Brain health means that the cognitive, sensory, social-emotional, behavioral, and physical areas of the brain are all working properly. This means that a person can reach their full potential throughout their life, even if they don’t have any illnesses.
The way our brains grow, change, and deal with stress and hardship is affected by many things, such as our physical health, the safety and security of our surroundings, our ability to learn throughout our lives, our social connections, and our access to good services. These are replaced by plans for protection and development throughout a person’s life. Taking care of these factors that affect brain health not only makes mental and physical health better, but it also has good social and economic effects that make people happier and help society move forward.
But conditions that affect the brain and nervous system in general show up at any time during life and are marked by problems with brain development, damage to brain structure, and/or problems with brain function. These include neurological diseases that happen at birth, during growth, or at any time in a person’s life. For these conditions to get better health and social care, people from different fields need to work together and take a person-centered approach that focuses on promotion, prevention, treatment, care, and recovery. People who have experienced these conditions, as well as their families and caregivers, need to be actively involved.
How to keep your brain healthy
1. Do things that keep your mind active
Researchers have found that activities in the brain make new links between nerve cells and may even help the brain make new cells. This gives the brain “plasticity” and helps build up a functional reserve that protects against losing cells in the future.
Any exercise that makes you think should help your brain grow. Read, go to school, and do “mental gymnastics” like math problems or word puzzles. Try doing things that take both mental and physical strength, like painting, drawing, and other projects.
2. Do some physical activity
Studies have shown that working out your body is good for your thinking too. When animals work out regularly, they make more tiny blood vessels that bring oxygen-rich blood to the part of the brain that controls thinking. Exercise also helps new nerve cells grow and makes more synapses, which are connections between brain cells. This makes brains more efficient, flexible, and able to change, which means that animals that are getting older can do better. As an added bonus, exercise can also help your brain as well as your heart by lowering blood pressure, raising cholesterol, balancing blood sugar, and lowering mental stress.
3. Make your food better
Good food is good for both your body and your mind. For instance, people who eat a Mediterranean-style diet that includes lots of fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts, healthy oils (like olive oil), and plant-based proteins are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
4. Pay attention to your blood pressure
People who have high blood pressure in middle age are more likely to lose their minds as they age. Change the way you live to keep your blood pressure as low as possible. Stay slim, work out often, drink no more than two drinks a day, lower your stress, and eat right.
5. Get your blood sugar under control
Diabetes raises the chance of getting dementia by a large amount. Eating right, working out daily, and staying slim can help you avoid getting diabetes. But if your blood sugar goes high, you’ll need to take medicine to get it under control.
6. Lower your cholesterol
Having a lot of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol is linked to a higher chance of dementia. Changing what you eat, working out, keeping your weight in check, and giving up marijuana will all help lower your cholesterol. But if you need more help, talk to your doctor about taking medicine.
7. Take low-dose aspirin
There are some observational studies that show taking low-dose aspirin may lower the chance of dementia, especially vascular dementia. Talk to your doctor to see if you qualify.
8. Don’t smoke
Stay away from all kinds of smoke.
9. Don’t drink too much
A big risk factor for dementia is drinking too much. You should only have two drinks a day if you want to drink.
10. Take good care of your feelings
Cognitive function tests don’t work well for people who are nervous, sad, tired, or don’t get enough sleep. Bad scores don’t always mean that you’ll lose some of your mental abilities as you get older, but having good mental health and getting enough rest are important goals.
11. Keep your head up
Even if you haven’t been identified with a concussion, moderate to serious head injuries raise the risk of cognitive impairment.
12. Set up social networks
Having a lot of friends and family is linked to a lower chance of dementia, lower blood pressure, and a longer life span.
Foods that may help you think more clearly
There is no one-size-fits-all brain food that will keep your brain sharp as you age, just like there is no magic pill to stop cognitive loss. Nutritionists say that eating a healthy diet with lots of fruits, veggies, legumes, and whole carbs is the most important thing you can do. Plants and fish are good sources of energy. Healthy fats, like olive oil or canola, are better for you than heavy fats.
It has been found that the foods that are best for your brain are also good for your heart and blood vessels. These foods include:
• Vegetables with green leaves: Broccoli, kale, spinach, and other leafy greens are full of nutrients that are good for your brain, like vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta carotene. According to research, these plant-based foods may help keep your brain healthy.
• Fish with a lot of fat: Omega-3 fatty acids are healthy unsaturated fats that can be found in large amounts in fatty fish. Lower blood levels of beta-amyloid have been linked to lower levels of this protein, which forms harmful clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. At least twice a week, try to eat fish. Salmon, cod, canned light tuna, and pollack are all low in mercury and is a good choice. If you don’t like fish, talk to your doctor about taking an omega-3 pill. You can also eat foods like flaxseeds, bananas, and walnuts that are high in omega-3s.
• Berries: Flavonoids, the plant chemicals that give berries their bright colors, have been shown to help people remember things better. Researchers at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital did a study that showed women who ate at least two servings of strawberries and blueberries every week slowed down memory loss by up to two and a half years.
