Brain aging IS optional!

Unfortunately, we live in a world that time is not kind to…

Time changes everything it touches. Food goes bad. Pavement cracks. Paint chips and gets bleached by the sun. Entropy enters systems and breaks things apart. We get older; our bodies start to slow and our brains begin to shut down.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Well… I guess that’s not totally true.

Time does change everything. But it doesn’t have to change things so much. If you keep food safe, it stays good to eat longer. You can repave and repaint if things are in need of renewing. But most importantly of all, you can care for your brain and body in a way that keeps their full functioning over time!

These last several weeks have been all about the brain and the things you can do to protect and refresh it…

• Recognize that thoughts are things – keep a positive frame of mind and curb negative thinking.
• Form healthy relationships with supportive people and distance yourself from those who negatively influence you.
• Nourish your brain and body with nutrient-dense, natural foods, avoiding processed foods and refined sugar as much as possible.
• Stay hydrated throughout the day and minimize your consumption of sugary beverages and energy drinks.
• Improve your sleeping habits, getting a minimum of eight hours.
• Exercise often to improve your circulation and heart healthiness.
• Keep your intellect active by engaging with new types of learning.
• Use brain-healthy supplements to close any gaps in your nutrition.
• Meditate to reduce stress.
• Avoid tobacco, alcohol, and other harmful, addictive substances.

All these brain-healthy habits will help you keep your brain from aging.

Sleep, for example, helps clear out the beta-amyloid plaques from your brain, which have been associated with the degenerative effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Reducing stress minimizes the cortisol in your system, exposure to which can lead to heart disease and other long-term maladies. New kinds of learning keep your neurons elastic and able to form new connections.

If you want to keep your brain from aging, here are two things to keep in mind…

Start small.

When laid out as a list like that, it looks like a laundry list – a not-so-fun and pretty difficult to-do list, even. We want to check off all the items and change all our habits overnight. But that will most likely overwhelm us – if it doesn’t discourage us from getting started at all!

Start by changing one habit. What is doable? What is one step in the right direction that you could take today, and then again tomorrow, and so on, until it becomes the new normal? Once you have made the one change, you can build on that foundation.

Keep your “why” in mind.

Getting any goal, making any change, is making a sacrifice for a greater good. We only make the change because we know there is something worth making the change for on the other side of the choice!

Yes, cake is delicious – water can be bland – and sometimes work keeps us up at night and keeps us from getting all the sleep we need. But is that a trade you are willing to make for the health of your brain? Your energy? Your cognition? Creativity? Focus? And not just today – but five, ten, twenty years from now?

I just had a baby – his name is Adam. I think of all the time I want to spend playing with him, and how I want to model good choices for him. That has motivated me more than ever to make brain-healthy choices. Who in your life are you getting healthy for?

Today is the first day of the rest of your life! Make it your masterpiece!

Florina

PS: If you want more mental health and well-being tips you may want to join my Mental Health Email Series: https://www.becomeyourbestversion.com/mental-health