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You are here: Home / Archives for prevent Alzheimer’s

prevent Alzheimer's

Creativity is Intelligence Having Fun: Well Said, Albert Einstein

August 18, 2016 by Joi Leave a Comment

"Creativity is Intelligence Having Fun." - Albert Einstein
A while back, I was sent a new book to review on my blogs (How to Draw Cool Stuff) and while enjoying the heck out of it, I started thinking about the benefits of creativity on your mental and emotional health. Basically, getting in touch with your creative side (cooking, drawing, gardening, writing, crafting special coffee drinks, painting…) awakens an area in your brain that may have been dormant since art class in the tenth grade.

It’s never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never a good thing when any part of your brain is dormant.

CNN reports that taking part in creative endeavors protects neuron growth by promoting the production of new neurons – which delays dementia.  Put another way, it’s a wake up call to your brain cells – one it needs greatly. Wake up calls such as this, of course, not only keep you sharp – they also help protect you against the various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s Disease.

Other Ways Being More Creative is Good For You

  • Getting in touch with your creative side boosts self-confidence and even self-esteem.
  • Being creative reduces stress.
  • Drawing, cooking, gardening, painting, etc.. are excellent ways to alleviate anxiety.
  • Individuals who eat out of boredom or as a result of inactivity often find that they shave a great number of calories and even lose weight when they take up a creative new hobby.
  • If your creative new hobby involves learning new things (such as the wonderful art lesson the book pictured below provides), the mental benefits are doubled.  Learning new things is the best way to strengthen your brain and ward off mental decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s.

If it’s been a while since you got in touch with your creative side, I hope you’ll let this serve as a motivating shot in the arm to pick up those pencils, gardening tools, coffee brewing gadgets, or paint brushes.

Your brain will thank you for it.

~ Joi (“Joy”)

Read my How to Draw Cool Stuff Review on my mental fitness blog! It’s a great book for kids and adults – and, trust me, it’s as cool as advertised.

 

How to Draw Cool Stuff
 

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Books I Love, Mental Fitness, Problem Solving, Self Confidence Tagged With: creativity, mental fitness, prevent Alzheimer's, quote, quote graphic

Ask Yourself: What Would a Vegetarian Eat?

November 6, 2012 by Joi 2 Comments

Bean Salad

My World Famous Bean Salad

I read a great deal about nutrition, heart health, diabetes, mental fitness, cancer prevention, and other health-related topics.  A lot of nights, I’ll look back over the things I learned that day and feel somewhat like a college student… right down to the coffee breath.

After years of this healthy research, I still marvel at the simplicity of the common thread: Food. For better or worse, we actually are (to a very large degree) what we eat. The food we put into our mouths today will show up on, and in, tomorrow’s scale, blood work, scans, x-rays, and lab work.

Some people say it’s expensive to eat healthy, but it can actually be a little bit cheaper – IF you know what to cut out and what to substitute with.  The same people who say it’s too expensive to eat a healthy diet will do so with a cart loaded down with ground beef, hot dogs, potatoes, and chips.  A quick trip to the produce aisle, bean aisle (does a cheaper food exist than bags of beans?!), and/or frozen food aisle could easily replace each of these unhealthy choices with healthier choices.  But why? Why should you eat less meat and more healthier foods such as beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains?

Health Benefits of Eating Less Meat

  • Heart Health.  Even the most aggressive and ambitious meat eater would have to agree that eating less meat reduces your risk of heart disease. He or she may do it begrudgingly, but if they’re remotely reasonable and remotely well-read, they’ll have to admit it. Fatty red meats and processed meats are high in saturated fat, which raises LDL (bad) cholesterol and increases risk of coronary heart disease.  Plus, this is kind of off the official health news grid… but, seriously, do we even KNOW everything that’s in all of the processed meats on the market?
  • Prevent Cancer.  I’ve read, for years, about the meat and heart disease connection. We all have. But I’m also reading more and more (as in almost daily) about the link between cancer and meat.  Cancer is one of the scariest health concerns of this or any time.  It’s like a monster under the bed – a huge, scary monster that no one really likes to talk about or even think about. And yet, there are many proactive things we can do to keep the monster from ever moving in! Wouldn’t we be dimwits NOT to take advantage of the information we have? The British Journal of Cancer published a ground-breaking study involving 35,000 women. The women who ate the most red and processed meat were found to have the highest risk of breast cancer. What’s more, research has linked meat consumption to colon, prostate, pancreatic, and gastric cancers in addition to breast cancer.  The Cancer Project, a non-profit group, explains it this way: Foods with high levels of fat artificially boost the hormones that promote cancer.
  • Weight Control.  When we replace meat with vegetables and fruit, we take in fewer calories (assuming, of course, our vegetable of choice isn’t mashed potatoes loaded with so much cheese you attract the attention of mice from 8 counties).   Even when we think we’re making healthy meat choices, we shoot ourselves in the foot by having the meat fried.  No one can look at a pan filled with melted shortening and think that’s healthy. When we control our weight, we slash our risk of a whole plethora of diseases from diabetes to hypertension.
  • Brain Health. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain. So a heart-healthy diet is your first weapon against Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia, and memory loss.  Your brain loves the healthy nutrients that are found in fruits and vegetables, while (like your heart) it is bruised by processed meat, fried foods, and fatty red meat.  Brain health is something everyone should think about as much as heart health.

