Brain Health

Brain Health probably brings to mind images of Sigmund Freud for most folks, and worries about their oedipal complex, whatever that might be.

Mr. Freud was concerned with your mental health, and I am writing about your brain's physical health.

After all, it is an organ, and while it has incredible talents, skills, and abilities in all of us, it has some special needs also.

For example your brain uses 20% of the energy you consume on a daily basis, so it needs a constant supply of fuel, because it cannot store any fuel.

And it needs the right kind of fuel so do not feed it msg or high fructose corn syrup. Those disrupt its delicate synapses.

A lack of omega 3 fatty acid can make your neurons rigid, and rigid neurons do not process sensory data well, so include foods high in omega 3 fatty acids or take a good supplement.

In the realm of brain health then, nutrition plays an important role, along with physical exercise, good sleep, stress management, and novel learning experiences.

Actually, all of those things contribute to your mental health and will make Mr. Freud smile.

Actually your brain and its health are very dependent on physical exercise. That is what helps the brain build new arteries and veins so that neurons are bathed in nutrients and food and waste from the mitochondrial factories is removed.

Please do not rush out to buy yourself a club membership. Your brain does not require that you hire a personal trainer, but it does need you to get out and engage in more of your normal physical activity like walking or mowing (behind the mower, not on it) so that you increase the oxygen intake, and then you can advance to physical exercise, but again all you need is an exercise ball, or a willingness to do jumping jacks, running in place, burpees, and any other callisthenics that you can remember from grade school for 10 minutes in 30 second intervals. You do not even need to get dressed in sweats unless you want to, but I guarentee you that you will work up a sweat and deep breathing which your brain will appreciate.

Regular sleep is important for your brain because it needs to complete some hormonal tasks and consolidate memories at night.

I would not recommend saying to your boss that you need a nap to complete memory consolidation from yesterday.

Stress management is very important task. Your body has a built in stress response to help us respond to an attack or a perception that an attack is going to happen, and that is the only time we need to cue it, but we have gotten in the habit of keeping our stress response turned on too long, which is bad for our brain, actually all of our cells.

So learning to deep breath, or doing deeper breathing while exercising is very important for the brain's delicate physical health.

Another very important consideration for your brain's health is to not bang it around inside your skull. The brain is actually sort of mushy and your skull is hard with some sharp edges which bruise the brain if they come into contact sharply.

If you can manage to include good nutrition, sleep, physical exercise, and novel learning experiences consistently, your brain will respond by creating new neurons every day and each of those neurons might have up to 30,000 dendrites on them, which is very good for your ability to make wise decisions.