Tag: Healthy Lifestyle

Better Your Memory by Leading a Healthy Lifestyle

As you age, you may feel like your memory is slowly losing its ability to store as much information like it used to. Although this is a natural occurrence, you can do things and various exercises to help yourself not easily lose its grip when it comes to remembering things and better your memory. Memory is defined in psychology as the mental ability of an organism to retain and store as well as recall information.

In the older days, the study of memory falls under the fields of philosophy. People even dig up on techniques to artificially enhance the memory. In the late 19th up to the early 20th century, the study of memory became part of the paradigms of the cognitive psychology. As of today, this is one of the major fields in the branch of science known as cognitive neuroscience.

How the Memory Works

There are three stages that happen when you form and retrieve information as part of your memory. First, the information is encoded or registered once it is received by your brain. After that, your brain tries to create a permanent record of the information and store as much as it could. Whenever the need arise, your brain will help you recall the stored information and retrieve whatever will help you on the circumstance that you are in.

Disorders Associated with Memory

The most common disorder that is being incurred in this regard is the loss of memory, also known as amnesia. There are many types of amnesia and studies are being done continuously to know more about the field as well as to solve the dilemma. Other known disorders that usually hit older people is the Alzheimers disease. There is also a disorder that centers into ones autobiographical memory or when they cannot dismiss even the littlest details. This is known as the hyperthymesic syndrome.

Better Memory

You dont have to wait until a disorder hits you before you act on to improving your memory. When you are aware as to how your brain works in getting and storing the information that come from various sources. You can compare your brains ability to store information to how a computer functions.

Your computer will eventually crash if you dont do certain steps to take care of it. You must let it rest and cool off after you have used it for a long time. You must also do a regular checkup to see if it is still virus free and there are no potent errors that may lead to its crash. This is also what you must do on your brain to make sure that it wont give in or gain lapses through time.

You must treat your brain right so that you will benefit from its superb performance as you age. By leading a healthy lifestyle, you will help your brain retain its usual performance. Even if you think like you are good in remembering things, you must not abuse such ability. You can help your brain to stay at the top of its game by leading a healthy lifestyle. You must not engage on drugs and other substance abuse. You must also refrain from drinking too much beverages.

Your brain needs a healthy supply of oxygen for it to function well. You can achieve such by exercising regularly and also by getting enough sleep. By resorting to these techniques, you will better your memory in the long run.

Better Your Memory by Eating Right

Leading a healthy lifestyle can cause so many benefits and that include helping you better your memory. This is a very important aspect because if you will not take certain steps in order to nurture it, you may end up with the disorders that are associated with this function of your brain. Your memory is your brain’s ability to encode information, retain and store them and recall vital data whenever needed.

Steps to Improve Memory

There are many things that you can do to help your brain perform at its best. This can be achieved by avoiding unhealthy vices like drinking too much alcoholic beverages, smoking and turning to prohibited drugs. You must learn how to control your vices if you can’t stop immediately. Exercising also helps in giving your brain good supply of oxygen. This will enhance its performance and will make you remember things easier. It is also a must to get enough rest and good amount of sleep. The way you think will be gravely affected if you are tired, especially when you only got some hours of sleep that may leave you feeling weak and you also cannot think straight.

There are exercises that you can do to help your brain improve. You can resort to various card games that promote such benefit. You should also be active in learning new things all the time even if you are already. This must not stop you to learn by reading and training. You must also engage in different physical activities that will help regulate the blood circulation on your brain. You must also learn how to control your emotions, especially the stress that you feel as a result of thinking too much about your problems. Depression causes a major impact on one’s memory as well as emotional instability.

Eating Right

You must eat right for your brain to function well. It will not help if you will be distracted by your hunger for your thoughts to come out fluently. By eating right, it means that you have to eat the kinds of foods that are healthy in proportions that will help you stay fit and vigorous. If you are into some type of diet, just be sure that you follow the recommended intake of the food that you are allowed to eat. Here are some foods that can help you achieve the goal of attaining better memory.

1. Sunflower seeds. Nuts contain healthy fats that you can incorporate on your diet. These seeds contain abundant source of Vitamin E, an antioxidant that help out in improving your memory as you grow older. Other rich sources of Vitamin E include hazelnut, spinach, kiwi, broccoli, wheat germ oil, mango and dry almond.

2. Salmon. This contains Omega-3 fatty acids that are important in developing your brain and helping it to function better. Such acids can also be found in walnut, soybean, shrimp, scallop, tofu, winter squash, flaxseed and walnut.

3. Blueberries. These are rich in phytochemical elements that can affect one’s memory in a very good way. These are also good for your overall health.

4. Lean beef. This is rich in iron that will help you boost and help better your memory if taken in moderate proportions. But make sure that you do not eat much of this because you may encounter weight problems if you do so.

