©Arlene R. Taylor PhD
High-level-wellness living is important because your lifestyle actually changes your brain. Some have compared that to laying down footprints in your brain that correspond to your experiences, actions taken, and behaviors exhibited. Every positive change, however small, can make an impact in the long term. This has been called the age of the brain and studies have revealed some good news. More than half the factors that influence the health of your brain are believed to be within your partial, if not complete control. That’s where you need to put your time, attention, and money—on factors that you can do something about.
Dr. Kenneth Guiffre, in The Care and Feeding of Your Brain, wrote about some of these factors:
Lifestyle choices, foods, common drugs, and supplements have a profound effect on when and to what degree your mind can “boot up” to full capacity. Sometimes it receives what it needs to boot up efficiently and sometimes it doesn’t.
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to separate brain health from body health. Brain and body work nonstop from conception to death, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Your quality of life and health is profoundly impacted by the way you feed and care for your brain and body.
When writing about a concept known as remembered wellness, Dr. Benson indicated that self-care is the first and most important strategy. In his book, Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief, he listed components of a self-care strategy suchas:
I encourage people to learn all they can about lifestyle choices and their relative impact on brain function, and to apply the knowledge they gain to their own lives on a daily basis. Because it is often easier to start from something than from nothing, I have prepared these summaries related to lifestyle and the brain.
My goal is to stimulate thinking and observation, trigger increased awareness at an individual level, jumpstart applications for everyday living, and provide options for behaviors. Although I have relied heavily on brain function research, a plethora of studies, and discussions with brain researchers and other experts, the summaries represent my own brain’s considered opinion.
Typically, conclusions from research projects and studies are presented in the form of generalizations that apply to nearly 70% of the population (to the first standard deviation on either side of the mean). There are always exceptions based on individuality, because each human brain develops uniquely If some of your personal characteristics or typical behaviors don’t match a specific generalization, it doesn’t invalidate the research/studies. It does exemplify individual uniqueness.
According to Stein, deep-breathing techniques can help quiet the mind while energizing the body and brain at the same time. Breathing deeply of fresh, clean air can help you get more oxygen to your brain. Good levels of oxygen in the blood can positively impact brain power.
In several clinic studies appropriate levels of oxygen have been shown to enhance mental performance and memory recall in healthy active adults. Inadequate oxygen levels, on the other hand, can lead to issues such as sleep apnea, poor concentration, forgetfulness, mood swings, restlessness, and a tendency toward a depressive mind-set.
According to Dr. Pert in her book Molecules of Emotion, conscious breathing can release endorphins, the body’s natural morphine, which can reduce pain.
Some find it easier if they have a formula or ratios. Anthony Robbins recommended deep breathing using specific ratios as a method to help cleanse your brain and body, eliminating toxins through your lungs and lymphatic system.
Try Brain Breathing as follows:
A report from Harvard Medical School indicated that every breath you take converts to energy. If your cells receive too little oxygen they produce less energy.
Start your day with Brain Breathing. Do a daily dozen or more. When you need to learn something new, take several deep brain breaths first.
You can even achieve changes in short-term hemispheric processing by altering primary breathing from one nostril to the other. If you want to alter an unwanted state, breathe through the more congested nostril. Place your finger against your right nostril and breathe through your left nostril to stimulate your right hemisphere and vice versa.
Stanford professor Dr. William C. Dement, author of The Promise of Sleep, identified sleep deprivation as the most common brain impairment and says “We are a sleep-sick society.” Multiple studies suggest that the average human being is sleep deprived. Are you one of them? If you are, your brain will suffer.
According to James B. Maas MD, Cornell University professor, and author of the bookPower Sleep, healthy sleep has been proven to be the single most important determinant in predicting longevity—but modern cultures often have become studies in sleep deprivation.
As pointed out in Age-Proofing Your Brain, sleep is absolutely necessary for survival. You spend about one-third of your life sleeping. Far from being unproductive time, sleep plays a direct role in how full, energetic, and successful the other two-thirds of your life can be.
Each brain has an optimum amount of sleep that it needs on a daily basis. And your brain’s need for sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation, tends to remain constant throughout adulthood (unless, of course, you aren’t stimulating your brain on a regular basis).
First, guesstimate how much sleep you think your brain needs (e.g., seven hours). Then get more than that for several nights in a row. Eventually, your brain will begin to wake up spontaneously when it has had sufficient sleep. Make note of that number of hours, which will typically represent your brain’s optimum sleep needs.
