Brain Health Tips

Your car has a top speed, your legs have a top speed, even your brain has a top speed. But while we never drive or run at top speed, our brain’s top speed is tested every day. Every time we make a complex decision, solve a problem, or recall someone’s name, we’re testing out brain’s top cognitive speed. Our brain’s top speed is a function of a large number of things. Two of the most important factors – age and genetics – cannot be changed. But there are a host of other factors that can help improve our maximum cognitive speed. For peak performance, your brain cells need a constant supply of oxygen and a variety of key nutrients.

Since it is difficult to get all the nutrients you need from the food you eat, it is important to supplement your diet with certain supplements to ensure healthy brain function. Your decision-making speed may also benefit from additional vitamins, herbs and specialty nutrients.

For peak performance, your brain cells need a constant supply of oxygen and variety of key nutrients, including phospholipids and fortifying fatty acids, specific amino acids, energizing carbohydrates, and protective antioxidants found in certain fruits and vegetables. Your brain speed may also benefit from select vitamins, herbs and specialty nutrients.

Oxygen
More than anything your brain needs oxygen. In fact, it can demand a large percentage of the oxygen in your blood. This is mighty gluttonous for an organ that weighs only two percent of your body weight. Oxygen is critical to brain health and cognitive function. Your cerebral capillaries – the small blood vessels in your brain – literally bathe your brain cells in oxygen. Without a continuous supply of oxygen, brain cells lack the ability to perform at peak capacity.

Phospholipids and Fatty Acids
All forms of communication and nutrient exchange in your brain depend on the health and tone of the cell membranes. Two types of fats play an important role in cell membrane health: phospholipids and the fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

Phospholipids give your brain the flexibility, fluidity and electrical energy it needs to quickly and efficiently move information from one cell to the next. A key phospholipid for brain health is phosphatidlycholine, or lecithin. In your brain, lecithin actually forms a bi-lipid membrane that helps regulate cell permeability and facilitate nerve impulse transmission. Without enough phospholipids, cell walls begin to harden and crack making it difficult for vital nutrients to get in, metabolic waste products to get out, and important messages to be processed.

DHA is also vital to the structure of your brain and its membrane integrity. This essential fatty acid belongs to a special group of polyunsaturated fatty acids called Omega 3s. While your body can make DHA from other fatty acids consumed in the diet, you can also boost your body’s store by eating DHA-rich foods. Salmon and other fatty, cold-water fish are particularly good sources of this brain-essential fatty acid.

Avoiding foods that contain saturated fatty acids and trans fatty acids will also help keep your brain cell membranes in top form. Saturated fats are typically solid fats at room temperature such as those found in butter, margarine, and hydrogenated oils. Trans fatty acids are highly processed fats that are often found in convenience foods.

Here’s how you can get enough of these important brain-essential fats in your diet:

Eat
Cold-water fish, especially salmon, sardines, mackerel, tuna and trout, soy beans, tofu, tempeh and other soy foods and products, organic, free range eggs, cold-pressed flax, hemp, pumpkin seed and walnut oils

Take
Fish oil capsules

Amino Acids
Most people know that amino acids are the building blocks of protein, but are also building blocks for the neurotransmitters that shuttle chemical messages from neuron to neuron.
The primary neurotransmitters involved in mood, memory and cognition are acetylcholine, glutamate, dopamine, and serotonin. Acetylcholine is important to your brain for perception, learning and short-term memory. Glutamate is important for long-term memory. Norepinephrine and dopamine are in charge of alertness, coordination and physical activity. Norepinephrine also helps form new memories and then packs them off to long-term storage. It keeps you alert during times of need, pressure or a fight for survival. Dopamine is important for proper immune and nervous system function. It also helps motivate you. Finally, serotonin allows you to feel contentment and satisfaction and to sleep peacefully at night. It all helps regulate memory and learning, as well as appetite and body temperature.

By consuming an optimal intake of protein-rich foods, you can supply your brain with the key amino acids it needs to make an optimal supply of these neurotransmitters. Here’s how:

Eat
Meat (sparingly), fish, turkey, chicken, beans, cottage and ricotta cheese, low-fat yogurt

When choosing protein sources, be sure to pick organic meats and dairy foods that come from animals that have been allowed to free range on green grasses. There are more likely to be higher in essential fatty acids and lower in toxins. With fish, wild is preferable to farmed. Best by far are the deep-water fish – they are less likely to be contaminated with toxins. Farmed fish, believed by some to be non-polluted, may lack the high levels of brain-essential fatty acids.

Carbohydrates
Blood glucose- or blood sugar – is the primary nutrient fueling your brain cells. Every minute, your brain takes up about 10 percent of the glucose from the blood flowing through it. Your brain cells then use glucose, along with oxygen, to produce cellular energy in the form of ATP.

One of the best ways to ensure a steady supply of glucose for your brain is to consume a diet that provides no more than 50 percent of your total calorie intake of complex carbohydrates. When you do choose carbohydrate-rich foods, choose those that have a low glycemic index, or GI. The GI is a system for ranking foods based on their immediate effect on blood glucose levels. Carbohydrate foods that break down quickly during digestion have the highest GI values. The blood sugar response to them is fast and high. Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have low GI values. The GI values of foods can be categorized as high (over 70), medium (50-70) or low (under 50). Again, choose carbohydrate foods with lower GI values more often. And, don’t forget to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables daily. They are great sources of beneficial nutrients, including vitamin C, and other antioxidants that can help protect your brain cells.

Here’s how to make sure you have enough brain-essential carbohydrates in your diet:

Keep Complex Carbohydrate intake to no more than 50 percent of total calories.