by a long shot, playing video games increase cognition and problem solving skills. Strategy based games, which requires you think out of the box and figure out “puzzles” are especially effective, and can even improve your fine motor co-ordination.

So next time your kid wants a new video game, don’t’ sulk; rejoice in the fact that you are likely raising a genius!

Develop A Regular Sleep Pattern

This involves getting a decent 8 hours sleep every night. Why? Because most of our memories are “cemented” during sleep and not merely while we are awake, as more people are led to believe. The brain keeps working during sleep, and it is this deep state of “repair” which allows us to develop long-term memory. Sleep will also keep your energy levels high, provide mental clarity and allows your brain to work the way it was meant to.

De-Stress

The brain is the central control of your entire body, and as you may guess, plays a major role in the stress we experience on a daily basis. This might explain why one scenario may be extremely stressing to one person, and a pinch of sand to another. It has a lot to do with the way the brain has been conditioned to respond to these stressful stimuli.

By taking part in de-stressing activities, such as yoga or meditation, you too can train your brain to not signal the release of stress hormones for every little thing in life.

The result? Sharper mental acuity and a healthier physical self.

Eat For Performance

If you want your brain functioning at its best, you need to ensure it is well fed. Healthy fats, especially omega 3’s, along with lots of beneficial phytonutrients and anti-oxidants keep things chugging along the way they should.

Want a secret weapon? Try dark chocolate.

The dopamine high you get from chocolate makes it easier to learn and retain, so take advantage of this fact (and taste!)

Conclusion

Now that you see how extremely easy it can be to train your brain to perform with efficiency, what’s keeping you back from your true potential?

December 2, 2021

Health

6 Habits That Boost Memory And Brain Health

Most people take their brain for granted. Indeed, chances are you have never actively thought of a way to improve your brain health, except for passing thoughts about how you could likely enhance your memory.

First off, supplements are not the means to an end. Sure, you will likely reap short-term benefits on aspects such as focus or clarity, but over the long haul, you will be no different from how you started.

Rather, a better approach to improving your memory and brain health is by cultivating habits that encourage healthy brain function, allows sufficient recovery, and aids in the natural process of delegating.

Wondering what are the habits of the ultra-efficient? Read on to discover the potent “no brainer” strategies they use.

Sleep Like You Were Meant To

Did you know, that we are SUPPOSED to spend about 33% of our lives asleep? Yet, many, if not most, adults only get about 6.5 hours sleep nightly, when they should get at least 8.

Sleep is important for two main reasons in the context of brain health; it is able to repair damaged cells from both the periphery and the brain itself, and a lesser known but critical action on compartmentalizing memories.

If you hope to turn your short-term memories into long term ones, you must experience deep sleep, which usually occurs about 60-90 minutes after entering sleep. Your energy levels and efficiency will speak mountains about why good sleep is so important.

Exercise Often

Besides the well-documented benefits on physical health, exercise also exerts numerous benefits on brain health too. Enhanced blood flow to the brain as a result of exercise helps keep you alert and focused, while the boost of feel good endorphins produced as a result aid in blunting the stress hormone cortisol, fingered in poor retention and memory abilities.

Get Executive

Executive functioning is critical for maintaining brain health, and boosting memory. Executive functioning allows our brain to delegate tasks on levels of importance, form mental “notes,” and bottom lines, and to block out unnecessary tasks that would detract from efficiency. Think of it as the CEO of your brain; bottom line is what’s required.

Do One Thing At A Time

Multi-tasking isn’t hot; it’s not the latest in trend, nor is it smart. Why? Because multi-tasking makes you less efficient, decreases your ability to remember and translates to poorer memory.

Forgot to return that phone call you received while you were writing up that report, sending emails and conferencing with a client? Now you see what we mean. At a maximum, do no more than two tasks at a time- if possible strive for one.