Candice Pert indicated that during sleep, your cells release stored information that seeps into the consciousness as dreams. By recording and reviewing your dreams, you can often uncover repressed material that holds valuable keys to your personal and spiritual growth.
When a muscle is fatigued, it gives you a signal (e.g., pain, cramps, twitching), which is due to lack of oxygen to the muscle. In order to recover you must rest. According to Dr. Yaryura-Tobias in Prevention Magazine’s How to Boost Your Brain Power to Enrich Your Life, the brain tires in a similar way and gives you signals when it is fatigued. These include:
Determine your brain’s optimum sleep needs and give your brain the quantity and quality of sleep it needs on a daily basis.
Most people need somewhere between seven and eight hours of sleep each night (although there are exceptions on either end of the spectrum). If you lose sleep one night, try to grab a ten-minute nap later in the day. It can make a huge difference to your brain.
Spend time every day honing your active mental picturing abilities (e.g., actively creating something with your own brain). Reading a book or listening to an audio book is considered more stimulating and challenging to your brain than watching the average movie, video, or television program.
When you read a book or read a piece of music, your occipital and frontal brain areas are activated. Your brain creates its own internal movie, in effect, which helps to enhance creative intelligent memory; the type of memory that can improve with age. (This as compared to both declarative and non-declarative types of memory that tend to weaken with age.)
In 20/20 Thinking, Greenland-Robinson reported on Cleveland Clinic studies that showed watching television for an average of four hours a day was linked to a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch any television. In fact, some studies have recommended watching about an hour a day of carefully selected programming.
Studies concluded that those who watched no television showed outcomes similar to those who watched more than an hour a day. Similar studies with children have shown similar outcomes. Children who watched TV an hour per day did better in school than those who watched none or watched for more than an hour a day.
Emerging research indicates that, in the words of Horstman, “TV addiction is no mere metaphor.” Estimates are that watching television is the world’s most popular leisure activity to the tune of about three hours a day. This is approximately half of available leisure time on a daily basis, more than any other single activity except for work and for sleep.
Percy Tannenbaum of the University of California at Berkeley has written:
Among life’s more embarrassing moments have been countless occasions when I am engaged in conversation in a room while a TV set is on, and I cannot for the life of me stop from periodically glancing over to the screen. This occurs not only during dull conversations but during reasonably interesting ones just as well.
The pull toward television is not about the program content. It has more to do with a person’s neurobiology and the form of presentation. The brain tends to like novelty and variety, and tends to find the unique interesting. It exhibits a distinctive auditory or visual reflex reaction to a change in its environment.
Known as the orienting response, this function likely is part of a survival sensitivity that helps the brain identify potential threats from others (e.g., predators) as well as detect movement. This initial attention to environmental stimuli tends to make the animal or person more sensitive to the stimulation (e.g., the pupil of your eye dilates in response to dim light in the environment).
According to Wikipedia, this phenomenon was first described by Russian physiologist Sechenov in the 1850s in his book Reflexes of the Brain. The term itself was coined by another Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, who observed behavioral changes in dogs that included attention signs such as pricked-up ears, head turned toward the stimulus, and increased muscular tension.
A variety of physiological changes are now associated with the orienting response such as dilation of blood vessels to the brain, constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups, slowing of heartbeats, and the blocking of brain alpha waves for a few seconds. This tends to quiet the body while the brain focuses its attention on the screen, all of which have implications for television viewing.
Researchers have discovered that features of television such as sudden noises, rapid picture changes, zooms, pans, edits, cuts, and you name it, tend to activate the brain’s orienting response and keep it focused on the screen. It also dulls the brain. EEG studies have shown less mental stimulation during television viewing than during reading. An overly sensitive orienting response has been connected to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Some individuals report signs of withdrawal when they cut back television viewing, a sign of some type of addiction.
Minimize the amount of time you spend in passive-picturing activities (e.g., processing what someone else has created) in favor of activities that hone active mental picturing. Read books, play games, engage in stimulating conversations.
Note: There is even a place for some computer games according to Dr. Richard Restak: those that simulate real experiences such as flying an airplane or driving a racing car. These types of games demand a shift from left to right hemisphere functioning, while many other computer games simply help to hone motor skills.
Obtain at least thirty minutes of challenging brain stimulation every day. Engage active mental picturing, the opposite of passive mental picturing. The sky is the limit here. Just engage in stimulating activities that require active thinking. Here are some suggestions:
According to Katz and Rubin, learning American Sign Language is especially stimulating to the brain because it requires your hands, and the parts of the cortex that control them, to do something new.
