LOVE your brain:
Your mental health and learning depend on it!
You can transplant your heart, sew your finger back on, clean your blood with dialysis but you can’t replace your beautiful, extraordinary brain. It’s a precious one and only, and without it we can’t think, feel or do. An unhappy, unhealthy brain leads to thick, dull processing, flat and depressed feelings and poor mental health. And it’s really hard to load new software (aka learning) onto faulty hardware. So rather than focusing on the outsides alone, it pays to prioritise having a big, juicy and well oxygenated brain!
The first priority for effective study or work, isn’t clean your desk or turn on your computer, it is to prepare your brain.
Optimise your brain’s health by:
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1. Hydration: The brain is 75% water by volume, and it take as little as 2% dehydration to shrivel the brain up and reduce your ability to concentrate and think clearly (Adan, 2012.) Ever felt the dehydrating effects of a hang-over? A dehydration headache results as a shrunken brain pulls away from its protective sheath lining the scull.
Action: Try preparing a 2 litre bottle/jug at the start of the day to drink throughout, more if it is hot, or you are exercising, breastfeeding or a heavy coffee or tea drinker.
2. Blood flow: Blood flow to the brain is critically important as it brings oxygen and nutrients in and takes the toxic by-products out. Although the brain is about 2% of our body mass it uses about 20% of our calories and needs glucose, in particular, to think well. Cold hands, white nail beds and poor blood flow to your extremities is a sign that your brain is probably not being fed the supply of blood that it needs. Make exercising and moving a priority and reduce your caffeine as it constricts capillaries and reduces blood flow.
Action: bring your shoes to work and plan with a colleague to walk at least 2 kms after school.
3. SLEEP!!: Sleep is critically important to brain health! When we sleep our memories from the day’s learning are consolidated and cerebral fluid rushes in to clean up our brains (NIH, 2012.) Higher quality, uninterrupted sleep allows the brain to create new cells to replace the cells that are inevitably lost during the day. Just a 1 hour reduction in sleep can affect your memory, concentration, coordination, mood, judgment, and ability to handle stress the following day. The one night of sleep loss can impact your mental performance as much as being legally drunk (Williamson, A. Feyer, A. 2000.) Yep.
Action: make sure you have exercised for at least 40 minutes that day and turn off all screens from 7.30pm. Did you sleep better?
4. Good food: It’s amazing: there is a direct correlation between the amount of fruit and veggies you consume and the levels of happiness you feel. True story! Increased fruit and vegetable consumption is predictive of increased happiness, life satisfaction, and well-being (Mujcic & Oswald, 2016.) Your brain wants you to drop the sugar, trans-fats and carb-feasts and boost the Omega 3s (think fish oil or flaxseeds), good lean protein and veggies and fruit.
Action: Buy 6 kinds of fruit and vegetables that you like in a week’s worth quantity. Pack fruit for 2 x snacks a day and aim for a good hearty serve of veggies at lunch and dinner. You will start feeling happier in only 24 hours!!
5. Fertilize your brain! Exercise helps produce a neurotransmitter called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) that helps neurons survive and grow. It’s like a beautiful fertiliser for the brain that encourages new neurons to grow and the brain to flourish in beautiful ways. Unfortunately, we live such a sedentary lifestyle and our brains don’t like it. It’s time to get our bottoms up and moving people.
Action: encourage yourself to exercise by committing to a time and place the night before, prepare your exercise clothes and put them on the floor beside your bed. Imagine the blood rushing through your brain, recharging and stimulating it for the day ahead.
6. Drop the stress!! If you are feeling high levels of stress and survival has become your everyday routine, you are marinating your brain in the highly acidic and unfriendly stress hormone cortisol. Chronic high levels of cortisol can kill brain cells and shrink the size of the your high-order thinking areas while stimulating the growth of your stress detection centres. This creates a loop of always feeling anxious and wired even when things are calm. Fundamentally long-term stress makes us feel horrible and thinking becomes increasingly difficult.
Action: Take 3 minutes to write down the things that are stressing you out. Put a line under the ones you can’t do anything about and circle the ones that you can. Put a plan of action in place, including seeking help to resolve the bigger challenges and learn to better de-stress to gain a sense of being back in control. Stress is inevitable to some degree, when we feel in control and have the help we need our stresses can become challenges that help us grow.
7. Mental diet: when you stop learning new things the brain starts to shrivel up, prune connections and move into hibernation. Stimulate the brain with new learning and positive and engaging experiences. This opens up your optimism and your mental resilience.
Action: try a digital detox for 1 week by accessing the news and social media in only 30 minutes a day. Find a new learning activity, e.g. reading, a new language, a podcast or online learning activity, for another 40 minutes. Assess at the end of the week how you feel? Time spent on social media is strongly correlated with levels of anxiety and depression.
8. Kill the ANTS: We have about 70 000 thoughts each day and for many of us they are up to 80% negative. Unfortunately, the more we think negatively the stronger those pathways become and the more we feel flat and numb. Cherish your brain, don’t treat it like a dumping ground for your negativity! Be a warrior for your own wellbeing and knock these thoughts to the ground.
Action: Use gratitude as an antidote. Every time we feel gratitude we change our neurochemistry and become more optimistic and positive. Try saying “I’m so lucky for…..” first thing in the morning and evening and let yourself ramble on in appreciation.
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