According to World Health Organization one in ten people over age 65 live with dementia. Cognitive decline begins years or decades before the onset of conditions like Alzheimer’s. Given the lack of effective treatments, prevention is the key.
In the long run, small change stack up, protecting you against debilitating neurological diseases. Two food groups that have shown to boost the cognitive health and performance-berry and seafood.
Aim to eat at least two portions of berries each week. And stock up on marine omega-3 fatty acid. Aim for two servings per week of oily fish.
Keep brain hydrated
Brain’s the composition which is 75% water by weight. To function optimally, it needs to stay at that mark. Losing 1% of your body weight to water loss, the result, fatigue, loss of focus, slower reaction times. When you fail to replace the lost water, your brain suffers.Everyone needs different amounts of water to achieve that goal. How, though, do you know if you’re getting enough H2O? Simple: take a peek in the toilet. If your urine is a light straw color or clear, you’re properly hydrated. If it’s darker than a light honey, you’re dehydrated and need to drink water.
Brain mental workout
Intelligence isn’t a single thing – we all have three different kinds of intelligence. There’s crystalized intelligence, for example – the accumulation of knowledge, facts, and know-how. Fluid intelligence is your ability to solve unfamiliar problems using reason. And, finally, there’s emotional intelligence, which is your capacity to navigate social life and interpersonal relationships.
According to a landmark study published in the journal Science in 2013, reading long-form narrative fiction boosts all three forms of intelligence. That’s because it trains different “muscles” simultaneously. It adds to your stock of knowledge, invites you to solve puzzles, and trains you to see the world empathetically through other people’s eyes.
More interested in improving your memory? Your best bet is picking up a new word every day. A large vocabulary is linked with greater cognitive efficiency and learning words gives the parts of your brain associated with visual, auditory, and memory processing a workout.
If you want to grow new brain cells, try getting creative. When you write stories, poems, songs, love letters, or diary entries, your hippocampus grows new neurons. That’s down to the fact that creative tasks challenge your brain to come up with new words and ideas.
Boosting attention span by regularly solving jigsaw and sudoku puzzles-unlike computerized brain games, which usually have a specified time limit, you can easily spend hours immersed in a difficult puzzle or numbers game.
Stress is a vicious circle. Cortisol, the “stress hormone,” increases the size of the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons in the inner brain that attaches emotions to memories and ideas. The larger the amygdala, the more anxious you become, which in turn makes you more susceptible to stress. That triggers even more cortisol production.
You can escape this trap, though. Let’s take a look at one of the most effective stress-busting tools out there – deep breathing. It rapidly lowers cortisol levels and brings down your heart rate and blood pressure, taking you from crisis to calm within seconds. Best of all, it’s easy to learn.
Start by closing your eyes, placing one hand on your stomach and the other over your heart. Now take a deep breath through your nose and bring the air down toward your stomach while counting to six. Hold this breath for a count of three before slowly exhaling as you count to six again. Repeat this exercise five to ten times, open your eyes, and enjoy your new and calmer perspective on the world!
Negative thoughts rewire the brain – for the worse.
We have over 60,000 thoughts a day, and most of them are negative.
Take it from a 2013 study conducted at Harvard University. When researchers asked participants if they experienced more positive or negative thoughts, most said they experienced more of the former – the positive kind.
When they were asked to keep track of their thoughts, however, it turned out that between 60 and 70 percent were negative. Follow-up studies put that number as high as 90 percent.
What’s going on here – are humans just hardwired to be pessimistic? Not really. In fact, emerging neuroscientific research suggests that negativity is bad for both our mental and neurological health.
Every thought creates new neural pathways, and negative thoughts create negative neural pathways.
This rewiring process enlarges the amygdala – the brain’s fear center. As a result, we store more experiences as bad memories, which causes us to become fearful and stressed in more situations. Negative thinking has also been linked with the shortening of protective caps at the end of chromosomes called telomeres. The shorter this cap is, the faster cells age.
The psychological effects of negative thinking are just as profound. Thoughts shape our emotions, and emotions drive decision-making. If we “train” our brain to be negative, we’re likely to make bad situations worse.
Solution approach negative thoughts with a rational manner. Oftentimes it’s an emotional overaction, not the reality that’s getting you down.
Scientists used to think that lost cells couldn’t be replaced, but the latest neuroscientific research shows they were wrong. Adults, it turns out, generate new brain cells well into their sixties, seventies, and even eighties. That doesn’t happen on its own, however – you have to help this process along.
The brain accounts for just 2 percent of total body weight, but it requires around 20 percent of the body’s blood supply. Why is that? Well, blood carries oxygen and glucose, or sugar – the fuel needed to keep all those neurons firing. Blood circulation also rinses away harmful substances like amyloid-beta protein – a compound linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
In short, good circulation is vital to cognitive performance and health. If you’re suffering from brain fog or finding it hard to concentrate, there’s a good chance poor circulation is to blame. Luckily, small hacks go a long way here.
One option is to take a walk. Short bursts of movement boost the circulation of blood to the brain, which is why exercise has been linked with greater creativity and the generation of new ideas. Next time you hit a mental block, do your brain a favor and go for a brisk walk around the block or your office.
When you get back to your desk, make sure you’re sitting up straight with your shoulders back and your neck long. That’s the simplest way of keeping blood flowing to your brain.
Meandering leads to perfection 