7 Tips for Taking Care of Your Brain

Your brain is an incredible machine that helps you in nearly every aspect of life. In this article, find seven tips for taking care of your brain.

Reviewed and approved by the pedagogue in physical education and nutritionist Elisa Morales Lupayante.

Written by Elisa Morales Lupayante

Last update: 27 May, 2022

Your brain is an incredible machine.After all, it stores a precious treasure chest of experiences and memories that make up a huge part of who you are. It’s a fascinating vault where new things are introduced everyday that exercise it and grease its motors. However, taking care of your brain is important so it keeps working properly.

Taking care of your brain healthy dietary and behavior habits that will allow your gray matter to be healthy. This way, you can help prevent or at least put off certain diseases.

A stressful lifestyle can lead to many illnesses: hypertension, cholesterol, obesity, etc. Often, even a simple headache is a result of a day filled with stress and anxiety.

Overall, by taking care of your brain health, you don’t just help prevent a wide array of diseases and discomfort. In addition, you also help to improve its performance. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at a few tips for taking care of your brain.

Tips for Taking Care of Your Brain

1. Take Care of Your Cognitive Reserve

Everything you have lived through, experienced, and even suffered from makes up part of your “memory storage.” This storage holds memories that are built up by providing a foundation on which they grow. It’s where you go when you’re looking for memories and emotions and where you learn and make decisions everyday based on experience.

This is what they call your cognitive reserve.

The bigger your reserve is, the better your protection against premature aging will be. This is because of all of the connections that strengthen your brain. The more connections you have, the more new tissue you will have. This promotes better protection against possible brain diseases.

That’s why it’s important to experience and learn new things every day.

2. Care for Your Diet

The brain is an organ that requires a lot of energy. In fact, the brain alone requires 20 to 30% of the calories that you consume.

That’s why you should avoid eating too many fats and, more importantly, industrialized foods because they make it difficult to maintain good brain health in the long run.

Nutritionists recommend the following chemicals and foods to help promote a healthy brain:

• Tryptophan: This chemical is essential for learning. It’s found in foods like fish, eggs, nuts, bananas, pineapples, and avocados.
• Choline: Soy and eggs are rich in this element. It’s essential for the transmission of nerve impulses to muscles.
• L-glutamine: This is used for building gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brain. It helps you be in a good mood and feel better. You can find it in sesame seeds and sunflower seeds.
• Flavonoids: These are also essential for neuron synapses. They reduce neuron aging and improve memory. You can find them in beans, chocolate, and red wine.
• Alpha lipoic acid: This is also essential for neurons, as it fights stress and neutralizes free radicals. You can find it in green vegetables like spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, etc.
• Vitamin E: This vitamin is essential. It helps neuron activity and prevents the oxidation of neuron membranes. You can find it in curry, asparagus, avocados, walnuts, peanuts, olives, and olive oil.

3. Physical Activity

Exercise is highly recommended for a healthy brain.

Believe it or not, there are studies that say that physical exercise prevents or puts off diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. 

Walking for an hour a day, riding a bike, swimming, or doing any activity everyday is enough to improve your neuron connections.

4. Handle Your Emotions Better

Want to know what one of the worst enemies of your brain’s health is?

Stress. Seriously.

Your lifestyle, daily obligations, pressure, and anxiety fill you with toxins and block you brain from functioning well. Then, your brain prematurely ages in the long run.

This is why it’s important to handle things calmly, prioritize positive thoughts, and see things from a more serene perspective in which you value yourself and your physical and mental health.

5. Socialization

Having a good social life with friends and relatives around you that provide you with support, fun, and encouragement is also great for your brain. Your brain is nurtured by these social nutrients that make its vault of experiences even bigger and its reserve stronger and more powerful.

This helps to keep your brain young and in shape.

6. Sleep for at Least 7 to 8 Hours

Sleeping is fundamental for your body and mind. In fact, the latter especially requires it in order to carry out its tasks,like organizing memories and experiences, storing, cataloging, arranging…

The brain is very active at night, but it can only perform its daily functions if you’re getting enough sleep.

7. Cognitive Stimulation

Besides physical exercise, your brain requires its own activity and its own daily challenges. Try making small challenges that keep it young and properly functioning a part of your daily routine.

How about playing chess with a friend or relative? Why don’t you do a crossword puzzle or Sudoku? How about you read a book or start a personal journal?

All of these small actions and challenges feed your brain. Keep it active, and it will thank you!