The UltraMind Solution (17 page)

Sugar causes crusting in your brain. Think about that sugary crust on crème brûlé or a crusty bread or crispy chicken skin. Sugar in these foods (and in your body) reacts with proteins and forms little crusts or plaques called AGEs (advanced glycation end products). These crusty sugar-protein combos gum up your brain, leading to dementia, and damage most cells and tissues along the way.

So get off the sugar and save your brain.

Trans fats come from processed foods, baked goods, most fried foods, margarine, and virtually any product that comes from a factory. They damage cells, increase inflammation, and interrupt normal brain function in everyone from children with ADHD to adults with depression or dementia.
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By eliminating these two foreign, man-made, mood-and mind-altering toxic substances from your diet, you radically transform your health overnight. In fact, if you put down this book right now and do nothing else, you will have made a major impact on your health.

Brain trauma, even a slight concussion, can have long-term consequences for your brain. Not only can it affect your ability to learn, focus, and concentrate, but it can increase your risk of dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

If you have a gene called apo E4, found in about 25 percent of the population, you are 2.5 to 5 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s. And if you have a history of head trauma and have that gene, your risk of getting the disease increases tenfold.

So protect your brain. Protect your kids’ brains. Avoid contact sports like football and heading the ball in soccer. Wear helmets for any high-risk sport such as biking, roller blading, skateboarding, snowboarding, or even skiing.

We live in a sleep-deprived world. A hundred years ago we slept eight to nine hours a night, now we average six or seven hours a night. According to a report done by the National Institute of Medicine on sleep, 50 to 70 million Americans are regularly deprived of sleep or suffer from sleep problems. This may be good for Starbucks’ bottom line, but not for your brain.

Sleep is when your body repairs and heals. Extreme sleep deprivation leads to psychosis, as demonstrated in military recruits. Moderate-and long-term sleep deprivation leads to depression, attention deficit disorder, problems with learning and memory, not to mention 100,000 car accidents a year—especially by teenagers.

Lack of sleep has even been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

If that doesn’t get you to sleep more, then you should know that sleep deprivation makes you gain weight by increasing the hormone grehlin, which increases hunger, and lowering your appetite-suppressing hormones (known as PYY). You eat more to compensate for lack of sleep and you crave more sugars and refined carbohydrates as a result.

Sleep deprivation also increases stress hormones such as cortisol, which kills brain cells in the memory and mood center called the hippocampus.

Sleep is not a nuisance or a luxury. It is part of regular maintenance and repair. Getting enough sleep can mean the difference between a tired, foggy, unfocused, forgetful brain and one that is attentive, sharp, and fully tuned into the world around you.

If you are a couch potato or one of those people who, when they feel like exercising, lie down until the feeling goes away, then consider this: when you don’t exercise you have lower levels of IGF-1,
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an indicator of growth hormone (the repair and youth hormone) and lower levels of BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor), which is like super fertilizer for your brain. These chemicals are the brain’s way to make new brain cells (neurogenesis) and improve connections between existing brain cells (neuroplasticity).

Running, lifting, or just dancing around releases more IGF-1, which goes into your brain and stimulates more BDNF.
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The memory and mood center in the brain, the hippocampus, is the most sensitive to this fertilizer for the brain. That means when you exercise, you can improve the area of your brain that is most sensitive to changes in memory and mood, and when you don’t, you won’t.

Our bodies (and brains) were designed to thrive with exercise, not without it. Exercise has been found to improve cognitive performance, enhance memory, reverse depression, slow or stop mental decline associated with aging, and prevent dementia.

In a study by the University of Illinois of third and fifth graders, the fittest kids were also the ones with the fittest brains.

Exercise also builds new neural connections, rewiring your brain for better mood and cognitive function, making your brain run faster, smoother, and more efficiently.
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When you exercise you also increase levels of dopamine, which helps you focus, and serotonin, which calms you down. Exercise can give you the same neurotransmitter and mental benefits as Ritalin and Zyprexa without
the risk or side effects. In fact, exercise beats or equals Prozac or psychotherapy as an antidepressant in head-to-head studies.
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So get moving!