Super Charge your brain

Posted on May 01, 2020 by Sonia Gonzalez, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

I’ve been fascinated with how the brain works since it is the engine that controls every action we perform.

- Did you know that chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Parkinson’s, Diabetes, Cancer and other chronic illnesses can be prevented, if we take good care of our brains soon enough?
- Have you ever experienced forgetting things, names, restaurants when having a conversation with friends and the first thing you do is rushing to google to search what you forgot? Raise your hand if you have been in that place? As if we used to speak in “cursive” and nowadays we run into more lapses in between.
• Humans have brain plasticity, which is the ability of the brain to change for better or worse at any age.
• Lifestyle choices today are extremely important variables, that are connected to our brain’s destiny.
• Today, I’m going to share 5 scientifically-proven ways to recharge your brain!

1. Eat clean:
Embrace a less inflammatory diet.
What does this look like?
• Following injury or infection, acute inflammation is the normal and healthy immune system response that contributes to healing. When inflammation is chronic, however, it is related to several disease states.
• One of the most impactful ways to decrease chronic inflammation is to lose weight or maintain healthy body weight.
So, what should we eat then?
A. Basically,
o Eat more plants, fewer animal proteins, no processed food.
o Follow a scheme rich in non-starchy vegetables and fruit, legumes, nuts and seeds and whole grains. Include dark leafy greens, including kale and spinach, blueberries, blackberries, and cherries (full of antioxidants), dark red grapes, nutrition-dense vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower, beans and lentils and green tea.

B. Drastically reduce your sugar intake, stay in the lookout for hidden sugar in gluten-free products, organic cookies. Eliminate refined carbohydrates.
C. Welcome good Fat to the table: Avocado, coconut, olive oil, grass-fed meat, free-range eggs, oily fish that have Omega-3.

2. Movement:
• Did you know that working out properly can make your brain fit?
• Particularly full-body or high-intensity movements because  stimulating your body to produce a hormone called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which is a natural brain booster as it relates to the growth of brain cells. BDNF has been linked to increased focus, concentration, performance, memory, and provides anti-ageing benefits as well.
• If you simply spent 20 minutes doing cardio exercise 6 days per week, you could give your brain a massive jump-start to be able to crush the day.

3. Daily relaxation
• The practice of meditation reduces stress and pain, lower blood pressure and even improve memory.
• In fact, meditation has been shown to increase gray matter in the brain.
• As you age, gray matter declines, which negatively impacts memory and cognition. Meditation and relaxation techniques have been shown to improve short-term memory in people of all ages, from people in their 20s to the elderly. Begin by sitting for 5 min every day and work your way up to 20 min daily.

4. Deep sleep

• The brain does not shut off when we are asleep. There is a lot of work going on while you sleep and much of it involves consolidating the learning that took place during the day.
• Adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night to benefit fully and perform at their cognitive peak each day.
• The single most effective way to improve your sleep is to blackout your room. Light degrades melatonin, one of the hormones that make you sleepy and triggers cellular repair while you sleep.

5. Resolving emotional baggage

• We are all carrying backpacks that we continually load up. We keep stuffing them full until one day, they can’t zip and the stuff starts spilling out all over the place. When feelings have not been able to run their course, they tend to hang around.
• Try journaling, or talking about your issues with trusted friends and consider getting professional help. People need a safe place to process their feelings. Having someone trained to help you understand what you feel, will provide the space to better understand yourself and come up with strategies to make the changes you need.

Just imagine for a moment what you could do if you use 100 % of your brainpower.
Faster learning, better memory, sharper thinking, out-of-the-box problem solving, more efficiency and productivity, enhanced creativity to mention a few. In the end a happier life.
I think we need to take advantage of the knowledge WE HAVE TODAY and give our brains a change.