Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do to Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp_2

Preface xv ity are present. The man with Alzheimer’s was able to grow tomatoes and vegetables, the woman with Alzheimer’s was able to cook and serve under supervision, and Robby is employed and takes wonderful trips to other cities even though he has a documented mental age of three. Ultimately, Robby has pro-vided his entire family with a gift of humility and love, and a reminder that with love from family, anything is possible. All of these individuals provide loved ones the ongoing lesson of what is really important in life, and they help us to prioritize our “stuff” in meaningful ways. Neural plasticity, the brain’s ability to be shaped by environment, is a miracle that gets nourished with proper environmental input regardless of health or disease. Understanding what that input is and applying it across the life span is the challenge and purpose of a proactive brain health lifestyle. The Brain Health Lifestyle Engage in something new and complex for you today, make a new friend, eat a delicious meal that includes salmon, stop to enjoy the moment or engage in prayer, and walk around your block. Simple tips like these offer a few of the easy changes we can make in our daily routine to begin the process of living a proactive brain health lifestyle. The chapters that follow provide more examples of brain-healthy behaviors for you to consider and to add to your new brain health lifestyle. xvi Preface The primary message of this book is that we should seek the types of environments that promote brain health. It is from these environments, rich in the novel and complex, that our brains will thrive and build brain reserve to combat the poten-tial presence of neurodegenerative diseases, such as dementia. This underscores the importance of my proactive brain health lifestyle to help the brain delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. I have been witness to so many who have lost access to their life stories and therefore have become disconnected from their loved ones. It is from these experiences that my work on the planet is now focused on helping everyone maintain as healthy a brain as possible. This is the rallying call and the personal message. This book is about you. I hope the message of this book motivates you to love your brain and to begin the process of caring for it from this day on. Introduction You have no greater asset than your life story. It must be shared with your next great generation, the little ones in your life. 7 itting across the table from a person struggling to recall his name can be an unsettling experience. Perhaps even more difficult is the realization on the faces of the family members that their father or grandfather is no longer capable of recog-nizing them and in some ways has forever been disconnected from them. Brain disease such as Alzheimer’s causes daunting experiences. It is at these moments that we can understand the sheer brilliance and, at the same time, the fragility of the human brain. It is your brain, after all, that contains and expresses your identity, enables your connection to others, creates and stores your memories, and most important, tells your life story. This book is written from the deep emotional reality that exists from sitting at that table hundreds of times in my life. It represents my attempt to provide a tangible guide for preserving access to our identity, to our loved ones, to our life story. And while the brain is fragile, it is also the most magnificent system ever designed, capable of more than we can presently know and deserving of a lifetime’s dedication to health. 1 2 Save Your Brain Watching a person who has been affected by a brain illness or condition is both difficult and enlightening. It is not uncom-mon to see a person suffering from a devastating brain illness cope with amazing fortitude and courage. At the same time, the signs and symptoms of brain disease can indeed be life-chang-ing for the patient and those family members and friends who surround the patient. In my work, I have helped patients who have lost the ability to speak, to walk, to behave appropriately, to see or hear, and to remember. These are not simply functions lost because of a particular disease or insult to the brain—they represent a loss of part of the person. In the case of memory loss, the literal identity of the person may be lost. It does not get more personal that that! It is also important for me to state that my patients have helped me to understand that all of us can appreciate life and that it is so important to stop our hurried lives and enjoy the moment, to express ourselves to those we love, and to realize that today may be our last. The human brain is the most brilliant and magnifi cent sys-tem ever designed. Every now and then the brain will express its sheer brilliance, though we tend to view some manifestations of this brilliance as “abnormal” or as a psychiatric disorder. I often use the example of Rain Man, the wonderful movie that stars Dustin Hoffman as a man who suffers from autism with a savant ability to mentally calculate the probability of a certain card being drawn from six decks of cards. When it comes to the mind, there is nothing that now exists and there will never be anything built that comes close to the complexity of the human brain, and that is based on the little we know about the brain today. We underestimate the power Introduction 3 of the human brain on a consistent basis. Despite our tendency to sit in awe of the latest technology or gadget, the most impres-sive portable and wireless system is the human brain, which is capable of things we cannot even imagine yet. It is from this context and appreciation of the human brain that a deeper discussion can occur about why and how we care for this part of our being. Your brain contains your identity, your very being, your potential for personal development, and perhaps the innovation or idea that will forever change the lives of millions. Your brain builds over the course of your lifetime your personal life story, the most precious gift you have and one that needs to be shared with others whom you love. There is perhaps no greater untapped resource in the universe than the human brain. Cultures from the beginning of humankind have neglected the brain’s importance and unique distinction. It is time to shift our viewpoint to awaken a wonderful interest in the human brain and a lifestyle that promotes brain health. The Power of Your Brain Sitting inside our heads is the greatest system in the universe— a real miracle. We need to move beyond a perception of the human brain as an academic or clinical entity to one that is deeply personal. Indeed, we need to embrace this part of our being, the core of who we are, and learn about it. From an understanding of the basics of our brain, we can begin the pro-cess of caring for it and promoting its health. Brain health is a ... - tailieumienphi.vn