Enter The Body

We talk a lot about advanced conditions for understanding Neuroscience to support difficult change. However, it is imperative to always remember that the brain is an electro-chemical environment.

It's the chemical environment that allows neurons to fire and it really deserves our full attention!

For neurons to fire, for parts like the hippocampus to work properly, for our memory to be sharp, for learning to occur, for our executive functions to work optimally - in a way that supports change acquisition - having a healthy chemical environment is critical.

Some chemicals like dopamine are produced in the brain but not all, and even those which are produced by the brain need to get their mineral building blocks from somewhere. This means our body needs to supply the brain with enough of what it needs (and not too much of what reduces effective brain functioning).

In addition to sleep and exercise, it is important to check what people we support through change put into their bodies.

Here are some quick things to know about what to do to support brain optimal activity:

- Reduce sugar intake.

- Increase healthy fats like nuts, avocado, olives, and olive oil.

- Add dark leafy greens like arugula, swiss chard, and cilantro.

- Try taking a spoon of coconut-based MCT oil every day (it can upset the stomach at first but is typically quickly stabilized).

- Try intermittent fasting (it allows hormones that "clean up" the brain to have time to do their work).

The best resource I know of for a comprehensive, thorough, and highly detailed outline of how the brain needs to be fed to function optimally, check out this book and in particular chapters 6-10 about the brain's food pyramid (it focuses on Alzheimer's but really good for everyone!):