People of all ages and all walks of life want a better memory. Whether it’s a student trying to carry an A in biology, a salesman trying to stay on top of each customer as well as their preference, or a grandmother keeping track of 15 grandkid’s birthdays (good luck!) – all of us want our minds to function with machine-like capabilities.
As I harp on (and harp on, and harp on), we have to use our minds as often as possible, stretching them in ways they weren’t expecting. We have to read better books, challenge ourselves, learn new things, and never get “comfortable” with our knowledge. We should work puzzles, play board games, and learn different physical and mental activities.
I also do a fair amount of harping on the other necessities of brain fitness and health: Getting plenty of rest and relaxation, getting a good night’s sleep each night, and eating plenty of vegetables, fruit, and fish. If you ever wonder how much fruit and vegetables you should eat each day, go with this sure-fire calculation – about twice as much as you’re eating now!
Here’s something fascinating that I read recently, there’s a certain little 6 calorie vegetable that is especially good for your memory: Celery!
Celery is a top source of luteolin, a high-powered flavonoid. Apparently, these compounds may help cool off destructive inflammation in the brain’s memory center.
Over time, this brain inflammation interferes with our memory. But there’s more. The brain inflammation also intensifies and magnifies feelings of depression, accelerates dementia, and may even play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. According to Real Age.com, new studies suggest that luteolin (found in celery) may mute the nerve signals that tell immune cells in the brain to release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.
You can eat celery stalks as a snack, blend celery into smoothies, or sprinkle chopped celery onto salads for extra crunch. No celery lurking about in the back of your fridge? No problem.
Luteolin can also be found in green peppers, chili peppers, spinach, lettuce, chamomile tea, and thyme. However, the best source of luteolin is in celery.
How about a Super Memory Salad? Combine green peppers, cucumbers, chili peppers, spinach, and lettuce. Throw in a little thyme for good measure and, by all means, serve it with a tall glass of iced chamomile tea. Your heart will love it as much as your brain does!
Other ways to enjoy celery:
- Spread pimento cheese in the ditch of a stalk of celery
- Chop celery into pasta salads
- Chop celery into just about every kind of soup imaginable
- Add chopped celery to omelets
- Dip celery into hummus
- Dip celery into ranch dressing
- Cover celery with peanut butter and sprinkle with sunflower seeds
We all know that following a Mediterranean diet is healthy for our hearts and can lead to a trimmer body. As if that’s not enough reason enough to eat more Mediterranean food, a Mediterranean diet can also help prevent brain damage linked to memory problems and strokes.
A study which was presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting, showed that people who followed a Mediterranean-like diet were less likely to suffer brain tissue damage.
The diets of 712 people were studied and scrutinized. They were separated into groups that were based on how closely participants followed the diet. MRI brain scans showed that those following the Mediterranean diet the closest were 36 percent less likely to have areas of tissue damage than those following the diet the least closely. That’s huge.
Experts point out that these findings beautifully back up and support previous research which taught us that the Mediterranean diet could be associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and lengthen the lives of people with Alzheimer’s.
The Mediterranean diet has been proven (not just suggested… proven) to help prevent heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, heart attacks and, now, apparently brain disease. This type of eating should be adopted, today and every day for the rest of our lives.
Just what is a Mediterranean Diet?
A Mediterranean diet involves a very high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish and monounsaturated fatty acids.
The foods that a Mediterranean diet discourages: Saturated fatty acids, dairy, meat and poultry. A lot of it comes down to eating foods that are as close to their natural state as possible – more fresh produce and lots of it. Look for fresh ways to cook asparagus, artichokes, and broccoli. Add tomatoes, peppers,onions, and cucumbers to salads, soups, and pasta dishes. Replace meat with combinations of vegetables.
For more information on the benefits of the Mediterranean diet as well as a ton of recipe ideas and a more detailed description of the foods in the Mediterranean diet, please click the following link: How to Follow a Mediterranean Diet.
Make each moment count double,
~ Joi
Here’s a statistic to wrap your mind around: 1 in 6 adults and almost 1 in 10 children suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. One out of every 6 adults. One out of every 10 children.
Can you imagine the lives that could be changed, even saved, with early diagnosis and help? How many people could be given a new lease on life? How many people could keep from turning to alcohol, drugs, sex, or even crime due to a war that’s going on inside their heads? It’s time, in my humble opinion, for people to start making as much noise about mental illness as breast cancer, heart disease, lung disease, hunger, and diabetes. I’m not saying make LESS noise about these monsters (my own family has been visited by all but one of these physical monsters – suffice to say, none of us have ever been hungry but many loved ones have stared down the other nightmares).