Learn Something New

Having your brain do the same thing day after boring day is not going to make your memory better, or improve the overall health of your brain. In fact, one of two things is likely to occur; your brain either begins slacking on you because it is familiar with the tasks that need to be done, or efficiency increases in a few tasks but at the expense of many others. Think of your brain as a muscle, one that can be trained by applying new “stimuli.”

By doing the same tasks over and over, your brain becomes much too accustomed and does not have the incentive to change. By trying out new things, learning a language for example, your brain is forced to come out of its comfort zone. As the popular saying goes, “when you stop learning, you start dying.”

Schedule Regular De-Stressing Sessions

As levels of neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin increase, so does your ability to form memories, perform tasks efficiently and to focus. The key to achieving this? Keeping cortisol levels low. However, cortisol levels will spike the higher the stress you experience, so try including yoga sessions into your weekly wellness plan.

November 23, 2021

Uncategorized

5 Ways Regular Exercise Benefits Your Brain Health

Exercise is well known for improving your physical wellbeing, but did you also know that exercise directly improves the wellbeing of your brain too? Yep, concentrating and working behind a desk all day isn’t enough to “exercise your mind”, but rather you need to focus on performing exercises that keep the brain sharp, free from disease and functioning optimally.

With that said, exercise fits the bill perfectly! Not sure what it does for your brain? Then read on and be left awe struck.

Exercise Promotes Regeneration Of Brain Tissue

As we age, the ability of our brains to regenerate and for new cell growth is decreased significantly. However, research has found that regularly scheduled aerobic exercise sessions were able to significantly inhibit the loss of brain cells and associated shrinkage, in fact, after a period of six months, an increase in bran volume was reported in the group that performed regular aerobic exercise, compared to sedentary individuals who only perform light stretching or toning exercises.

Exercise Can Prevent Incidence Of Debilitating Depression

Ever notice that mega high you feel after successfully completing a workout, a run, or any type of workout? That is your brain on its happy hormone, serotonin, and dopamine.

When these levels of neurotransmitter hormones are high, your brain functions optimally with focus, quick calculating and the ability to recall information effortlessly.

Suffers of depression have reduced levels of serotonin especially, which typically lead to sluggish response time, mental fog and inability to concentrate. It is for this reason that exercise is regarded as an effective mood enhancer and natural remedy for depression.

Exercise Helps Keep Your Brain Well Fed

Our brain primarily uses glucose as its fuel source. However, in order for glucose to be efficiently shuttled to the brain cells, it requires the hormone insulin. Individuals who do not exercise on a regular basis (both aerobic and anaerobic varieties) typically have higher levels of insulin resistance, which is a fancy term to explain insulin’s efficiency.

High resistance means that it takes a lot more insulin to do the job of what a smaller amount should be able to do (think of 50 obese construction workers being needed to do the job of 10 fit ones).

Exercise keeps insulin resistance low, and promotes efficient transport of glucose to your brain. This translates to greater clarity, wakefulness, and improved ability to concentrate.

Exercise Diminishes The Effect Of Stress Hormones On The Brain

The stress hormone cortisol has been positively implicated in a host of processes related to premature aging and breakdown of body functions.

The brain is not exempt; in fact, you may be surprised to find out how much of your lapses in memory may be due to cortisol. In addition to the growth hormone and testosterone spike, which exercise results in, it also increase levels of a brain hormone referred to as BDNF, which helps keep the structures within the brain viable and healthy. In fact, it helps new cells to proliferate in instances where cell death is rapidly occurring.

Keeps Blood Vessels Healthy

Just as how diet, high cholesterol levels and inactivity can affect blood vessels surrounding the heart, so too can plaque formations develop in the brain. These plaque formations may be difficult to detect, but you may experience frequent light-headedness, mental cloudiness, or drowsiness. Or worse, a stroke may occur without notice.

Exercise helps to account for some cholesterol usage, increased oxidation of fat, or by helping improve blood flow to the brain subsequently.