Here is a sad fact of life. As we age our bodies start to deteriorate. We aren’t quite as agile as we once were. Our energy is not what it used to be. As we age, we tend to be more forgetful. But there is an upside. With good nutrition and the advancements that have been made in medicine, we are living longer. My mom lived to be 91 and my dad until age 94. However, long before their physical bodies gave out, their minds started to go. At the end, neither one of them could remember me.

This loss of memory is called Dementia and the most common form of dementia (60-80% of cases) is called Alzheimer’s. Dementia is a fact of life for many elderly people. See link for more details on Alzheimer.

We’ll discuss below the actions we can take to great slow this disease.

Positive Thinking has Positive Effects

The first is our mental health. Negative thinking has a detrimental effect on our bodies. If we think we are old, tired, worn out, then our physical bodies follow the guidance of our minds. That’s why it is important to have a positive attitude in life. Having a negative mindset can and will over time manifest in bodily ailments (see link).

I’m not saying that having a positive mindset will prevent Alzheimer’s however, having an optimistic outlook is one of the attributes for having a healthy mind.

Brain = Muscles

Second, your brain is like a muscle. It had been thought at one time, that our mind doesn’t change much once we reach adulthood. Research has shown that isn’t the case. Our brain has the ability to modify its connections or re-wire itself. It’s called Neuroplasticity. “Without this ability, any brain, not just the human brain, would be unable to develop from infancy through to adulthood or recover from brain injury.” Jim Kwik,

is the founder of Kwik Learning and a widely recognized world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance. Below he gives us some brain facts.

Our brains contain about 100 billion brain cells, equal to the number of stars in our galaxy.
A piece of your brain tissues the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses – all of which are communicating with one another.
If you laid out the blood vessels feeding your brain end to end, they’d stretch almost halfway to the moon!
Your brain is capable of over 1,000 processes per second, making it more powerful than any existing computer.
Your brain’s memory capacity is virtually unlimited.

Now that we know that our brains can change and improve; that it is like a muscle, how do we exercise it?

Of the 3 Rs, Reading is the most Important

One of the easiest ways to strengthen our brains is by reading.

Reading causes our brain to be active in two ways. First, reading causes our minds to process the written word, to recognize it on the page and interpret the meaning of a sentence.

The second is our minds create the image of the words in the page. If the story is about someone in a boat on a stormy sea, the wind is blowing hard, the waves are crashing against the side of the boat, we visualize what is taking place.

Your Mind is a Movie Maker

As soon as I said these words, you pictured a boat being tossed about in the sea. Maybe it was a sailboat, maybe it was a tug boat.

Maybe there was a single sailor on the boat, or maybe it was a family. There are infinite number of images that could have come to mind by reading that one sentence. Just image the number of images that occur during the reading of an entire book.

Conversely, studies have shown watching a lot of TV can increase aggression, while at the same time verbal skills diminishing. The brain physically changes with watching extensive amounts of television, thickening the frontal lobe region.

Deep Breathing (Yeah it works)

When we are working long hours, it’s important to take a few minutes break every hour. Get up and stretch. Breathe deep for a few minutes. “Many of us hold our breath unintentionally while engaged in daily tasks such as reading and writing email (a phenomenon called ‘email apnea’ or ‘screen apnea’. We simply “forget” to breathe. This deficit of oxygen-flow to the brain can result in headaches, increased stress, loss of concentration, and fatigue”, says Ran Zilca in Psychology Today. Breathing deep brings more oxygen to the brain.

Exercise your Mind and Body

While the two-minute break each hour is helpful, it is no substitute for having an extended time of daily exercise. Set up a time each day to get some type of exercise, even if it just walking. Stephen Duneier, who at the time was a portfolio manager in London decided to learn German. “My commute consisted of a 45-minute walk from one end of Hyde Park to the other, twice a day, every weekday. That was 1.5 hours per day, 7.5 hours per week, 32.5 hours a month and 390 hours or 23,400 minutes every year that I was awake, aware, and wasting time. Sure, I was achieving cognitive ease by listening to music through earphones on my way to and from a mentally fatiguing job, and yes, I enjoyed that downtime. Did I really want to inject cognitive strain into my ‘me time’?.” It turns out he did. He invested the time to listen to German during his daily commute, such that by the time he listened to the 33 CDs (converted to MP3) three times, he was conversant in German. Stephen has went on to some very impressive accomplishments which you can read about in the link above or at his Ted Talk link here.

Stimulating your brain through reading and deep breathing are important, but so is providing the raw energy through food that is good for your brain.

Brain Food

While its important to get a balanced diet of meat and vegetables to be healthy is equally important to consume foods that supercharge your brain. Below are such foods.

See link for details.

Fatty Fish
Coffee (I have no problem with this one)
Blueberries

Turmeric
Broccoli
Pumpkin seeds
Dark Chocolate
Nuts
Oranges
Eggs
Green Tea

Sleep

In the 24/7 world we live in, it can be difficult to get sufficient quality and quantity of sleep. However, according to the National Institutes of Health, “Sleep is important for storing memories. It also has a restorative function. Lack of sleep impairs reasoning, problem-solving, and attention to detail, among other effects.” While it is not known for sure if a lack of good sleep in a contributor to Alzheimer’s, research is indicating this is a distinct possibility, see Alzheimer’s disease may stem from protein clearance problem. So how do you improve your sleep?

How to you get a good night’s sleep

Make sure you allow 8 hours of sleep time.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends. Note: I do allow myself to sleep an extra hour on the weekend.
Make sure the room is dark. Light will wake us up. Install dark blinds or curtains. And if that is not possible, use a sleep mask.
Minimize distractions. While you can’t stop noisy neighbors, you can play some soothing sounds to muffle their racket.
If you get 8 hours of sleep each night, but consistently wake up tired, get a sleep study. I was sleeping poorly and did a sleep study the realized I had sleep apnea. Now I get a good 8 hours of rest and my oxygen level is higher than it was before using a sleep machine (feeding my brain that precious oxygen).

So, to love and care for your brain, take the following steps.

Actions:

Make a reading plan. Set aside dedicated time of 30-60 minutes a day to read. Do a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Read new authors and new genres to really engage your mind.
Focus on the positive in your life. Be grateful for what you don’t have. Our minds naturally drift to the negative so read something inspirational every day.
Take a few minutes each day to relax and focus on what is good in life. Focus on your breathing, taking deep breathes.
Get regular exercise. Try to walk 30 minutes each day. Work the exercise into your daily routine like Stephen Duneier.
Get a regular helping of the foods listed above. Make them a staple in your diet.
Get 8 hours of sleep daily. Change your schedule if necessary to get 8 hours of sleep.

Do everything in your power to have a healthy brain. You’ll be glad you did.

Leave me a comment, I’d like to know how you take care of your brain.