All I’m saying is more attention needs to be given to mental illnesses as well – in addition to physical illnesses. I think we can all agree on that.
It’s way past time for the idiot stereotypes to be thrown aside. It’s time that people face the truth: Mental illnesses are just like other illnesses – they can not be helped. The individual who suffers with something such as schizophrenia is just as much a victim as the one who suffers from diabetes. The individual who lives with depression needs sympathy and understanding just as much as the individual who lives with asthma.
If you know, or if you are, an individual who’s personal monster lives in their head as opposed to another physical location – I want to point you to a wonderful website and community where understanding, friendship, help, and heroes reside: Bring Change 2 Mind.org. I’m pleading with everyone connected in any way to mental illness to visit this website, reach out to them, and allow them to reach out to you.
In their words: This is where the misconceptions stop. This is where bias comes to an end. This is where we change lives. Because this is where we Bring Change 2 Mind.
Smell that? That’s the sweet smell of hope.
“Hearts and Minds” Education Program Launched for People Living with Mental Illness
Did you know that people with serious mental illness live on average 25 years less than other Americans? This heartbreaking statistic is launching The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) into immediate action! Below is a news release regarding an ambitious new program to promote a sound body and mind amongst people who live with mental illness.
Arlington, VA, February 17, 2010—The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched a new health education program to promote sound “mind and body” health practices among individuals who live with serious mental illness.
The “Hearts and Minds” initiative takes aim at risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and obesity for major illnesses such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
“Hearts and Minds” is funded by OptumHealth and the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California-San Francisco.
The self-help program’s focus on wellness will inspire health and fitness practices familiar to many Americans—such as diet, exercise and smoking cessation. The main difference is the size of the challenge.
“Wellness is everyone’s concern,” said NAMI Executive Director Mike Fitzpatrick. “But it is especially urgent for people living with serious mental illness.”
People living with serious mental illness such as major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia live on average 25 years less than other Americans.
- One in four Americans experiences mental health problems in any given year.
- One in 17 lives with the most serious mental illnesses, such as such as major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
- One in ten children and adolescents struggles with serious, disabling conditions, including depression.
The program consists of five key components:
- A special interactive “Hearts & Minds” Web site including discussion groups
- A facilitator’s guide and tool kit for local community discussions
- A DVD that can be downloaded or purchased through NAMI’s online store
- A booklet on health strategies and risks that also can be downloaded or purchased
- Printed fact sheets on a broad range of topics
“Many kinds of risk factors contribute to health challenges for people with mental illnesses,” said NAMI Medical Director Ken Duckworth, M.D. “Many are preventable or reversible.”
“They include isolation, relatively low incomes, sedentary lifestyles, smoking as a form of self-medication and the side-effects of some medications for mental illness.”
“There has been significant progress in treatment options for mental illness to support recovery, but for every individual, each option requires careful assessment of benefits and risks.”
“Hearts and Minds will empower people to minimize and manage health risks to support wellness and recovery,” Duckworth said.
“Strong partnerships can create new resources and opportunities to help people with mental illness live full and productive lives,” said Andy Sekel, executive vice president, OptumHealth. “We are proud to sponsor NAMI’s ‘Hearts and Minds’ education program because it bridges mental and physical health to address the needs of the whole person.”
“Persons with mental illnesses deserve to live a full and healthy life,” said Steven A. Schroeder, M.D., director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. “At present, far too many compromise that opportunity because they smoke cigarettes, are overweight and don’t get sufficient exercise.”
“‘Hearts and Minds’ includes a timely video that provides helpful suggestions for how to attain wellness. It should be watched by all persons affected by mental illness, including family members and other loved ones.”
I’m pretty sure I’m beginning to sound like a broken record when it comes to brain games, but it can’t be helped! I know the importance of brain games for brain fitness and intend to nag everyone until they’re up to their gray matter in brain games!
Just why is it that brain games are so incredible for the fitness and health of your brain? These helpful, healthy, and fun exercises for the mind activate several different neurological functions and stimulate them, which in turn helps with thought processes across the board, including memory.
Remember in my last post (Brain Puzzles and Mental Fitness, Fun Birds of a Feather), I said that I planned on ordering the 365 Brain Puzzles? Well, I headed to Amazon and did just that as soon as I published the post.
Get this: It came the very next day!
It’s everything I’d hoped it’d be and more. In fact, there was information on the first page of this interactive desk calendar that told me how to get another desk calendar free. I like freebies. I love freebies.
