Diet and exercise not only are beneficial to your body, they also are an asset to your brain. By eating a healthy diet and participating in a daily fitness routine, you can enhance your brain's ability to learn and remember. Alone, a healthy eating program can enhance your cognitive abilities. Exercise on its own can improve your brain's function. Together, the two might have you answering every trivia question and impressing your family and friends.
Healthy Eating
In 2008, the website Live Science reported on UCLA's professor Fernando Gomez Pinilla's research on diet and brain function. Pinilla's research shows that healthy eating has the ability to enhance learning, protect the brain from damage and counter age-related changes. Specifically, Pinilla shows that omega 3 fatty acids such as those found in salmon help to bridge the gaps between brain synapses. These synapses are where learning takes place.
Unhealthy Eating
Fernando Gomez Pinilla cautions against a diet high in calories and fat. In the opposite way that healthy foods increase the synaptic brain connections, unhealthy eating makes it difficult for those connections to be made. Excess calories might form free radicals, which can damage brain cells.
Exercise
Investigators at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute studied the effects of running on learning and memory in mice. The mice had the task of locating a platform that was partially submerged in water. The mice that had been exercising found the platform faster than those that were sedentary. Researchers also located approximately 2.5 times as many new nerves cells in the brain among the exercising mice.
Brain
Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute found that the new brain cell growth in the mice took place in the part of the brain known as the hippocampus. This area is where you process memory, learn where objects are in relation to others and consciously remember facts or events.
Weekly Considerations
Speak with your doctor about a healthy diet and exercise program. You can begin a workout program by walking for 30 minutes a day at a moderate to brisk pace. Your eating program should include healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. Reduce your consumption of fast foods in order to avoid taking in excess calories. Small changes in your eating and activity habits today can improve your learning tomorrow.
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