It has never been easier to eat more meatless meals than it is today. Boca Burgers, Morningstar Farms, and a host of other meat substitutes are actually downright delicious.  Be sure to not go overboard, though, you’ll want to keep an eye on the sodium.  Throw Boca Crumbles into spaghetti sauces, chili, homemade soup, sloppy joes, Manwiches, etc.  No one will ever know… trust me. I use these meat substitutes regularly. They’re delicious!  I’m especially wild about Morningstar Farms’ Black Bean Burgers. Heat them in a little olive oil and eat them on a wheat bun with picante sauce – absolutely out of this world.

One of the biggest health benefits (or opportunities) of eating less meat may be the fact that it’ll cause you to eat more of the foods that are beneficial to your health. If you aren’t filling up on  fatty red meat or processed meats, you’ll eat more green vegetables, beans, whole grains, and fruits.

Something I’ve started doing is ridiculously simple:  Before eating a particular food, I ask myself, “How will this benefit my health?”  If a great answer doesn’t present itself, I skip it and find an option that does come with a great answer.  For example, a few days ago I was out around lunchtime (shopping for one of my daughter’s birthday!).  It was almost time to return home when I approached a favorite fast food restaurant.  As if they weren’t tempting enough, the sign out front reminded me that one of their juiciest sandwiches was on sale right now.  In the time it took me to drive past it, I realized the sandwich provided ZERO nutritional value to off set its calories.  ZERO.

Some people visualize red meat or fried foods clogging their arteries. I’d have to admit that’d be pretty effective too!

I drove by the fast food restaurant and came home.  I made myself a bowl of tomato soup (thank you Campbell’s) and a spinach, carrot, and red onion salad.  I got JUST as full as I would have gotten with the big greasy sandwich but I didn’t have the “side” that comes with it.  Not fries…… I’m talking about the distasteful side of guilt.  The one that eats at you all day.  As it was, after my heart healthy soup and salad, I FELT lighter and healthier.

It’s an absolutely addictive feeling.

My Bean Salad (pictured at the top): When I make bean salad, which is often because my husband loves it, I sneak in extra vegetables like celery, onion, artichoke hearts, carrots, and sometimes even chopped spinach.  Heart healthy Olive Oil is also used in the salad, which only adds to its nutritional value.  There’s something incredibly filling and satisfying about beans.  When you’re trying to eat less meat, you’ll sometimes have that unmistakable craving where your brain says, “Buddy, give me some meat!”  Beans will satisfy this craving. Without the unhealthy side side of guilt.

~ Joi

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: eat healthy, health, heart health, prevent Alzheimer's, prevent cancer, prevent diabetes, vegetarian diet

How to Stimulate Your Brain and Strengthen Your Mind

December 31, 2005 by Joi Leave a Comment

Turtle

Great Looking Turtle Checking Out Some Corn I Left Out for Squirrels

Mysteriously, Alzheimer’s disease is affecting 4.5 million Americans today.  Researchers are hard at work finding ways to help those who are suffering as well as find ways to prevent more from joining them.

A new batch of research sheds light on some simple ways that we can begin protecting our minds today to avoid problems tomorrow.

  1. Drink more fruit and vegetable juice. Those who drink juice at least three times a week had a 75% lower risk of dementia.  75%!
  2. Sing as you workout. It sounds kind of, forgive the pun, off-beat, but singing while working out boosted brain retention for 70% of the participants in a Japanese study.  Exercise sends blood to the brain, improving memory….and singing, perhaps, simply makes the exercise more enjoyable.
  3. Floss daily. There’s a connection between gum disease and Alzheimer’s.  Bacteria from the mouth may cause chronic inflammation, which could impede blood flow to the brain.
  4. Challenge your mind each day. This one may seem obvious (especially compared to singing while you sweat and flossing), but this is one that the majority of people simply fail to do.  DON’T get comfortable with what you know and what you’re able to do.  To get comfortable is the beginning of the end.  Push yourself each and every day to learn more, do more, and grow more.  Take up new hobbies, read about fresh, new subjects, and brush up on facts you once knew by heart (state capitals, planets, Spanish, the elements, etc).
  5. Be Puzzled. Work crossword puzzles, jumbles, and word finds every day.  What seems like play or doodling is actually stimulating you mind.  Even basic word find puzzles are good for your brain.

Also, bear something else in mind: Don’t keep reading the same things or doing the same types of puzzles over and over again. What challenge is there in repetition?  STRETCH your mind in new ways and constantly throw new things into the mix.  For example, work all the crossword puzzles you want, but occasionally throw in new types of puzzles (Sudoku, Math-related puzzles, Word Jumbles, etc.).  Read about your favorite subject daily – that’s very commendable, but also throw new subjects into the mix as often as possible.  I love reading about animals, birds, and American history.  I try to learn new things about these favorite areas each day.  However, I also frequently throw new subjects into the mix and read about subjects I know very little about.  Turtles were actually a recent fascination – after seeing a particularly large one on a History Channel show.

I’ve read just about everything you could ever hope to find on turtles now and could, if the situation presented itself, carry on a pretty darn good conversation about them.

Did you know that the earliest turtles actually had teeth and they couldn’t retract their heads? Kind of defeated the purpose of being a turtle, didn’t it?

Sometimes I’ll also study something  that I’ve never been interested in – like astronomy or the weather.  After reading about completely new subjects, they often become pretty fascinating to me.  How mentally stimulating do you think that is?!  Try it, I know you’ll benefit from these Self Studies as much as I do.

When we make a list of our personal goals – ways we’d like to improve our lives and strengthen our health – we should most definitely list strengthening our “Mental Fitness” at the top.  Without that, what need would we have for the others on the list?

 

Filed Under: Health, Self Help Tagged With: prevent Alzheimer's, prevent memory loss, strengthen your mind

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