Brain Awareness Week
Hello everyone! Welcome to “Brain Awareness Week” (March 16-22). Living life from a health-consciousness perspective can help us living longer, stay healthy, and be able to continue doing the things we love, with the people we love. U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make American Healthy Again” movement has helped the U.S. refocus interest in prevention and wellness.
Most of us start the new year by making resolutions for reducing bad habits and making better choices for the year ahead. Many of those decisions will usually include eating healthier, being more active, protecting ourselves better, managingour stress better, and maybe even getting more check-ups. But what about “Brain Health?” After all, our brain is the engine that drives everything else, right? Brain health is a critical factor in everyone’s overall health and well-being.
A major new study showed that, in 2021, more than 3 billion people worldwide were living with a neurological condition. That’s over 1 in 3 people worldwide! The overall amount of disability, illness and premature death (known as disability-adjusted life years, DALYs) caused by neurological conditions has increased by 18% since 1990! (released by The Lancet Neurology shows The World Health Organization (WHO) contributed to the analysis of the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study (GBD) 2021 data.).
So… Yes, obviously, brain health is important. So how do we get started? To celebrate brain week, I thought it would be fun to play a game of “Never have I ever…” but this time, with our brain… Consider some things you’ve never done with your brain before. It could be a thing, a place, an experience, or something else. This week, have some fun and make a plan to do one of those “nevers” each day incorporating as many of our five senses (touch, taste, sight, hearing, and feeling). Consider experiences you’ve had in the past, but experiencing them in a completely different way. Changes like this can encourage growth in brain ‘neuroplasticity,’ which refers to your brain’s ability to adapt and reorganize itself by forming new neural connections and strengthening existing pathways of the brain in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Many people going through rehabilitation for brain injuries will exercise their brain using targeted, repetitive exercises and challenges as they heal. A list of specific suggestions could prove too exhaustive, so I’ll try to offer some suggestions of areas to challenge that may help boost your neuroplasticity. Consider the following acttivities and areas to challenge:
Balance, coordination, & motor skills: dancing, hiking, hopscotch, obstacle courses, finger-tapping, new types of fitness/exercise, yoga, tai chi, karate, arts & crafts, non-dominant hand/task exercises
Memory, problem solving, comprehension, critical thinking, creativity, & learning: games, puzzles, mysteries, riddles, pattern-matching, new language, design/build something, acting, escape room, sign language, video/arcade/carnival games, making up a story, story plots, disassembling/re-assembling things, reading fiction, learning new words
Auditory & visual: art, music, nature, optical illusions, matching shapes/colors/sizes, sound recall/mapping, relaxation, meditation
Tactile & olifactory: food, surface textures, essential oils, temperature, pressure, consistencies, mystery bag, musical instruments, relaxation, meditation
And of course, you can also decide to focus on the basics…
Consider all 8 dimensions of wellness balanced in life:
(social, physical, emotional, career, intellectual, financial, environmental, and spiritual)
Social: relationships, connections, communication, diversity
Physical: exercise, diet, sleep, nutrition, self-care
Emotional: self-awareness, self-esteem, gratitude, self-expression
Career:gratifying/challenging work, work balance, work/life boundaries, healthy stress
Intellectual: creativ/stimulating activities, expanding knowledge, improving skills, adapting to changes
Financial: obtaining, managing, maintaining finances, healthy relationships with money
Environmental: Avoidance of toxic substances, chemicals, allergens, and polution, taking precautions for safety in unsafe areas, wearing personal protective gear from weather and chemicals, recycling, cleanliness and organization of personal spaces, exploring pleasant, stimulating environments that positively support well-being
Spiritual: activities that promote, connection, purpose, peace, aliveness, meaning and purpose in life, or understanding personal & social identity (e.g. culture, ethnicity, gender, etc.)
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