• Coffee and tea: That coffee or tea you drink in the morning might do more than just help you focus for a short time. In a study released in The Journal of Nutrition, people who drank more coffee did better on tests of their mental health. Other study suggests that caffeine may also help make new ideas stick. Johns Hopkins University researchers had people look at a set of pictures and then either take a sugar pill or a 200-milligram caffeine tablet. More people in the coffee group were able to correctly name the pictures the next day.
Walnuts: Nuts are great for getting energy and good fats, and one kind of nut may even help your memory. better walnut intake was linked to better memory test scores in a UCLA study. Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid, is found in large amounts in walnuts. Blood pressure goes down and arteries get healthier when you eat a lot of ALA and other omega-3 fatty acids. That’s brain and heart-healthy.
Supplements for brain health
Will a pill help you remember things?
“Improves memory.” “Sharpens focus” Some supplements that 25% of people over 50 take to try to keep their heads healthy may say things like these. Do these things really work? The FDA doesn’t require supplement makers to show their products work as long as they don’t make claims about specific diseases, so it’s not always clear. Here’s what experts know and don’t know about some of these well-known things.
B Flavonoids
Folic acid (B9) and other B vitamins (like B6) help keep the brain healthy. If you’re not expecting or low on them, though (folic acid is important to avoid birth problems!), a supplement probably won’t help. Talk to your doctor if you think you might get Alzheimer’s. There isn’t enough evidence to say for sure that taking vitamin B pills can improve brain function. To stay smart, you should stick to foods like healthy greens.
Caffiene
Because of the risks if you take too much caffeine, pills and powders are not a good idea. But you can drink coffee without feeling bad about it as long as it doesn’t keep you up at night or make you jittery. There are some that could be good for your brain. This drug wakes you up and gives you energy by stopping a chemical called adenosine from reaching brain cells.
L-theanine
Natural amino acid L-theanine seems to have the ability to make you smarter, especially when mixed with coffee. Still, most of the studies have been small, like the one in 2019 with 30 people. It’s best to stick to drinking green tea until more study is done: There are vitamins in it that may help your emotional and physical health in other ways. It also naturally has L-theanine and caffeine.
Omega-3s
Fish that is high in omega-3s and part of the traditional Mediterranean diet has been linked to a lower chance of dementia. But can taking omega-3 pills help? Thus far, big studies, including one funded by the National Institutes of Health, have not shown that to be true. This might not be true for everyone. A 2017 review shows that people with the APOE4 gene trait, which is linked to Alzheimer’s, might benefit if they start taking the vitamins early enough.
Vitamin E
There are free radicals that can hurt brain cells, and this antioxidant fights them. But big studies that tried to find out if vitamin E pills can protect against dementia haven’t come up with very good results. One study did find that they might help people who already have Alzheimer’s disease keep it from getting worse. For now, health experts say that most people should stick to foods like seeds, nuts, and veggie oils.
Big Leaf Ginkgo
Ginkgo is an important part of traditional Chinese medicine, but new study suggests that taking pills won’t likely help your memory. There were some studies that suggested there might be benefits, but the best-designed trials, like the 3,000-person Ginkgo Evaluation Memory study, found that ginkgo doesn’t stop or slow dementia.
Ginseng
Asian ginseng is another well-known herb that is often taken with ginkgo. Like ginkgo, some studies have shown that ginseng may be a powerful brain booster. But when experts looked at the best studies, the evidence didn’t hold up: A look at several studies found that there is “no convincing evidence” that ginseng will keep your brain healthy.
Forskolin
Curcumin is an antioxidant that is found in turmeric, which is used to make curry powder. Does that help explain why India has a lower rate of Alzheimer’s? People who took curcumin did better on memory tests and had fewer abnormal proteins build up in their brains, according to a study from UCLA. But this study only looked at 40 people, and this finding hasn’t been found in other studies, so more research is needed.
CDP-choline
CDP-choline is not sold as a supplement in Europe. To be exact, it’s a prescription drug. Researchers who looked at 14 studies say there is some good evidence that it can help older people who already have memory problems. But it’s not clear if it can keep healthy people from getting them. If you want to try it, talk to your doctor first.
What About Pairs?
A lot of memory aids don’t come in their own separate packages. But it’s harder to study products that have more than one ingredient, and they might not be safe. There is a chance of side effects with supplements, and the risk goes up as you take more. It can also be dangerous to mix them with prescription drugs. Have your doctor or pharmacist look over all the medicines and vitamins you’re taking or thinking about taking. That way, they can tell you what’s safe.12/12 Food First
Some supplements might be helpful, but most healthy people don’t need pills to stay smart. To keep your brain healthy as you get older, eat a lot of veggies, nuts, whole grains, and fish. These foods are important parts of the so-called MIND diet. Being physically busy, getting enough sleep, taking care of any health problems you have, keeping up with friends and family, and keeping your mind active by learning new things all the time can also make a big difference. Plus it’s good for you!