Healthy Eating to Impact Brain Health

What you eat can significantly impact your brain health.Harvard Health dives into this with a comprehensive publication, Diet and Brain Health. Let’s take a closer look at the tips that we can implement to see the benefits. 

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  Balanced Diet: Eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats contributes to an overall healthy and well-balanced diet. Providing essential nutrients to your brain is essential for brain health.
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  Omega-3 Fatty Acids: These are readily found in fish, walnuts, and flaxseeds. Omega-3s are great for your brain and have the added benefit of being a satiating food as well, leaving your tummy and brain happy!
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  Avoid Junk Food: Limiting processed foods, sugary snacks, and saturated fats can go a long way toward feeding your brain, and body, with the nutrients that help sustain cognitive function.
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  Stay Hydrated: Drinking enough water is crucial as dehydration can affect your cognitive abilities. If drinking enough water is a challenge, adding a squeeze of lemon or lime, or even a splash of unsweetened juice, can quench your thirst for flavor while nurturing your body.
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  Eat Brain-Boosting Foods: Including foods like blueberries, avocados, nuts, salmon, and even dark chocolate can help boost your brain health. 

Brain-Training Apps

The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society is considered an authority when it comes the the well-being of aging adults. As it turns out, the sweet spot is when we find a way to use newer technologies to enhance our older brains. Folding technology into our lives can offer a fun way to keep your brain active. There are many companies that have embraced technology in ways that bring the benefits to our fingertips.

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  Lumosity: Featuring games that help improve memory, attention, and problem-solving skills, this is sure to help pass the time while adapting to your skill level.
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  Elevate: Does your brain need a personal trainer? With Elevate you can focus on language, math, and analytical thinking.
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  Peak: If you want help improving your focus and mental agility, while improving memory, this is the app for you.
  
  
• CogniFit: Uncover your brain’s strengths and weaknesses through cognitive assessments and get a personalized training program to help you maintain, or even recover, cognitive function.

Top Insights into Brain Health for Seniors

Staying mentally and physically active, eating right, and keeping or forming social connections are all key to maintaining cognitive health and independence as you age. By incorporating these strategies into daily life, seniors can enhance their cognitive abilities and continue to lead fulfilling lives. Getting out of the house and being around other people is a huge part of maintaining cognitive health. Staying socially active as much as possible is not only fun, but also just what the doctor ordered!

Additional resources for seniors and families with an aging loved one.

If you or a loved one is a senior aging at home and need additional resources, be sure to check out our Resources section at FamilyShepherd.com. We offer valuable tools and guidance to help families navigate housing decisions, financial planning, and long-term care options. Also, don’t forget to get a copy of our Amazon best-selling book, Paying for Long-Term Care by Ben Rao, which provides essential strategies for covering the costs of senior care without depleting your savings. One key takeaway from the book is how simple planning and the home can help families afford quality care while protecting their assets. Whether you’re looking for help with selling a home, transitioning to senior living, or financial planning, we have the resources to guide you and your family through every step.

About the Author

Ben Rao is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, Paying For Long-Term Care, a life-long entrepreneur, philanthropist and senior care advocate with over 20 years of experience in real estate.

Ben was raised in Louisville, Kentucky by his stepfather Tom and his mother Peela, who devoted 40 years to not-for-profit senior services. Ben experienced first-hand the emotional and financial struggle that families face when he was unexpectedly confronted with the reality of transitioning Tom into senior care. He was challenged by the lack of direction and resources available for a process that nearly all of us will eventually need to go through. 

That experience inspired Ben to use his personal and professional experience in the long-term care industry to help families transition their loved ones into senior care from thier home. His entrepreneurial background has helped him become an excellent problem solver which has been a skill he enjoys using to help seniors and their families. After selling a nationally recognized business in Senior Living industry in June 2023, Ben has turned his energy and senior living expertise to help families in Kansas City. Ben enjoys helping other people.

Ben lives with his wife, Rhonda, and their two children, Maddy and Charlie, in a renovated historic building that was once the Lee’s Summit Hospital and the Dayton Hotel in Downtown Lee’s Summit. He developed Lee’s Summit’s first entrepreneurial incubator and office space in a formerly vacant post office. He works there alongside his trusty sidekick, Charlie dog, a border collie who has gone to the office with him every day for the last 13 years.

References:

1. [National Institute on Aging - Social and Cognitive Health](https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/aging-and-your-brain)

2. [Alzheimer’s Association - Keeping Your Brain Healthy](https://www.alz.org/help-support/brain_health/10_ways_to_love_your_brain)

3. [American Psychological Association - Benefits of Mental Exercises](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2006/08/exerciset)

4. [Harvard Health Publishing - Diet and Brain Health](https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/diet-and-mental-health)

5. [Journal of the American Geriatrics Society - Brain Training Impact](https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jgs.13734)

6. [National Institutes of Health - Cognitive Training](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5410795/)