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Could Meditation Solve the Chronic Stress Crisis?

Stress is toxic for your body and your brain..

It causes your blood pressure to rocket… leads to weight gain… lowers your life expectancy… and it can make your brain shrivel too. 

This was the conclusion of a huge 8 year study by UT Health San Antonio. They gave 2,000 people memory tests and then scanned their brains. 

After the end of the study, the researchers were shocked to discover a common link between people who developed severe memory loss. And this link was that they all suffered from chronic stress. 

Yet more alarming, their brains were physically smaller by age 50 too.

“We found memory loss and brain shrinkage in relatively young people long before any symptoms could be seen,” said study author Dr. Sudha Seshadri, professor of neurology at UT Health San Antonio

Why is stress so toxic to the brain?

It’s all to do with the stress hormone cortisol.

It’s cortisol that puts your body into “fight or flight” mode. When that happens, non-essential functions get shutdown so the body prepares itself for action. 

For our ancestors, cortisol played a vital role in our survival.

But in today’s stressed out world, cortisol levels can stay too high for too long.

The result is many muscles and organs get starved nutrients. This includes your brain, causing it to shrivel and shrink. 

When your brain shrinks, memory loss, emotional instability, brain fog, and confusion then follow.

As Dr Seshadri notes, “Higher levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, seem to predict brain function, brain size and performance on cognitive tests.” 

So if you find yourself stressed out a lot, it’s vital to find ways to feel calm, and relaxed.

A great way to do it is with meditation.

Meditation can help relax anxious thoughts. It’s a powerful way of improving your mind too. 

In fact, researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found Buddhist monks have physically larger brains packed with neurons.

But if you’re like me, you may find meditating tough. Perhaps your mind won’t stop wandering, and suddenly you think of things you need to do.

If that sounds like you, you may like to try the Let’s Meditate app.

It’s my favorite way to meditate because it guides you on what to do.

What I also love about Let’s Meditate is that it has different types of meditations depending on what state of mind you want to achieve. 

This includes: 

  • Attracting abundance
  • Scanning your body for stress
  • Envisioning a brighter future
  • Empowering yourself to achieve your goals 

Best of all, Let’s Meditate is FREE!

 All you do it put on some headphones, choose your favorite meditation, and then be whisked away to a place of blissful peace and calm.

If you give it a try, I’d love to know how you got on?

>>>Click here to find out more about the Let’s Meditate App

Source

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/24/health/stress-memory-loss-under-50-study/index.html

Meditation found to increase brain size

Disclaimer – Statements made in this article have not been approved or verified by the FDA. This information is not intended to be a substitute or replacement for any medical treatment. Please seek the advice of a healthcare professional for your specific health concerns. Individual results may vary. 

Memory Professor Review – Can it Really Improve Your Mind?

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If you want bigger biceps you go to the gym.

And if you want a bigger brain, you exercise that too.

The fact that growing a physically bigger brain makes you smarter was first discovered by a neuroscientist from Rockefeller University called Fernando Nottebohm.

After artificially inducing canaries to grow their brains in size (trust me, no canaries were harmed), they were able to remember longer bird songs.

This turned the world of neuroscience upside down.

As Nottebohm notes:

“That was a real shock, because we had all been taught that an adult brain was supposed to stay the same size, with the same cells, forever.”

His discovery was one of the biggest breakthroughs ever  in neuroscience. As it proved that if you exercise your brain daily you can make it bigger, stronger, and more powerful, just like a muscle. 

So if you’d like to boost your memory, enhance your concentration, and become smarter all round…

The key to a BIGGER brain is exercise.

Even better is doing a variety of exercises that give it a workout in different ways.

It;s for this reason I investigated a brain training system called The Memory Professor.

It claims to provide the same daily exercises harnessed by ancient greek philosophers, memory champions, and elite public speakers.

In fact, it even claims to boost your memory 500% in as little as 30 days.

That’s a huge claim.

So I thought I’d better checkout if it can live up to the hype.

neuroscientist Michael Merzenich, Ph.D., a professor emeritus of the University of California San Francisco, “It may not [technically] be a muscle, but you can train your brain just like you would your biceps to perform at a significantly higher level.”

 So you see, with the right exercise it can be made stronger, healthier, and higher performing.

  To the rescue is a new brain training system called The Memory Professor.

It claims to improve your brain 500% in 30 days. And in as little as 25 minutes a day.

Will it work for you?

Here’s what you need to know…

What’s The Memory Professor?

The Memory Professor provides daily brain training exercises based on the same techniques developed by the world’s greatest memory experts. 

This includes ancient Greek philosophers, Indian memory masters and modern day elite public speakers. 

The Memory Professor also features the same brain training sessions run at live corporate seminars. Except you won’t have to pay the $3,000+ fee to complete them.