Listen to a selection of music with your eyes closed. Pay attention to what happens in your mind’s eye. Restak reported that listening to music with your eyes closed fires up your temporal lobes, frontal lobes, and areas in the cerebellum (located near the brain stem).
Andy Clark recommended using brain-boosting technology to not only challenge the brain but to help it organize and/or keep track of data. There are a plethora of external props and aids such as laptops, iPhones, iPods, Blackberries, and so on. Utilized appropriately, these external props can help, as Clark put it, “to offset cognitive limitations built into the biological system” of the brain. They can serve as technological extensions of your brain.
Use these external props to not only stimulate your brain, but also to enhance your brain’s performance. As someone once said, today’s laptop is the refined and electronic version of yesterday’s paper and pencil. Yesterday’s paper and pencil represent a refined version of hieroglyphics carved in stone. Keep up with technology! Allow it to stimulate your brain and assist it at the same time.
The internet provides a vast source of at-your-fingertips information. Some advise that in this 21st century it is most important simply to know where to go to access needed information, as compared to trying to rote memorize it.
In general, overall performance and mental capacity begins to decline when people stop learning. This occurs due to a weakening and eventual loss of brain networks. Conversely, whenever you learn something new, you increase the number and connections among neurons. The more synaptic connections in your brain, the more likely you are to realize an increase in brain power and the less likely you are to exhibit signs and symptoms of dementia due to lack of brain stimulation.
There is more than one way to protect your brain. What you protect your brain from mentally may be equally important to protecting it physically. Your inner thoughts, feelings, and impressions directly impact your energy level. You are composed of many energy systems that encompass thoughts, feelings, and emotions. According to Wayne Dyer, every thought you think could be energetically calibrated for its impact on your body and environment.
According to Childre, your habitual attitudes form neural circuits in the brain. When you choose to maintain a specific attitude, the brain can literally rewire itself to facilitate that attitude. You can choose to maintain an attitude of positive hopefulness or one of negativity.
Kenneth Guiffre, MD, stated that the way in which you view life is directly related to the way in which your brain ages. Negative feelings and a negative mindset can trigger high levels of stress hormones (e.g., cortisol and adrenaline) to flood the brain. Over time this can result in reduced brain mass and cognitive ability.
The phenomenon of emotional contagion, as explained by Richard Restak, MD, means that negative emotions tend to exert a more powerful effect in social situations than positive ones. Limit time you spend with people given to pessimism and expressions of futility. If you want to accomplish something that demands determination and endurance, surround yourself with others who possess these qualities.
Visual images can be more intense than some other types of sensory stimuli. According to Benson, images and scripts from moving images can actually become part of your brain (e.g., physically materialized), changing its biological structure and impacting your health positively or negatively.
When you listen to radio, iPod, or CDs, you don’t receive the type of exposure to images that you may subsequently re-see repeatedly in your mind’s eye. To the extent that the input is negative, you may reduce the level of serotonin in your brain and find it more difficult to maintain and live a positive mind-set.
The brain works best in balance. In the book The Brain and the Fighter Pilot the author argues for the importance of balance in life among art, music, business, manual skills, and sciences. Avoid becoming unbalanced and overspecialized. This includes monitoring and controlling, to the extent possible, what you take in for sensory data.
For example, you may want to limit your exposure to the vivid portrayal of distressing news. Studies in quantum physics have shown that when you see or hear something on television that impacts your thoughts and moods, you remain connected to that information.
According to Dr. Amen, your thoughts affect every cell in your body. Negativity can lower immune system function and alter your neurochemistry. Changing your behavior can change your brain patterns. Avoid accepting every thought that comes into your mind. Take control of your thoughts.
Popular magazines are filled with pictures of food and glossy retouched photos of models at an “ideal weight.” Many pictures are accompanied by diet instructions for “how you can look like this, too!” Right! Inappropriate expectations of how you should look (when compared against models who may be six feet tall and borderline anorexic) can take its toll, especially if you already have issues related to self-esteem and personal boundaries.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 300 million worldwide are now classified as obese. Another billion are overweight. The main cause, experts say, is an undesirable diet, including an increased reliance on highly processed foods.
Obesity brings with it many negative health effects, including increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and some cancers, a negative impact on sexual activity—and it can be lethal to your brain.
