Feed your brain: Consume 250-500 mg/day of Omega-3 daily. Do this by eating a cold-water fish at least once a week plus other Omega-3-rich food daily. Adding walnuts and ground flaxseed to oatmeal is so easy! Avoid or limit foods that increase inflammation—alcohol, processed sugar and artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, poly-unsaturated fats.- Recharge: Excessive stress has been shown to lower performance on cognitive tests. Give yourself the gift of a re-boot with meditation. Take steps to determine your stressors and create a plan to address it. Adding just one meditation session (or two short ones) to each day can help to ‘re-boot’ your outlook and re-align your priorities. Reserve a spot in your calendar for yourself every day.
- Take a walk: Physical activity is good for your body and mind by increasing oxygen flow . Even better if that activity is outdoors. Whether you tour your yard to or go on a nature hike, getting outside adds another layer of increased oxygen and pulls in a few minutes-worth of Vitamin D. Can you find 20 minutes three times a week?
- Learn something new: Actively stimulate your brain with an unfamiliar task such as learning a language, piano lessons or even word and number puzzles to help those neurons keep firing. Use your tablet to find challenging games but switch off to paper puzzle books to keep your brain engaged using different mediums.
- Plan more parties: Nurturing connections with others keeps life fun and interesting and has been linked to lower blood pressure —always a good thing. So celebrate positive events, large and small, with your loved ones–and say ‘Hi’ to your neighbors while you are out walking. 😊
- Guard your sleep: During sleep, your brain works on repairing itself , so don’t skimp on the shut-eye. Create a pre-sleep routine that includes shutting down the screens about an hour before bedtime.
Feed your brain: 1The National Institutes of Health suggests consuming 250-500 mg/day of omega-3 fatty acids/ day, while the American Heart Association recommends eating two servings of fish (3-4 ounces) a week as part of a heart-healthy diet.
2brainhealth.nia.nih.gov
3tenethealth.com
4brainhealth.nia.nih.gov
5health.harvard.edu
6brainhealth.nia.nih.gov