When you think of staying fit, don’t just think from the neck down: think about your brain! A healthy brain plays a critical role in almost everything you do—thinking, feeling, remembering, and sleeping.
Optimize your brain health throughout your entire life. How do you maintain optimum brain health? Simple, what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. Your heart pumps about 20 percent of your blood to your brain to nourish billions of brain cells with oxygen and nutrients.
Accordingly, anything that may damage your heart, such as alcohol and tobacco, may also adversely affect your brain. Research showed that obese adults with high cholesterol and high blood pressure had six times the risk for dementia. In other words, a heart-healthy diet is essential to a healthy brain. Control your cholesterol and blood pressure naturally without the use of drugs, because pharmaceutical drugs are toxic chemicals, and should be avoided wherever possible.
Manage your body weight naturally without resorting to fad diets. (Download a FREE copy of my 143-page e-book All-Round Weight Loss to get the know-how to lose weight naturally.)Because your brain needs oxygen, your breathing is also important to your brain health. Learn how how to breathe right; that is, breathing with the diaphragm, not your chest. Breathing incorrectly is the cause of many ailments and disorders. Good posture also facilitates optimum breathing.
Stress ages not only your body but also your brain. Stress affects your body’s production of DHEA, which is a hormone critical to anti-aging and longevity. Meditation is an antidote to stress (Read my web page: Meditation Healing for more information).
A healthy brain for healthy living for life may require a change in lifestyle, such as getting involved in brain activities to keep your memory sharp and to optimize your cognitive functions. Your brain health may decline as you age due to altered connections among brain cells. But research has found that keeping your brain active not only increases its vitality, but also builds its reserve of brain cells and connections. In addition, your brain has the capability to generate new brain cells at any age. Adult learning is an important factor in brain health. Use it, or lose it!
Brain Fit For Life is a user’s guide to lifelong brain health and fitness. Learn to take good care of your brain for healthy living for life.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
