Feed Your Brain First

Feed Your Brain First is designed to:

• Inspire new philosophies on food, eating, and exercise
• Implement techniques to facilitate transition and change
• Set wheels in motion to actively design your lifestyle

This blog is dedicated to my dad

My dad is 84 years old. Physically he still functions very well. He gets around easily. He only takes one pill a day and that’s for his thyroid.

He graduated from MIT over 60 years ago as a mechanical design engineer. He spent his life designing production machinery for large companies. His designs saved companies huge amounts of money by cutting production costs.

My dad was always thinking “design.” As a kid, I remember going out to dinner, being in the middle of a conversation with him, and suddenly he would pick up a napkin and start drawing. The chicken scratch on the napkin would be an important piece of the design puzzle for a project he was working on at work.

He was a logical thinker. He could take any problem and break it down to core issues, and then put it back together with solutions.

When I was young, he was very shy and introverted when it came to social functions. He took a Dale Carnegie course, and then additional training in public speaking. He grew to be a respected speaker in our community. Not only did he have a wonderful way of organizing his information – he was kind and sincere. He was loved and respected by everybody that knew him.

Yes, my dad at age 84, is in good physical shape. The only problem is, his wonderful logical mind no longer matches his body. He doesn’t recognize the woman he calls “Mama” is his wife of 64 years. He doesn’t know me as his daughter. From one moment to the next, he has no memory of what he’s doing.

He is still the consummate design engineer. He takes pens and mechanical pencils apart and makes new apparatuses combining any small objects that he can find. (Of course, don’t have any expectations of writing with the  new gadget!) Let him find a screwdriver, and he’ll have the deadbolts off the doors in a flash.

Tell him any simple instruction, and he can’t follow it. His brain no longer functions in its logical orderly fashion. He has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He still is at home, and each day is a new experience in creative problem solving for my Mom and I.

What caused his Alzheimer’s? Was it the fact that he worked in an aluminum extrusion plant, breathing aluminum dust for 9 years? Or maybe it is not really Alzheimer’s at all. Maybe it started with a fall when he was roller skating with his granddaughter, and was knocked unconscious for 5 minutes. (After the fall, he was diagnosed with short term memory loss.) And each year for the next 17 years, his memory has declined bit by bit.

Does it really matter what we label it? At this point in time he is a physically fit, good looking man, with a brain that has taken a permanent vacation. The saddest thing – his brain functions just enough for him to know he can’t remember anything.

Imagine what life would be like if you couldn’t remember from one minute to the next. Imagine the frustration and turmoil of feeling “out of control.” Imagine how it would feel living in constant, permanent confusion! And it is not just about frustration and confusion due to Alzheimer’s. The brain can stop functioning properly at any age, and for many different reasons.

There are other brain disorders normally associated with old age – senility, and dementia. There are many other types brain dysfunction that affect millions, at any age. We’ve got brain trauma, brain injury, autism, dyslexia, Parkinson’s disease, ADD, to name a few.

We could also throw in psychological terms such as depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, and many others, as they all leave an effect on the function of the brain.

And then we have simple forms of forgetfulness, brain fog, brain fatigue – little annoying things that may occur regularly.

Science has learned so much about the brain, and yet we still know so little. I have been fascinated with the study of neuro-sciences for about 20 years. I have been equally fascinated with the mind-body connection, and have researched biofeedback, neuro-linguistic programming, relaxation, meditation, breathing, and other influences .

From my research, I truly believe that when we understand how our brain works, and what it needs, and focus on our brains first, we clear the path to achieving higher potentials and improving our lives.

First focus – before we head directly into the subject – “What fuels the brain?” I would like to set the stage by quoting a couple of passages from the book A User’s Guide to the Brain by John J. Ratey, MD. “Critics sometimes claim that a focus on ‘ordinary’ measures like exercise and diet is too simplistic to effect ordinary behavior. Not so. The brilliantly simple evidence from exciting new areas of physical and social science — complexity theory and tipping points — shows how powerful such universal factors can be an affecting the brain-body system.

Scientists are applying one aspect of complexity theory to explain human phenomena. They call the small change that can precipitate a large effect a “tipping point.” At some critical juncture, an isolated change tips the whole system in a different direction. Take a jar of water, cool it and cool it, and it remains water down to 35°, then 34, then 33. But reduce the temperature by 1° more and suddenly the water turns to ice. The temperature was consistently reduced, but at one point the whole system suddenly changed. This way of analyzing systems is now being used in many fields from economics to ecology.

Arguably, the most complex system known to science is the human brain… it may be hard to determine what small factor could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time to contribute to a mental health problem — like the tiny pebble kicked off a path that creates an avalanche further down the mountain.

The beauty of tipping points is that a complex system can just as easily tip up as down. A small and seemingly inconsequential action can lead to successful treatment of a disorder.”

Contrary to old beliefs, studies are proving our brains remain in a state of plasticity even into old age. What that means to us — we have the power to reconfigure our brains. It boils down to the care and feeding of the brain — using fundamental tools in everyday matters.

What if eating food for the brain was the tipping point? What if taking a break from our desk every hour for 5 minutes of physical exercise added new brain connections and became the tipping point? What if we left a job we hated to do something filled with purpose and meaning? What if we fed our brain inspiring information for just 15 minutes a day, every day, without fail.

What if our brain could talk to us – would it be begging us to give it brain food? Would it be imploring us to remember to drink enough water? Would our brain interrogate us on why we aren’t taking nice deep relaxing breaths, instead of our normal shallow breathing pattern? Or would it scream at us to take it off of “auto-pilot” and let it enjoy some real challenges? What would your brain want most to tell you?

We will be looking at many different reasons your brain might want to talk to you. Posts will include the role of proper nutrition, physical and mental exercise, and adequate sleep. We will also examine the roles of spirituality, meditation, your life purpose and passions.

There will be other posts discussing environmental influences such as pollutants, poisons, allergens, and effects of radiation from gadgets we use. Some posts may inspire controversy. They certainly will be food for thought.

So no matter what your age, jump on the “brain bandwagon.” It will be an interesting ride – we will make frequent visits to “Brain Food Market,” “Tools of the Trade,” “Encounters with Exercise” along with side trips to “Mental Trivia” and “Hello, this is your brain speaking.”

Please share your thoughts with us.