Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do to Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp_3

14 4. I eat two meals with utensils daily. I eat one meal with utensils daily. I do not use utensils on a daily basis. 5. I eat walnuts or almonds several times a week. I eat walnuts once or twice a month. I do not eat walnuts. Save Your Brain 5 points 3 points 0 points 5 points 3 points 0 points 6. I consume 80 percent of the portions provided me as a rule. I consume 100 percent of the food on my plate. I tend to overeat regardless of portion size. Nutritional Domain Total Points 5 points 3 points 0 points 30 What Your Score Means You may use the following guide to interpret your scores: 100–90: Great job! Maintain your lifestyle approach. 89–80: Good job! Make a few changes to improve your lifestyle. 79–70: Average. Consider making changes in several domains. 69–60: Poor. Significant change is needed in several domains. 59–50: Help! Reassess the importance of your life story and attempt to make one small change in your lifestyle at a time. Introduction 15 Do not be concerned if you score poorly at first. This is prob-ably the first time you have considered your own brain health! You will notice improvement if you remain loyal to your brain health lifestyle! Calculate and Interpret Your Scores 1. To derive your quarterly brain health score for each domain, add the scores of your circled responses and insert the total score into the formula listed for each one. 2. To derive your quarterly total brain health score, add the total scores for each domain, divide by 140, and then mul-tiply by 100. 3. To derive an annual brain health score by domain, add the four scores of each domain and apply that score to the for-mula listed for the annual brain health score for that par-ticular domain. For example, here’s how you would obtain an annual brain health score for the physical domain: Total score for each quarter 100 100 4. To derive a grand total for overall brain health for the year: add the five annual brain health scores together, divide by 560, and multiply by 100: Grand Total (five annual brain health scores) 560 100 Date Baseline Score First Quarter Second Quarter Third Quarter Fourth Quarter Annual Brain Health Score SOCIAL PHYSICAL 25 25 100 100 25 25 100 100 25 25 100 100 25 25 100 100 25 25 100 100 100 100 100 100 MENTAL SPIRITUAL 35 25 100 100 35 25 100 100 35 25 100 100 35 25 100 100 35 25 100 100 140 100 100 100 NUTRITIONAL 30 100 30 100 30 100 30 100 30 100 120 100 1 The Importance Brain health and indeed the human brain is now securely positioned on the radar screen of the American psyche. 7 he belief that a proactive approach can help to reduce the risk of brain disease is the core principle of the brain health movement. While the focus of this book and my career is brain health, there remains a need to understand the consequences of brain disease. It is from this understanding of the devastation caused by brain disease that a strong energy to learn about and implement brain health emerges, not out of fear, but out of a motivation to build and preserve access to our own life story. When thinking about brain health, we often think about brain disease. This makes sense, as disease in general has tradi-tionally been the focus of our medical training and approach to health care. “Brain disease” refers to an array of conditions that negatively affect the function of the brain. Examples range from progressive neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, 17 18 Save Your Brain Parkinson’s, and Lewy body dementia, to mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, perva-sive developmental disorders, and substance abuse, to trauma, such as closed head injury. Each of these conditions, and hun-dreds of others, impacts the structure and function of the brain, resulting in cognitive, emotional, and functional decline for the person. Such conditions and diseases also result in signifi cant disruption of the family system and place a tremendous emo-tional and practical toll on the caregiver. Because the brain is so complex and we know so little about it, our interventions are symptom-based, not curative. When considering the brain, we tend to rely on the medical approach to the human brain that overly emphasizes disease, but we should strive to take on another perspective with an eye toward brain health, develop-ment, and growth rather than relying on reactive, quick, and invasive procedures only. Brain health is proactive and lifelong, with nothing quick about it. It’s a lifestyle. For many years we have believed that the brain is a fi xed and rigid entity that has a limited window of opportunity to develop, the “critical period of brain development.” Traditional thinking taught us that this critical period occurred early in life and new skill development could not happen beyond that time. Similarly, the ideas that brain disease is inevitable with advanced age and that once the brain is damaged it cannot be treated or healed were generally accepted. With our new understanding of the human brain, we have begun to challenge these ideas, and the new concept of brain health maintains that a proactive approach can be implemented at the earliest period of life and followed across the entire life span. Brain health ... - tailieumienphi.vn