Do you worry about cognitive and mental decline as you get older? Do you worry about dementia? A healthy brain is a key to a high-quality life, especially when you get older. How can we nourish our brain the same way we nourish our bodies?
Nature provides for foods that nourish both the body and brain. Most often the focus of the diet is physical nourishment, - muscle building, weight loss, energy, athletic performance, and many others. Similar to foods that help the body, there are many foods that help the brain, improve memory and help slow down the aging process.
While it is normal to have your physical and mental abilities somewhat slow down with age, diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's accelerate these declines even more. As we age, brain function decline accelerates, and more and more brain cells eventually die over time.
In a normal brain (one not impacted by Alzheimer's or dementia); your brain may compensate for the loss of nerve cells in many ways:
•As the brain loses some of its nerve cells, it attempts to make connections between remaining nerve cells
•The brain may form totally new nerve cells especially, in cases, where one is learning a new language, a new musical instrument, or something that has not been done before. Learning something new most often results in new brain connections and new nerve cells.
•In addition, some of brain's "unused" or redundant cells come into play as they are now activated
Besides losing cells, and brain attempting to compensate them, there may be other impacts to the brain due to age such as:
•Blood flow to the brain decreases
•Nerve cells may lose some of the signal receptors for messages coming out of senses such as eyes, ear, skin etc.
•Nerves conduct/transmit signals more slowly. This can cause a slower response, or increased reaction time or slow reflexes
•Short term memory, vocabulary, ability to learn new things are impacted
With regular exercises, strength training, practicing martial arts, and other physical activities can arrest the physical decline. This book's primary focus is on managing the decline in mental and brain function through diet and contains the following:
•Characteristics of foods that help in keeping your brain healthy and young
Brain healthy foods including meats, fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs and seafood
•Supplements to improve memory, cognition and support brain health
•Mediterranean diet recipe ideas
•DASH diet recipe ideas
•Asian diet recipe ideas
•Brain boosting supplements and recommendations products and dosage
•References
Food for the brain is an easy read and gives you a number of ideas to keep your brain healthy and is a useful book in your healthy living toolbox.
