Did you know that recent medical studies have shown that our brains begin showing signs of dementia related diseases up to 30 years before we actually can’t remember what our car keys are used for!? It’s true. We begin losing grey matter and growing amyloid plaques in our 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. That’s the bad news. The good news is, now that we know this, we can take steps to prevent getting dementia at all!
Bruce Miller, MD, director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center states “We believe if people started taking preventive lifestyle measures, we could potentially decrease the incidence of Alzheimer's by about 30 percent,” Okay, 30% is good!
Last week I wrote about how mindfulness based practices, like meditation and yoga, help to change our gene expression and also keep our memory intact. I’d like to continue that discussion today with more information about Alzheimer’s prevention. We all know that, presently, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s. There are many things, however, that we can do to help prevent, or at the very least, slow the progress of dementia diseases like Alzheimer’s. Here are a few that “new science” proves will do the trick:
Eat The Right Foods
Martha Clare Morris, ScD, one of the researchers who developed the MIND diet, which is a combination of a Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, explains that our brains crave plants!
The MIND diet emphasizes vegetables and nuts, while putting limits on animal products, saturated fat, and sugar. This is based on research which examined which foods improve brain health. In a 2015 study published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, people who were most faithful to the MIND diet enjoyed slower cognitive decline—the equivalent of gaining seven and a half healthy brain years. In a second study, that same group was also found to have a 53 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer's compared with those who were the least dedicated to the diet.
The MIND diet's ten brain-boosting foods:
Leafy green veggies (six servings per week)
Other vegetables (one serving per day)
Nuts (five servings per week)
Berries (two servings per week)
Beans (three servings per week)
Whole grains (three servings per day)
Fish (one serving per week)
Poultry (two servings per week)
Olive oil (your main cooking oil)
Wine, preferably red (one serving per day)
Kirtan Kriya Meditation (info here) – It’s not too late to take advantage of my special from my last newsletter.
In the last year or so, I have spent a great deal of time studying neuroplasticity, and have developed a course to help people accomplish goals that have been out of reach for years, like, weight loss, being on time, getting back to writing that book, or putting paint to canvas. This course was tested a few months back with great success and I’ll be offering it again in October.
Basically, we now know that making new pathways in our brains is key for keeping our brains healthy and active at any age. And, the even better news is, it’s not difficult, nor does it take a lot of time and money to build these new pathways. It does, however, take commitment. You must decide that this is important and that you are going to follow through with the steps you take because ritual making and repetition help to make these new connections stronger.
For instance, let’s take the goal of being on time. Let’s say you have attempted many different times and ways to change this bad habit in recent years and each time something comes up, something ALWAYS comes up... Your babysitter cancels due to illness, so you have to drop the kids to school on your way to work, or you get a return call from your doctor just as you’re leaving for your tee time at the golf course and you answer because it might be important, etc. And before you know it things have “come up” enough times that you’ve blown your lovely plan to smithereens! Well, thanks to the science of neuroplasticity, we now know that this has nothing to do with willpower, and you are not doomed to failure with this goal. Mostly, this is your brain following the same pathway it knows over and over again. So at this point, that pathway is strong as cement! If you truly want to be on time, you must make new pathways in your brain, rinse and repeat, until this new pathway is strong, and, voila, you have conquered a habit. It sounds simple, right? It is. Simple – not easy. As I said, you must be committed.
There are many tools which help us make these new brain pathways and I’ll be covering all that I have found and researched in my new course. Watch for more information in the next newsletter on this!
Meanwhile, take a look at the TED Talk below, from a scientist who studies the brain and how to help people recover from stroke, through neuroplasticity. I was delighted when one of the participants from my new course sent me the link, as what she talks about here supports my own work! How cool is that!?
Best of Health,