Recently the news has pointed out a correlation between obesity and brain problems. One article was even entitled: Obese People Have Severe Brain Degeneration. Indeed a study published in the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology, reported that women who are obese throughout life are more likely to lose brain tissue than those who maintain a more optimum weight. Loss of brain tissue has been linked to cognitive decline.
Other studies have found that obese people had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory; and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions); in the hippocampus (long-term memory); in the basal ganglia (movement); in the corona radiate (white matter comprised of axons); and in the parietal lobes (sensory processing.) Not a pretty picture.
It is important to figure out what is an appropriate weight for you and then maintain it. Are there situations when weight-gain is caused by abnormal body function or a side-effect of medication. Sure. Studies have shown, however, that it is much more likely to reflect a lifestyle where there are more calories ingested than are burned. For most people, maintaining optimum weight will require managing their caloric intake on a daily basis and balancing it with physical exercise.
Jean Carper wrote that overeating weakens brain cells and primes them for damage. A slight restriction in calories ingested may help immunize brain cells against damage and disease, making nerve cells stronger and more resistant to damage (e.g., put stress on the brain cells causing them to grow stronger). Every calorie not eaten and not burned means fewer free radicals to attack brain cells (or to attack your skin creating wrinkles).
When you think you are hungry, drink a glass of water and wait a few minutes. If your hunger pangs diminish you probably were thirsty. If you continue to be hungry then your brain and body may need food.
Eat slightly fewer calories each day than you might otherwise be tempted to indulge. Use the energy saved to engage in activities you enjoy. Endeavor to eat most of your food earlier in the day rather than later. Mark Bricklin advised that humans need to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. This can be very helpful in assisting you to maintain an optimum weight. And living at an optimum weight is better for your brain.
Think of physical exercise as a type of brain food. The brain has no muscles of its own so it is dependent on physical exercise of the muscles in the body to enhance blood flow through the brain. Physical exercise gives the brain many of the things it needs to function at full power. It has been demonstrated to decrease the amount of cortisol and hydrocortisone in the brain, related to chronic stress. In excess, hydrocortisone can even shrink brain mass through cell death. No surprise then that those who exercise regularly seem to be more resilient to the exhausting effects of stress on the brain.
The authors of Spark, as well as others, have documented the beneficial effects of physical exercise, which could positively impact brain function and musical activities. For example, physical exercise has been shown to:
Short breaks with some type of physical movement can be helpful in facilitating brain fitness, as well. Dickmann recommended alternately conducting portions of your work from standing and sitting positions. He also encouraged establishing a stand-as-you-please policy by which individuals sit or stand in meetings or classes based on the needs of their personal mind and body.
According to Jensen standing up and stretching can help combat drowsiness when you are trying to learn. Dickmann advocated standing and stretching every 30-45 minutes at a minimum. Shaking both hands as if you were trying to shake water off them, as your arms hang down at your sides, can also be good for the brain.
Obtain at least thirty minutes of physical exercise daily. Rotate types of exercise to give your body-mind a change. This simple technique can help you maintain a regular exercise program.
One would think that the criticality of protecting your brain from physical injury whenever possible would be self-evident, and yet it is amazing the number of people who appear not to think about head protection at all. Or who think about it only for a few very specific situations or for someone else. It is amazing how what seems like a rather small injury to the brain can end up causing permanent damage if not death. The news has carried stories of just such devastating incidents. Natasha Richardson’slittle fall on the ski slopes is a case in point.
Not long after Richardson’s death was announced, a young violinist was riding his bicycle. In the hospital later on, after having been struck by a hit-and-run driver, the young violinist allowed as how he was very lucky to be alive with seemingly few injuries. “Young man!” thundered the doctor who was examining him, “Give me one reason you were not wearing a helmet!”
“I-i-it isn’t macho,” the young man stuttered.
The doctor then launched into a discourse of how it was much better to be thought of as less macho than end up with a Parkinson’s-like syndrome because neuronal axons had been severed from a blow to the brain (as in the case of boxer Mohammad Ali), or drooling oblivious in a wheelchair (as the doctor put it).
The doctor had gotten the boy’s attention. The young violinist promised he would start wearing a helmet immediately so “I’ll still be playing with the symphony when I’m as old as you are.” The doctor laughed and they shook hands.
Protect your brain insofar as it is possible to do so!
For the same reason, never bang your head against a hard object, or even against your hands, when you’re upset or frustrated. And avoid pugilistic sports such as boxing and activities such as bungee jumping that could bang your brain tissue against your skull or result in a whip-lash type injury. There are plenty of other sports with which to become involved that have a lower risk for brain injury.