I’ve been sharing these brain games with the rest of my family and we all are getting a huge kick out of the challenging puzzles.
Below are other ways to play Brain Games and stimulate your mind throughout the day:
- In your newspaper, work the Crossword Puzzle, Sudoku, and Jumble puzzles. Don’t give up halfway through the crossword puzzles ever again. Research and find the answers! You’ll feel so great after you’ve filled in every box and you’ll literally feel the stimulation in your brain.
- Look in the book’s section of your favorite store – there are lots of outstanding Brain Games on the market. Some of these are large books, while others are small workb00ks for just a few dollars. I recently bought a very small “Brain Teasers for Dummies” in the bargain section at Target. I liked what they wrote on the back of the booklet, “Flex your memory muscle with a variety of puzzles in varying degrees of difficulty. Studies have shown that puzzles like Sudoku, crosswords, cryptograms, and other “mental aerobics” can help reduce memory loss due to normal aging and minimize the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases.” This Pocket Edition Brain Teasers for Dummies is available in many stores as well as on Amazon (Brain Games on Amazon
).
- Learn 3 new things each day and recite them to your cat each night. At the end of the week, try to tell her all 21 things you learned that week! When searching out the 3 new things, one place you might want to check is Dummies.com. Not only do they make amazing books, they have videos and phone apps. You could learn something new each day on their site alone.
- Pay more attention to words around you and play brain games with them. You can even do this while riding down the road. Below are a few word games:
- Take the letters of the word and rearrange them to make new words. For example, if you see the word McDonald’s, think: mad, sand, scald…
- When the word is out of site, try spelling it backwards – trickier than it seems!
- When you spot a word, think of a different word you could create by changing just one letter. For example, if you see the word SPEED, you could create a new word by changing the second E to an N – SPEND.
- “Collect” 6 different words and make a coherent sentence with the words.
- “Collect” 10 words and, in order, try to remember them at the end of your trip.
Surround yourself with brain games and brain puzzles – keep one in each of the rooms of your house that you spend the most time in…. along with a pen or pencil, of course. Your brain will be very grateful… and will reward you handsomely.
Here is the next thing you need to buy – and, at less than $10.00, there’s no time like the present! I actually have Amazon open in another window and am making the transition even as we speak!
I’ve been hooked on Brain Games for a while now. I always have a little booklet of some form to stimulate and tickle my brain cells. This Mensa 365 Brain Puzzlers Page-A-Day Calendar 2010 (Page-A-Day Calendars)
( only $6.49 at Amazon) is right up my mental fitness alley.
Product Description:
Puzzle solving as extreme sport. Packed with a year of word and number conundrums tough enough to be sanctioned by Mensa, the internationally famous high-IQ society, 365 Brain Puzzlers is the perennially bestselling calendar that promises to push your neurons to the limit, every day. Gigantiwords. Sequences. Automation. Animal Crackers. And: I’m creating floral arrangements using the flowers and vases that I have. If I put one flower per vase, there are three flowers left over. If instead I put four flowers per vase (and all of the flowers get used), there are three vases left over. How many flowers and vases do I have? In case your gray matter lets you down, answers are on the reverse side of each page.
I’ll race you to the checkout! – Mensa 365 Brain Puzzlers Page-A-Day Calendar 2010 (Page-A-Day Calendars)
It’s a good thing grapes, blueberries, and blackberries are so delicious – our brains absolutely crave these foods. Not only are they great for your heart, they’re outstanding for your brain. As we often read, what’s great for one is generally great for the other – and, let’s face it, a healthy mind and heart are what we’re all after!
Concord grapes, blueberries, and blackberries each get their gorgeous, rich color from polyphenols. Polyphenols are compounds that reduce heart disease risk and protect against Alzheimer’s disease. Polyphenols help keep blood vessels and arteries flexible and healthy. “What’s good for your coronary arteries is also good for your brain’s blood vessels,” says Robert Krikorian, PhD, director of the Cognitive Disorders Center at the University of Cincinnati.
For those of us interested in the field of mental fitness and brain health, we have all the more reason to sound the purple food trumpet: Adding dark grapes to your diet can actually help to improve brain function. Also, researchers have found that eating 1 or more cups of blueberries every day can improve communication between brain cells, enhancing your memory.
So if you’re looking for foods that support brain health and function, be sure to put plenty of purple on your plate and in your glass.
Image of Thinking Man’s Brain Through Bowler Hat Photographic Print
Buy at AllPosters.com
3 Ways to Boost Your Brainpower
The following guest article is by Carol Smith.
