Our beautiful brains
Did you know our brains are being constantly shaped and the functionality altered by our experiences?
As we learn new things and adapt to our ever-changing environments the brain adapts and changes, a process referred to as neuroplasticity.
Neuroscientists used to think that the brain stopped developing in adolescence, meaning any damage that resulted later in life such as following a stroke, would result in permanent cognitive change. Over the past 25 years or so neuroscience has in fact now concluded the opposite, we now know that the brain is a very biologically active and malleable organ that is central to the health and wellbeing of our physical, mental and emotional selves. The hippocampus (responsible for learning and memory) region of the brain actually creates about 1400 new neurons each day in adulthood!
Treat the brain as a muscle.
It can therefore be helpful to liken the brain to a muscle in the body – the more we learn how and when to exercise our mind the stronger the brain ‘muscle’ becomes as the practices start to influence neuroplasticity and increase our grey matter (neural tissue) volume. Mental activity engages neuronal activity and this ongoing neural activity builds neural structure, a scenario often described as ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’. This ability of the brain can enable us over time to link new healthy habits to existing old ones, such as being mindful whilst taking a morning shower, instead of mentally planning that work meeting you have on later that day.
As well as mental exercises such as crosswords and sudoku the brain greatly benefits from changes to our normal routine and it loves novelty.
Learning a musical instrument or taking up a new creative hobby stimulates different parts of the brain, improving the connectivity across the hemispheres, and building new neural connections. For example, a study on 3500 people showed reductions in depression in 80% of people who knit regularly! Other activities that are good for your brain fitness include taking a different route to work, learning a new language or skill, 20-30 minutes of physical exercise daily and last, but certainly not least, having a regular mindfulness meditation practice. It can even be worth trying to use your non-dominant hand, eating with chopsticks or completing daily chores with your eyes closed; all of which will introduce some challenge for the brain to grapple with.
Ultimately what we eat literally becomes us, so diet quality and our exposure to environmental toxins plays another huge part in brain health and wellbeing.
We often treat our bodies like cars, not really thinking about them unless they go wrong and often not really considering the quality of the fuel we are putting in to the ‘car’ (our bodies) nor the maintenance of it. Healthy eating isn’t actually confusing or complicated it’s simply frequently picked upon by the media to stimulate a reaction from the public through generating confusion or controversy.
A whole-food, largely plant-based or Mediterranean style diet (fruit, vegetables, grains, fish, nuts, olive oil) with little or no processed food is widely accepted as the best diet to support gut microbiome health which in turn protects the brain by preventing toxins or metabolites passing through the brain:blood barrier. We inherently know this, there is after all no shortage of blogs, diet books and so-called experts extolling the virtues of a natural, hunter-gatherer type of diet however we have a food industry that employs craveability experts whose job it is to create the optimal bliss point using the right levels of salt, fat and sugar to make us become addicted to their produce.
So, this is where some self-compassion needs to come in rather than guilt, remorse or self-hate – in seeing that the industry has been set up to deliberately trap customers into addictive behaviours you can see how your body and brain have simply been responding to the cravings these experts have been researching to generate within you. In returning to eat simpler unprocessed foods we allow for clearer brain messaging and we can reclaim our brains and taste buds!
Variety is key when it comes to choice of fruit and vegetables: eat as wide range of colours as possible and try adding some brain-healthy super foods such as berries, mushrooms, green leafy vegetables, garlic and spices into your regular meal times.