So as we discussed I hope you are all beginning some kind of exercise. I am a speed walker and I walked 2 miles this morning. Morning is the only time here in the tropics of Florida that a person can go outside and move around without worrying about heat stroke.

Today I would like to talk about your brain health as you age.

2. Brain Health.

If you are young and smoke I advise you to quit smoking right now. I will publish an article about that for you tomorrow. If you are not young and smoke I advise you to quit smoking yesterday. Smoking will age you faster than the sun. Smoking dehydrates you very much which is bad for your entire body including your brain. Smoke takes the place of the oxygen your brain needs to survive.

Your brain needs fat to function. You did not believe that, did you? Well it is true. There is way too much hype right now about fat being bad for you. There are many good kinds of fat. Avocado is a very good fat that you can't eat too much of. Nuts have good fat in them. Nut butters are very good for you. You can get Cashew Butter, Almond Butter and even Hazelnut Butter now.

The CoQ10 that we talked about yesterday is a fat soluble compound. That is how it can go in and out of cell walls inside your body. Your body needs and uses many different kinds of fat.

The more you exercise the more oxygen you can get to your brain. You can take the herb everybody is taking these days called Ginkgo Biloba. It is a blood thinner so you will get more oxygen to your brain as you get more blood circulating to your brain, because it improves blood flow especially micro-circulation to small capillaries. However, Ginkgo Biloba should not be taken by people taking prescription blood thinners, or certain anti-depressants like the Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors. It may be a good idea though for those with Raynauds Disease. I take Ginkgo everyday myself.

When talking about people with MS or Alzheimers there has been science to say that Ginkgo may also help with the memory and concentration for these diseases.

Ginseng is another herb that is good to revitalize every cell in the body, including cells in the brain. Ginseng can also be good for energy and mental exhaustion. The Eleuthero Ginsenosides have been helpful in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, as well as for Convalescence.

As we age we become more susceptible to Vitamin B deficiencies and many people take Vitamin B12 shots from their doctors for relief. The B Complex of Vitamins should be taken together and you can take a supplement daily. After the age of 35 our central nervous system begins to decline and could use some help to stay balanced. Vitamin B Complex can help with this balance.

Stress is something that affects us all these days. The effects seem to be worse for those who are out in the work force. The Central Nervous System(CNS) is definitely in control of how the brain works. And you can easily see this by the fact that, the less stressed you are, the better your brain functions. Therefore, keeping your CNS happy helps you keep your brain happier and thus it works more efficiently for you.

The Complex of B vitamins is important for much of your health including energy production and relief of anxiety and depression, as well as many other physiological functions including proper brain function.

The body is the most complicated system of events taking place every second of our life and needs to be cared for as such. It is very dependent on us to keep up our daily fortification with proper foods and activities, all of which will keep our brain happy as well. We need to eat right and exercise and it will continue to work properly for us. But the body is so complicated that we do not even understand how it all works yet.

We continue to change our ideas of how we need to take are of it according to newer scientific information about how the body works. We have recently changed our food pyramid to not include so many grains and not so much protein, and much more fruits and vegetables than before. Actually our Food Pyramid has changed into a more equal grouping between them all, except protein is still less, and many more complex carbohydrates than grains.

Basically the grains that sell the most in the grocery stores here are simple sugars and not the whole grain heavy breads that people eat in other countries. Therefore they break down more quickly and convert to sugar more easily which of course is not as good for you as a more complex whole grain. The whole grains are good for you before they take the husk off the grain, which gets rid of much of the beneficial ingredients of a whole grain.

Whole grains have more B Vitamins in them, which are better for your CNS, which in turn is better for your brain. Actually Whole grains naturally contain the complex of B vitamins in their husk. And all of the white flour and bleached flour that you find in most of the products at your grocery have had their husks removed therefore once they have had their husk removed they then add the synthetic B vitamins they claim to have in their product. It is not natural.

We will continue tomorrow to discuss health, smoking tobacco and your lifespan. See you then.