Steps to building a better brain
April 14, 2021
2020 was a stressful year for everyone. Like many people, I found myself putting on some extra and unwanted weight.
When I decide it’s time to start eating better and getting more exercise, I turn to a book to inspire me and perhaps teach me something new. Books take longer to read than searching the internet for online sources so they keep the inspiration going.
Currently I’m reading the Pegan Diet by Dr. Mark Hyman. He’s authored a number of books including the popular Eat Fat, Get Thin. He came up with “Pegan” when he found himself sitting between a Paleo proponent and a Vegan author at a conference. He says the “Diet” part of the title is misleading because he considers this a lifetime way of eating, not just a short-term diet.
Hyman puts an emphasis on eating lots of non-starchy vegetables, some fruit and meat, poultry or fish. Of course, there’s more to it, but that’s the basic eating pattern. He also encourages plenty of sleep and daily exercise. I haven’t made it through the entire book yet.
Then I was looking through some back issues of Reader’s Digest (I seem to get way behind on reading those) and found an interesting article titled “How to Build a Better Brain.” It’s in the September 2020 edition. I was intrigued by how many of the recommendations match the books I’ve been reading.
Here are some highlights from the article:
“About 50 percent of the things people do every day that affect their brain are toxic,” noted cognitive neuroscientist Sandra Bond Chapman, PhD, founder and chief director of the center for Brain Health at the University of Texas in Dallas. “They skimp on sleep. They multitask. They aren’t active.”
• Say yes to green leafy veggies.
Brain-friendly fare includes fresh fruits and vegetables, salads and grilled fish. The brain-shrinking diet was heavy on burgers, fries and soft drinks as well as sausage, potato chips and red meat. This is from a 2015 study published by researchers from Australia’s Deakin University.
Even a little healthy food goes a long way. According to a 2018 Rush University study tracking 960 people for 4.7 years, participants who ate just 1.3 extra servings of green leafy vegetables a day – that’s 1.3 cups of salad or a bit more than a half cup of cooked spinach, kale or collards – demonstrated cognitive abilities similar to those of people 11 years younger.
• Exercise: Moves that reprogram the brain.
Most of the time, your brain is the boss of your muscles – directing how you hit a ball, play the piano or open a box. But when it comes to growing new brain cells, more and more research shows that when you exercise, your muscles (along with your liver and body fat) take charge. When you’re active, they send chemical signals telling your brain, “Hey, it’s time to grow!”
Recent research suggests physical activity has multiple brain benefits, encouraging the birth and growth of new brain cells and the extension of blood vessels that supply oxygen and blood sugar to brain cells.
A little goes a long way. If you’re inactive, a stroll around the block may be all it takes to encourage neuroplasticity.
• Sleep: the nighttime brain cleanup.
Sleep deprivation messes with mental focus, stifles creativity, interferes with recall and slows reaction times by as much as 50 percent. Sleep changes have also been linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, but it is less clear which comes first.
In contrast, a good night’s sleep doubled volunteers’ ability to remember words they’d learned the day before, according to a 2015 study from the United Kingdom’s University of Exeter. Eight hours seems to be the magic number for most people.
• Challenge your brain the smart way.
While there are brain training programs that are helpful for some, only about 17 percent of people benefit from them. If you really love playing brain games, they will probably help.
“You have to increase levels of the feel-good brain chemical dopamine in order to generate brain-cell growth,” explains neuroscientist William Shankle, MD, medical director of the Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute of Hoag Hospital Network in Newport Bech, California. “Don’t do things you don’t like because they’re supposed to boost brainpower. Pick something you love. Keep learning about it and doing it. It takes passion to get benefits. Over time, people who keep their minds active have slower declines in memory and thinking.”
• Calm down.
While you’re at it, try meditation. It may give the brain a helping hand by calming stress circuits that link up areas involved with memory and thinking. In a 2013 study from the University of California, Santa Barbara, college students who learned to meditate had better mental focus and got higher scores on graduate-school exams than non-meditators.
Yoga also encourages brain plasticity, according to a 2019 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign review of 11 brain-imaging studies. Yoga’s brain-changing power may come from its mix of exercise with deep stress reduction.
You can just sit still, breathe and reap brain-plasticity benefits. You don’t have to meditate for an hour. Even ten minutes can be too long at first. Start with one minute. Find a style of meditation that’s right for you.
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