It’s the most complicated machine in the world, one that can never be duplicated no matter how much man may try. It’s God’s creation at its best, and even though we don’t use it as often as we should, the human brain is capable of feats that may seem inhuman at times. It’s the most important organ in our body and when it stops functioning or even begins to slow down, our lives are affected like never before. We are dead even when we are alive, a fact that is confirmed when we see people affected by dementia, Alzheimer’s and other diseases that affect the brain.
It’s a natural part of aging that our brains begin to deteriorate and lose their effectiveness. But there are other factors besides age that hasten the onset of dementia and mental illnesses, and if we’re able to control and manage these, we could stave off the deterioration process of our neurons and their connections. If you want to boost your brainpower and ensure that this important organ works efficiently throughout your life, read on:
Reduce your reliance on technology: While it’s wonderful that we have so many gadgets and appliances at our disposal today, they have all served to make us lazy and inefficient. We no longer feel the need to remember simple details like addresses and phone numbers because our phone memories do that for us. We have complicated software that makes life so much more convenient, but at the same time, it wreaks havoc on our brains because it relegates our neurons to a backseat where they are not used anymore. And with less and less usage, they become rusty (for want of a better word) and slowly lose their effectiveness with the passage of time. So if you want your brain cells to remain active and not atrophy, you must use them. Try to dial numbers from memory; use your sense of direction without relying on your GPS; and remember your ATM pin number instead of storing it on your phone or PDA.
Find ways to tax your brain cells: The brain is just like any other muscle in your body – the more you exercise it, the more developed it becomes. So tax it a little by involving yourself in new tasks – solve crossword puzzles, do the Sudoku, learn a new language, try to play a musical instrument, or play games that stimulate you mentally. When you continuously push your brain to try new things, you keep all your neurons active and form new connections, all of which keep your brain from becoming useless as you age.
Shake up your routine: When you are used to a routine that you follow every day, your brain becomes accustomed to it. You don’t tax it too much because it functions on its version of autopilot. To ensure that you use all your brain cells, change your routine in some way or the other – take a new route to work so that you have to concentrate on getting to work in time without losing your way; try reading a different newspaper whose layout you are unfamiliar with; or cook without using your favorite recipe book. Even the smallest form of change can jog your brain cells and keep them active.
By-line:
This article is contributed by Carol Smith, who regularly writes on the topic of ultrasound tech schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: smithcarol.311@rediffmail.com
We all know the physical reasons to watch our weight: Diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol, respiratory problems, and even cancer have all been linked to weight related problems.
Experts now tell us that there’s yet another reason to keep our weight where it needs to be.
If you are a healthy weight, your mind is more youthful than if you are carrying extra weight. In a recent UCLA study, overweight people were found to have 4 percent less brain tissue than normal-weight adults. If this were broken down into brain age, their minds are about 8 years older than the minds of people who are in their normal weight range.
One possible cause is the fact that high calorie, high fat diets clog arteries in the brain, restrict blood flow, and cause cells to shrink.
Makes you want to have a salad for lunch, doesn’t it? Someone call Panera Bread and tell them to have my salad and green tea waiting for me!
If you love berries, grape juice, and walnuts, you already have an upper hand when it comes to protecting the health of your brain. If you aren’t already wild about them, it’s time to fall in love!
The polyphenols in walnuts and berries help quiet the inflammation and oxidative stressin the brain. These are the vile evils that can injure the brain and lead to memory problems.
Potent Brain Protection and Prevent Memory Loss
Just how powerful are the polyphenols in berries, grape juice, and walnuts? Get this: They are so potent that research suggests they might even help reverse cognitive decline once it occurs. According to Real Age.com (with Drs. Oz and Roizen), in a study of older adults with mild dementia, the individuals performed better on memory tests after Concord grape juice was added to their diets.
Take Steps to Prevent Mental Decline
Below are some tasty ways to make sure you get enough of these polyphenols.
- Pick a time of the day to automatically have a glass of grape juice – use a particular time or event to signal the ritual. For example, have a glass as you wash dishes, check your e-mail, take a bath, or read the paper.
- Add berries and nuts to your breakfast cereal.
- Add nuts and berries to your tossed salad.
- Put some walnuts in the bottom of a clear bowl. Pour vanilla yogurt over the walnuts, then pile on different colors of berries. Gorgeous and delicious.
- Keep a candy dish filled with walnuts near your computer. Nosh on them throughout the day.
- Add berries and walnuts to your oatmeal. I’ve gotten to the point where if my oatmeal doesn’t have blueberries on top of it, I walk the other way!
Make each moment count double!
~ Joi
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