With what feels like a topic that has been in more discussion more than ever, mental health is one that absolutely will be continued to be discussed as we move forward (fingers crossed). Although, a recent thought came about during a lecture a few days ago. The idea that mental health and brain health are two different concepts. Now of course they are related to an extent but not the same thing. The biggest example that helped me put this into perspective is the following. We go to therapy to talk about our lives, our past, our future and learn more of who we are and/or what we want. Some can also exercise to ideally feel better physically. Just like we eat foods that ideally are good for our bodies (she types after happily consuming a big mac and fries for lunch). We do these things for our bodies and mind but what about our brain? What are we feeding it or better yet, how are we working out our brains?
To answer that, I looked up what a good definition for brain health was. This is the closest I could find. “The human brain is the command center for the nervous system and enables thoughts, memory, movement, and emotions by a complex function that is the highest product of biological evolution. Maintaining a healthy brain during one’s life is the uppermost goal in pursuing health and longevity. As the population ages, the burden of neurological disorders and challenges for the preservation of brain health increase. It is therefore vital to understand what brain health is and why it is important.”. After reading this small snippet, what came to mind was how I have never purposefully maintained a healthy brain or know what mine currently is at this very moment.
Which leads me to think about the amount of people, current party included, who takes actions for the health of their brains? So my goal with this blog today is to shine some light on things we can do differently for our brain health.
The link from the healthline website shows some activities such as trying out a new jigsaw puzzle, meditate, try a new route, learn or play an instrument to name a few.
An awesome resource link would be the Center for Brain Health that has a mission in helping people understand how their Brain Health could along with a quick free quiz that can help see what daily brain habits are showing to be toxic for our brain. Below is a wheel from their website that shows the different parameters and notable areas that our brains have.
From a few sources and an article, reading this small information helps me understand that we are in an age where we have access to so much information at our fingertips. So being able to learn more about something as powerful as our brain health along with steps necessary to give it a little better opportunity to be stronger, was really helpful, hope it was for you!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7555053/