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Brain fitness is just as important as physical fitness. In today’s ever changing world, it can be tough to keep your brain healthy. Here are some ways to keep your brain healthy and focus on your overall well being.
Eat Well
Food fuels your brain just like it fuels your body for physical fitness. Eating foods that are brain-healthy can have a big impact on your mental wellbeing. Foods high in vitamins, antioxidants and healthy fats are a great place to start.
Try fatty fishes to get your Omega-3s. For antioxidants, drink wine or coffee. Coffee will also give you an extra boost of caffeine, which can help with alertness. Fruits like blueberries are also high in antioxidants.
Supplement Your Health
Turmeric is an herb that is another great option for antioxidants. It’s not only a great antioxidant, but it’s an anti-inflammatory. It also has the potential to boost memory and might even ease depression. It’s even possible that it helps new brain cells grow!
Omega-3 fatty acids are very important and they can be found in fish. If you struggle to eat enough fish, you may want to try a fish oil supplement. Fish oil is essential to learning and memory. It even has been shown to support long term brain health. Maintain cognitive function and support mood.
Co-Q-10 is another great supplement to take for brain health. Coenzyme q10 helps support mitochondrial function, giving your cells energy. Though this happens throughout the body, it also happens in the brain. This means that it could maintain memory skills and your ability to think.
Drink a Lot of Water
Staying hydrated is also important to brain health. Water helps the cells in your brain communicate with each other. It also clears toxins and other waste that could potentially impair brain function. Plus, it carries nutrients to your brain.
Not drinking enough water has been linked to slower decision making and worse performance on cognitive tests. You should drink at least 3.7 liters of water a day for men and 2.7 liters a day for women.
Limit Alcohol
At the same time, you should limit your alcohol intake. Abusing alcohol has severe consequences, like brain damage. But studies have found that no safe dose of alcohol was found for the brain. Moderate consumption is associated with more widespread effects than previously thought.
Sleep Well
It’s also true that alcohol affects your sleep. Sleep is very important to brain health. When you drink alcohol, you spend less time in deep sleep and REM sleep cycles. Deep and REM sleep are when your body gets the brain and body ready to take on the next day. This is why you may wake up after an evening of drinking feelings exhausted, even if you were in bed for eight hours.
Sleep is restorative. Sleep deprivation has a lot of consequences on the brain. It lowers your resistance to stress and interferes with memory and learning. This means lack of sleep makes your brain move slower, you’re more forgetful and your attention span will be shorter.
You should get about eight hours of sleep a night. Just because you spend eight hours in bed, doesn’t mean you’ll sleep the whole time. Go to bed early, unwind and don’t look at your phone right before bed.
Exercise Regularly
Finally, exercise is good for more than physical health. It also has a positive impact on brain health. Exercise can help you think, learn and feel more emotionally balanced. It can even optimize your memory and make you feel less anxious or depressed.
Any amount of physical activity can have these benefits, so if you’re not a gym buff, don’t worry. Just spend some time being active, even if it’s going for a walk. Running, lifting weights or swimming are other great exercise options.
There are so many ways to maintain your brain health. Stop thinking about them and start doing them today!
