Boost Your Brain (10 page)
Authors: Majid Fotuhi
Body Scan
To check your brain’s health, you first need to check your overall health from head to toe.
Once you’ve completed your body scan, make an appointment with your doctor to discuss the conditions you’ve identified as priorities. (You can talk about the others, too, if you’d like.) Be proactive: think about what you’ll need to ask your doctor so that you can best address your problem areas. I recommend bringing a written list of four or five questions, with space to jot down your doctor’s comments. You’ll find space for questions in the area that follows.
Your Body Scan
Questions for My Doctor
Here’s an example of a condition and the questions you might have for your doctor. Below, fill in other conditions of concern to you.
Problem or Condition: Obesity
1. How bad is it?
2. How much weight should I lose?
3. How do I do it?
Problem or condition: _______________
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
Problem or condition: _______________
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
Problem or condition: _______________
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
Problem or condition: _______________
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
Problem or condition: _______________
1. _______________
2. _______________
3. _______________
Set Your Priorities
In the coming chapters, I’ll give you details of how certain lifestyle changes can immensely increase the size of your brain. Their incredible brain-growing potential, of course, is tempered by the existence of negative health conditions we know shrink the brain.
I want to get you started thinking about changing your life. And—you already know this, I’m sure—it won’t just happen by itself. You’ll need to change priorities and squeeze time into your schedule for brain-boosting activities, while also committing to reducing your exposure to brain shrinkers.
Use the following chart, and check off the items you believe will require more of your attention. As you work through your twelve-week plan, refer back to this page as a reminder to maintain your focus on addressing these priority areas.
Meet the Brain Meter
As you read about brain growers and brain shrinkers in the pages ahead, you’ll probably begin to wonder how much each affects the brain. Does exercise grow the brain more than meditation? Is sleep apnea worse for your brain than stress? How big of a boon is cognitive stimulation?
To help you gauge the relative value of each, I have developed a visual representation—the Brain Meter—which offers an indication of the potential impact each brain grower or shrinker has on the brain. The exercise Brain Meter, for example, indicates the benefit of average intervention and the maximal brain benefit of exercise. You’ll find Brain Meters in each chapter that deals with a brain grower or brain shrinker. Use them as a guide to help you tailor your brain fitness efforts.
Your Rx: Choose Your Track
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a task as big as changing your life (or growing your brain!). Where do you start? What do you do and when do you do it? In chapter 8, I’ll give you my twelve-week prescription for a bigger, better brain. But, as I detail the benefits of brain growers in part II, I’ll give you a preview of the precise instructions you’ll use to maximize each brain booster in your own life.
Of course, since there’s no one-size-fits-all brain, it stands to reason that there’s no single approach to building brain reserve. A thirtysomething who loads up on fruits and vegetables, with a healthy smattering of fish thrown in, won’t find it very helpful if he’s told to eat less fast food. Instead, his high-yield brain fitness approach might revolve around adding supplements to his diet and targeting certain fruits and vegetables in particular that are known to boost oxygen flow, BDNF, and even promote healthy brain activity.
His less healthy peer—say, a fifty-year-old who eats a high-fat dessert four times a week, regularly downs potato chips, and takes two heaping servings of red meat at every meal—requires an approach that looks quite different. For him, the first priority will be cutting out sweets and junk food, limiting portion sizes, and ensuring half his dinner plate is devoted to fruits and vegetables. As the weeks progress, he can focus on a diet with maximum brain-boosting effects. Similarly, while I might recommend forty-five minutes a day of aerobic activity for a fairly fit person starting the program, I’d start his sedentary friend with ten minutes of walking, three times a week.
You might find yourself in need of improvement in every aspect of brain fitness. Or in just a few. To help you customize your plan, I’ve designed a track system that will allow you to select a starting pace in each brain booster category. As you complete each chapter in part II of this book, you’ll be asked to select your starting track in that area (track 1 for beginners, track 2 for intermediates, track 3 for experts). You’ll likely find yourself on different tracks for different brain boosters. If you do mental gymnastics daily but rarely work up a sweat, for example, you’ll likely select track 1 for exercise and track 3 for cognitive stimulation.
In general, the tracks are divided as follows:
Track 1
If you’re far from fit in a particular brain-boosting area (for example, you scored a 1 in the relevant areas on the brain fitness calculator), you’ll be on track 1. In this track, you’ll start slowly and work your way up to a target pace over the first three weeks of the course. After three weeks, you’ll move up to track 2.
Track 2
If you’re moderately fit in a particular brain-boosting area, you’ll be on this track, which will start at a slightly more advanced level than track 1. After week three, you’ll move up to track 3, or repeat the third week of track 2 until you’re ready to advance.
Track 3
If you’re already fairly well positioned in a particular brain-boosting area, track 3 will offer you high-yield tips on how to fine-tune your brain fitness. Once you reach week three you’ll continue with the brain-boosting recommendations of that week for the remainder of the program, adding intensity on your own based on what I’ve taught you.
Look back at your brain fitness score and choose a beginning track for yourself in each of the following booster areas. (You’ll refer back to this page as you progress through your twelve-week plan.) Then choose a goal track. This is the track you’d
like
to be on as you reach week twelve. Be realistic. While I’d love to see everyone on track 3 by the end of three months, I recognize that those who have further to go, or who have health constraints, might take much longer to get there. What’s important is that you’re developing habits that will continually propel you toward a bigger, better brain. You can reference this page when you reach chapter 8 and start your twelve-week plan.
Choose your tracks:
Brain Booster
M
Y COAUTHOR
, Christina, has a morning routine that unfolds like clockwork. At six
A.M.
each day she is up and out of bed, ready to tiptoe quietly down a flight of steps to her kitchen in the hopes of sneaking in a few solitary minutes before the kids awaken. If all goes well, she’ll read the newspaper, eat a healthy breakfast, and then ready herself for the onslaught of energetic little ones.
The sequence has been the same for years, except that in the winter of 2012, Christina altered it in one critical way. She still had the morning paper on her mind as she rolled out of bed, but before she headed for the stairs she added a new step: grabbing a small electronic device from her bedside table and clipping it onto the waistline of her pajamas. As she ambled toward the kitchen, the device—no larger than her thumb—recorded the forty-two steps she took to get there. It then logged the sixty steps she took puttering around downstairs before climbing the stairs (which the device would also record) to wake her kids for school.
The gadget—this one is called Fitbit, but there are several on the market—uses motion detection software, similar to that used in Wii games, to calculate Christina’s steps as well as count how many flights of stairs she conquers each day. It also wirelessly transmits the data to her computer and logs it in a software program she can use to help track her activity. (The software also allows her to enter everything she eats or drinks and provides her with a running count of the number of calories she’s consumed and how many she’s burned.)