Celebrate Brain Health

March 11, 2019 | Abby Caviness

In 1996, the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the European Dana Alliance for the Brain founded Brain Awareness Week (BAW). This holiday was created to educate the public on the progress and benefits of brain research¹. According to its website, BAW has evolved over the past 23 years into global participation of more than 120 countries. During 2018, there were about 895 BAW events in 42 countries and 44 states. That is 895 events dedicated just to celebrating the brain and brain health. How cool is that?

Taking a few minutes to educate yourself about how your brain functions can help you maintain your brain health.* If you think about it this way, learning more about your brain health is just your brain learning about how to protect itself. However, thinking about it that way gets confusing fast, so we will move on.

Brainy Facts

Healthline² provides us with a few fun facts about brains, some of which are just fun and interesting. Others help us to understand more about how our brains function so we can take better care of it. Here are a few of them:²

1. The brain is 75 percent water, so even small amounts of dehydration can have negative effects on brain function.
2. The human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons.
3. It is a myth that humans only use 10 percent of our brain. We even use more than 10 percent when we sleep!
4. The brain gets smaller as we get older, starting some time after middle age.
5. A brain freeze occurs when a cold substance chills the blood vessels and arteries in the back of your throat. This includes the ones taking blood to your brain, which constrict and cause the pain in your forehead.

Tips For Brain Health

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, your brain changes naturally as you age. This affects your brain’s size, vasculature, and cognition.³ However, there are a few ways you can maintain your brain health and keep your brain “young”:⁴

Get Mental Stimulation

Try dedicating a few minutes of your day to a mentally stimulating activity. This includes reading, doing word puzzles or math problems, drawing, or any other activity requiring your mind to think.

Get Physical Exercise

Having an active lifestyle improves the health of your entire body. So, this practice will not only help your brain health but other organs and processes you may be struggling with. Exercise is shown to spur the development of new nerve cells and increases the connections between brain cells.

Improve Your Diet

Good nutrition goes hand-in-hand with exercise—it improves both your mind and body. Research even shows people who eat a diet emphasizing fruits, vegetables, fish, nuts, unsaturated oils and plant sources of proteins are less likely to develop cognitive impairment and dementia.

Protect Your Head

Possibly the most obvious tip is to keep your brain safe from head injuries, such as concussions. These incidents increase your risk of cognitive impairment. So, it is best to exercise caution when participating in activities involving risk of head injury. These activities include contact sports and riding a bike or motorcycle.

Takeaway

Your brain is incredibly important to the function of your body. In fact, your brain holds all the information that makes you, you. Taking the steps to keep your brain healthy means more than just saving yourself from brain diseases, it means preserving yourself so you can maximize your life’s potential. When you put it that way, does it not sound worth it?

*This material is provided by USHEALTH Group® for informational/educational purposes only and should not replace medical/clinical advice or direction from your health care provider.

1. “Brain Awareness Week,” Dana.org, accessed February 22, 2019, http://www.dana.org/baw
2. Wells, Diana, “Fun Facts About the Brain You Didn’t Know,” Healthline.com, written July 6, 2017, https://www.healthline.com/health/fun-facts-about-the-brain#1
3. Peters, R., “Ageing and the brain,” National Center for Biotechnology Information, accessed February 22, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596698/
4. “12 ways to keep your brain young,” Harvard Health Publishing, modified January 16, 2018, https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/12-ways-to-keep-your-brain-young