Vital Techniques that Can Help Better Your Memory

There is nothing wrong in aiming to do things to help better your memory. You don’t have to go to professionals to learn how. You can actually do your own research whenever you have time for such task. Here are some ways that can help you learn more about what you can do in this regard.

1. If you have time, you can spend it on your local library to pick up books that deal with the topic. You can browse it wherever you are while taking down notes as to related tips that you can do to help improve your brain’s performance.

2. You can also check the web for related articles that you can read and gain tips from. Through reading, you will gain the right techniques on how you can improve your memory. This is also a favorable exercise on your brain because this enhances thinking.

3. You can also ask professionals for help regarding the matter. You can do this if you are undertaking your regular physical exams. You can take this opportunity to learn about what you can do to improve your memory by asking the right people about the matter.

Healthy Lifestyle

One factor that plays a big factor into the overall scenario is your lifestyle. Your brain needs a good supply of blood and oxygen. This can be achieved by exercising regularly and eating the right foods that can help you in this regard. You must also limit drinking alcoholic beverages. If you must, do it on a moderate basis. You should also not engage in drugs and other prohibited substances as these can cause damage on your brain which you may be unaware of at first. You will just get the surprise of your life when you wake up one day and you feel the negative effects that these have brought about.

More Tips

To help you with the goal of retaining as much information as you want and need, here are some more simple techniques that you can opt to do.

1. Try to assimilate occurrences and people to other factors that can help you remember them. You don’t want to get into situations wherein you cannot remember important faces and names just because your memory fails to work well. By helping your brain in trying to remember, you will be successful in the venture as you practice the act through time.

2. Do a mental picture of what you are trying to remember, especially when you have to engage into speaking commitments wherein you have to deliver long speeches. You can try to break the speech into parts wherein each part will be associated with something to help you remember the line.

3. Do not quit learning as you age. It will be helpful to engage in activities that you used to do when you were young. If you have kids, you can browse on their books to re-learn some things that you already have forgotten. This can also be a bonding moment for the family. You can help your children do their homework. While you are at it, you will be amazed at how this activity can help you exercise your brain in the process.

If you feel like there are so many things that you are finding hard to remember, it is high time that you think about resorting to tips and techniques on how to better your memory. You should avoid getting serious disorders by engaging into the kind of lifestyle and activities that promote healthy brain functions.

Achieving Healthy Pregnancy Despite Diabetes

Among diabetic pregnant women, the most common problem when it comes to their babys health is the condition called macrosomia or having a baby with large body. This is because the blood of the mother with diabetes is interchanged with that of the baby inside the womb. As a result, the baby will produce insulin to be able to glucose and this will lead to fat deposits, which causes the baby to grown larger compared to the regular ones.

What you can do

For a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy, it is ideal to maintain an appropriate weight gain, average consumption of various foods from different food groups, timely and prescribed vitamin and mineral supplementation, and lots of fluid intake. Sweets and fats should also be kept to a minimum level of consumption. The following are just some of the guidelines that pregnant women with diabetes can use to achieve healthy pregnancy despite the chronic disease:

1. Follow the appropriate meal plan religiously. More than ever, pregnant women should pay attention to what they eat and their eating patterns in general. This is very important because this stagepregnancy itselfrequires strict control of blood glucose levels in order to ensure that both the mother and baby are getting the right amount of key nutrients needed. In coming up with the right diet plan, it is best to seek the help of diabetes educator or a licensed dietitian to create the necessary adjustments needed to accommodate the needs not only of the fetus inside the womb but of the mother as well. In your meal plan, take note of calorie, carbohydrates and protein requirements every day because these will help you maintain normal blood glucose levels.

2. Regular Self-Monitoring of Blood Glucose or SMBG. Experts say that the only way to tell if the woman is successful in controlling her blood glucose is by monitor their levels by themselves regularly. Since being pregnant is a sensitive condition, soon to be mothers should monitor their blood glucose levels more frequently. Ideally, SMBG should be monitored four to 10 times a day.

3. Knowledge in administering insulin injections and adjusting the doses based on the results of SMBG. Sufficient supply of insulin is very crucial for pregnant women so they must know how to administer insulin injections by themselves in case no one is around when they need it. They should also ask from their physician how to adjust the doses of insulin after they are through with the SBMG. Knowing how to adjust the doses of insulin needed is very important to ensure that the bodys supply of insulin is stable.

4. Treating or controlling hypoglycemia. Pregnant women who are diabetics are more prone to hypoglycemia because of the hormonal changes in their body. Although studies show that there are no know effects of hypoglycemia in the baby, it is best to control or treat it as soon as possible so the soon to be mom wont be having troubles during the course of conception.

5. Maintaining regular set of exercise or physical activities. This is also very important for pregnant women with diabetes because through this they can reduce the risk of hypoglycemia as well as being overweight. Since it is hard for pregnant women to do strenuous workouts, it is best to maintain the hobby of having light exercises that will keep the body moving.