Who Created The Memory Professor?

The Memory Professor was created by Kit Stevenson after her poor memory got her in trouble.

She found herself lost and shivering in the rain after arriving at the wrong hotel on a backpacking trip through Europe. What’s worse, her phone had died and she hadn’t written down the hotel’s address. 

She then spent hours wandering the streets of Madrid. 

        As Kit describes:

 “I ended up standing on a street corner, soaking wet, jetlagged, unable to move with all my luggage, in front of a shut gate in an unknown area in gloom and doom weather with no-one else on the streets.”

 Eventually Kit found the correct hotel. This experience made her determined never to get lost due to poor memory again.

As Kit says, “Being a single female traveler at the time, I have encountered a number of situations around the world, where it was paramount that I know all the emergency phone numbers upon landing in a country.”  

In the years that followed, she researched everything she could about the wisest minds in history and how people trained themselves to become smarter. 

This led to her developing her own system for physically growing a stronger, smarter mind in 30 days. And so The Memory Professor was born.

What Do You Get?

Ever read a book and completely forgot what you read in a matter of weeks? 

Well, memorising key information and internalising it is just one of the many skills you can develop from The Memory Professor.

Other skills you can gain include:

  • Legendary multi-sensory association techniques
  • Clever “Name and Face” memory encryption method
  • The breakthrough “Herigones Mnemonic System” for creating a steel vault of info locked in your mind
  • Powerful Brain Gym Quizzes and Scribe Videos
  • Little known “Memory Palace Method” for using spatial awareness to learn a long series of numbers
  • Time proven “Back of a Napkin” method – remember things in context of stories and images

Who Can Benefit

The Memory Professor offers an excellent path to a healthier brain for anyone willing to put in the effort.

This includes:

  • Students studying for exams who need to remember facts, dates, and key arguments for exams.
  • Professionals who’ve noticed their brain isn’t as fast as it used to be, and would love to feel mentally fit, energetic and on the ball.
  • People in their 50s or 60s worried about their brain decaying as they get older.
  • Seniors in their 70s or older who want to ensure they continue remembering people’s faces, names, and want to stay on top of daily tasks, like paying the bills on time.
  • Lifelong learners who want the mental capacity to learn new languages, to become better public speakers, to play new instruments, or take up mentally demanding hobbies. 

So you see, all sorts of people can benefit from The Memory Professor. And with a healthier mind comes greater enjoyment in all sorts of areas of life.

Who Won’t Benefit

In today’s world, too many people want shortcuts, hacks and fast tracks to success. But getting a smarter brain’s not that simple.

Your brain needs daily exercise and time to get stronger. So it may take 30 days or longer before you notice your memory, focus, and mental energy has improved.

The Memory Professor is also unlikely to turn you into a genius. While Kit claims it can give you a 500% smarter brain in 30 days, this sounds pretty far fetched. But just a 100% boost would still be a big improvement.

Try it Risk Free for 60 Days

If you’ve noticed your concentration, focus, and memory are getting worse as you get older, The Memory Professor may offer an excellent way of stopping this decline in its tracks. 

It guides you on what exercises to do each day. You can track your progress and enjoy the sense of achievement seeing your scores improve.

You can also try it risk free. 

If your memory, mental agility, and concentration don’t improve within 30 days Kit will refund every cent. 

She’s that confident it works.

So if you’d love a stronger, more powerful brain, The Memory Professor is worth a try.

>>>Click here to find out more about The Memory Professor

Sources

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/do-adult-brains-make-new-neurons-a-contentious-new-study-says-no/555026/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/07/23/rethinking-the-brain

Disclaimer – Statements made in this article have not been approved or verified by the FDA. This information is not intended to be a substitute or replacement for any medical treatment. Please seek the advice of a healthcare professional for your specific health concerns. Individual results may vary. This is an advertisement and not a blog or article.  


Scientists Discover Best Nuts for Brain Power

If you have a nut allergy you can stop reading now.

Otherwise…

You may be interested to know eating a handful of nuts each day can be great for your brain health.

This was recently discovered by a team of researchers from Loma Linda University in California. 

After studying the brain waves of participants before and after eating handfuls of nuts, the researchers saw a “sequence of enhancing sensory awareness tasks ranging from cognition of past experience, visualization, olfaction, and taste.” 

In other words, the participants had clearer, more precise memories than before.

Why are nuts so healthy for the brain?

It’s because nuts are packed with…

Antioxidants called “flavonoids”. 

And these flavonoids act as a clean up crew, mopping up toxins and free radicals.

Yet, what’s more remarkable is that different types of nuts offer different brain benefits.

This was another groundbreaking discovery by the Loma Linda University researchers. They found the brain waves of participants changed depending on the huts that ate.

Would you like ot know which nuts they found to be the best for brain performance?

