5 Essential Actions to Take Care of Your Brain

There’s a lot of stuff about your brain in the popular literature right now. Picking your way through the advice can be difficult and at times highly contradictory.

Let me try to get brain management down to five simple things for you, drawing from the work of Dr. John Arden who wrote an excellent book called “The Brain Bible.” Think of these as the “E’s” of brain management (because there are four “E”s and one “S”).

1. Eating. A proper diet with vegetables (for micronutrients), fruits (with natural sugar), wholegrain carbohydrates, protein and small dairy will give your brain a heavy dose of the neuropeptides it needs. Increase water consumption for easy access to the bloodstream.
2. Exercise. The minimum “raise your heart rate” exercise you should do is 30 minutes. I mean come on, that leaves 23 1/2 hours a day for other stuff. Exercise is a more effective antidepressant and anxiety reducer than any drug on the market because of the release of endorphins and creation of new neurons in the BDNF region of your brain.
3. Education. Constant learning builds your cognitive reserve. Try to learn new things because memory acquisition – the kind where you reach and grasp – lays down new neurons in the hippocampus and amygdala.
4. Environment. Don’t get socially isolated. Get out of the house of office, meet real people in real life. Socialisation reduces anxiety and depression because it works the mirror neurons in the TPJ area of your brain. When these are not exercised we begin to spiral downward in our mood.
5. Sleep. Proper, uninterrupted sleep helps you moderate hunger. Natural sleep is better than sleep modulated by drugs or pills. During sleep your brain trims the glial cells, processes memory, consolidates thoughts and regulates cortisol and adrenalin in your blood stream – which are key to reducing stress.

OK, so looking through that list, you probably already knew it right? Diet, exercise, education, socialization and rest. There might be a few new fancy terms like BDNF, TPJ and glial cell, but all in all, nothing earth shattering. So why aren’t you doing it? My guess is that each of these five essential actions is not urgent in your life, but they are important. They are not pressing, but left unchecked they will be stressing.

So the action question is how are you going to put any of them, let alone all of them, on the front burner? Here a few starters:

1. Eating: Start photographing everything you eat, or track it with a calorie counter.
2. Exercise: Start out with 10 minutes. Get on that Elliptical Trainer you bought a few years ago or go for a walk. Build slowly from there.
3. Education: Try using an app like Lumosity to challenge your brain in memory tasks and attention switching. Take five minutes every morning to complete the sections it gives you.
4. Environment: Make sure you stop for lunch and meet with human beings, and join a new club or group – not online – in the real world!
5. Sleep: Become aware of your sleep cycles. In the evening you will feel a wave of sleepiness come over you every three hours. Catch one to bed.