#1 was Walnuts. 

Walnuts were followed by pecans and cashews.

So the next time you feel like snacking, munch on a few walnuts. Your brain will thank you for it.

Source

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320080.php

Is Skipping Breakfast Good for the Brain?

Ever heard the saying “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”?

Well, all I can say is that phrase was coined long before the era of processed food

Because you see, even after a hearty breakfast, many people will grab a mid morning snack… followed by feasting on a carb heavy lunch… a packet of potato chips in the afternoon… and ALL before emptying a full dinner plate.

All this snacking and feasting means our body is constantly digesting food. It NEVER gets a break. 

At best, it gets a tiny window to process a meal before more gets shoved down the chute.

The good news is there’s an easy fix.

Intermittent fasting, or IF for short, for has exploded in popularity as a way of losing weight, relieving indigestion, and triggering all sorts of health benefits.

IF isn’t a diet.

IF is an eating pattern.

The way it works is that a couple of days a week you skip breakfast.

This gives your gut a breather, so it can digest more of the food already in your stomach. It can also burn off some of the fat stored in your cells.

It sounds so simple.

Yet a study in the journal Cell Metabolism showed IF may decrease risk factors for all sorts of diseases. This includes diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even cancer. 

IF may boost the brain too.

The reason IF is great for your brain is because it increases levels of the BDNF. BDNF is a protein your brain needs to make new neurons. 

 So BDNF is vital to sustaining a healthy mind.

Photo by bruce mars from Pexels

An animal study by the Queensland School of Biomedical Sciences, Australia, found that IF led to a big boost in neurons in the brain.

If you’d like to know more about IF and how to do it, check out a book called Eat Stop Eat by natural health expert Brad Pilon. 

His book has helped over 54,000 people to lose weight, improve their digestion, and even boost their brain. And all just from skipping breakfast.

Sounds simple. But then why should health need to be complicated.

>>>Click here to find out more about how Brad Pilon’s Eat Stop Eat transformed the lives of 54,000 people

Sources

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5835061/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/interested-fasting-health-get-facts-first/
https://neurotrition.ca/blog/intermittent-fasting-better-brain-health
https://medium.com/@drbradysalcido/6-surprising-brain-power-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting-49ad1bc39e04
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4013772/

Disclaimer – Statements made in this article have not been approved or verified by the FDA. This information is not intended to be a substitute or replacement for any medical treatment. Please seek the advice of a healthcare professional for your specific health concerns. Individual results may vary. This is an advertisement and not a blog or article. 

BDNF and Why it’s ‘Miracle Gro’ for the Brain

I used to hate exercise. But then I found out I’d been doing it wrong all along…

Turns out “exercise” doesn’t have to mean sweating buckets on a treadmill. 

It can be as simple as a 30 minute walk around your block. That’s all it takes to trigger amazing health benefits for your brain.

There two reasons why walks are so healthy:

1) It increases the flow of nutrient rich blood to your brain.

2) It rockets levels of BDNF

What’s BDNF?

BDNF stands for “brain-derived neurotrophic factor”.

BDNF is a protein your brain needs to grow and sustain new neurons. 

Think of it as like fertilizer for growing new brain cells. Or as Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey calls it “Miracle-Gro”.

A lot of brain scientists, including Keri Martinowich, Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins medicine and Gary C. Sieck, Ph.D, from the Mayo Clinic, have hailed BDNF’s discovery as a breakthrough in brain health.

In fact, a study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, found people who go for 20 minute daily walks have a 48% lower risk of severe memory loss.

While the National Institute on Aging verified that  BDNF can “increase the production of proteins that enhance neuronal plasticity and resistance to oxidative and metabolic insults”. 

Go for Walks and Socialise

One way to boost BDNF is with 30 minute walks.

Another way of boosting BDNF is interacting with other people.

Research by the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rome Italy, found that nurturing close relationships led to increased levels of BDNF in the brain.

It’s one of the reasons why the 678 nuns in the famous “Nun Study of Aging” sustained such healthy minds. Because the amount of social interaction in their day kept their BDNF levels topped up.

So you see, interacting with people doesn’t just make you happier. Social interaction helps keep your mind strong too. 

On the flipside, when you don’t socialise enough it’s toxic for your mind.

In fact, a study of 12,000 people by Florida State University found people who feel lonely have a 40% higher risk of dementia. 

So if you find yourself spending too much time alone, consider meeting friends for coffee, joining a local book club, or taking up a new social hobbies. 

You’ll feel happier and smarter as a result.

Sources

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25483019

https://blog.bulletproof.com/8-ways-to-increase-bdnf-and-keep-your-brain-from-aging/

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/research/labs/keri-martinowich-laboratory

https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/sieck-gary-c-ph-d/bio-00083569

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