How To Improve Brain Function
Brain exercises
1. Read more. Reading improves brain function, enhances your imagination, and also improves theory of mind, which helps people relate to and understand perspectives different from their own perspectives. It can also reduce stress, improve memory, help you focus better and improve your writing skills.
2. Learn something new. Learning to play an instrument, or a new language, helps to rewire the brain, which allows for faster and stronger signaling within the brain. This also helps improve memory and quicker processing of information.
3. Get good quality sleep. Sleep helps solidify memories, and it also clears toxins from the brain more rapidly than when you are awake. Sleep helps improve creativity, it also allows you to learn better, and increases your ability to retain what you have learned.
4. Exercise regularly or Take up a new sport. Exercising or Learning a new sport such as tennis, racquetball, golf or softball can stimulate the brain in many ways, as they stimulate the release of beneficial chemicals in the brain, and promote the health of blood vessels in the brain.
5. Eat fruit and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, which can help nourish the brain, and protect it from damaging free radicals. Many studies have shown that diets high in processed foods can impair brain function.
6. Modify your daily routines. Take a different route to work, or use your non-dominate hand to eat with, control your mouse with, or brush your teeth with. This will increase your brain activity, as you have to actually think about what you are doing.
7. Use all of your senses. Cooking a new food or gardening are great ways to engage many of your senses. Using multiple senses stimulates activity in different parts of the brain, and can also improve many of those senses.
8. Socialize with different people. Connecting with people from different cultures, careers, or those with different interests than your own can be beneficial to brain health. This allows you to see things from different perspectives and can challenge your way of thinking, stimulating mental growth.
Every one of us is hit with some type of stress every day, and how we deal with that stress is crucial to our health. So, let’s take a look at some ways to deal with, or decrease stress.
1. Keep a notebook or journal. Keep a notebook with you for a couple of weeks, and write down stressful situations you encounter, and how you responded to them. Read through your notes and see if you can find ways to respond to those situations that causes you less stress.
2. Slow down. Take a moment and take some deep breaths and allow your body to try and relax and clear your mind. Give yourself some time before reacting to a stressful situation, it is better to react with a clear mind than one that is put under intense stress.
3. Get more active in your life. Exercise is a great stress reliever, as are physical hobbies such as tennis, hiking or golfing. Taking a walk and listening to music are great ways to relieve stress as well.
4. Eat a healthy diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables that have vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber, which help with digestion, proper bodily function, and strengthen your immune system. When your body is properly nourished, it will be better prepared to handle the effects of stress.
5. Make consistent time in your schedule for relaxation and fun. Most days we pack our schedule with the tasks of everyday life, often times not committing time to doing things we enjoy. You need to make sure your schedule has a list of the things you have to do, and the things you want to do.
6. Have strong social connections with people. Building relationships and friendships with people you can lean on can help when times get tough. Sometimes just talking about a stressful situation, or getting your thoughts out, can relieve a lot of the stress. Your friends can also give you a fresh perspective on the situation, and you may realize that things aren’t as bad as you originally thought.
7. Make sure you get enough good quality sleep. Sleep allows your mind and body to rest, and repair itself from the daily grind. Lack of sleep or poor quality sleep can negatively affect your judgment and mood, leading to even more stress.
8. When you leave work, actually leave work. Don’t allow yourself to think about work, check work emails or even talk or text coworkers if the conversation is going to be about work.
9. Be grateful for what you do have. Think about everything good in your life. Maybe it is the great relationship you have with your spouse or partner, the wonderful kids you are raising, or a recent accomplishment you achieved. Spend a few minutes thinking about the things that really matter in your life.
What Is Stroke Volume Of The Heart
What is stroke volume of the heart?
Stroke volume is the amount of blood ejected from the left ventricle of the heart in a single heart contraction. It is the measurement of the difference in the amount of blood in the ventricle before a contraction, called end-diastolic volume, and after a contraction, called end-systolic volume.
SV = EDV – ESV
So for example if the ventricle has 144 milliliters of blood in it before a contraction and 50 milliliters after a contraction, the stroke volume would be 94 milliliters.
It is estimated that the average stroke volume ranges between 50 and 70 mL at rest, and 110 to 130 during exercise. Elite athletes are estimated to be between 90 and 110 mL at rest, and a whopping 150 to 220mL during cardio training.
Men in general have larger stroke volumes than women because of a larger sized heart, and individuals who are fit also have a larger stroke volume.
So, for instance, let’s say we have 2 ladies that are both around the same size and age, but Katy here works out regularly and Jessica here does not. Both are required to walk a mile at a relatively fast pace. During each of their walks, we would see that Jessica’s heart rate would be higher than Katy’s.
This is in part because Katy’s stroke volume is greater, she is pumping more blood to her muscles, with each heart beat than Jessica is. At the end of their walks, we may find that both ladies have pumped the exact same amount of blood, but Katy has done it with far fewer beats of the heart.
There is a point where the stroke volume of the heart maxes out. At a very high heart beat stroke volume may actually decrease do to the shortening of time for the heart to fill with blood.
And that be the basics on Stroke volume.
Alright so I could cite a ton of statistics showing how being overweight puts you at risk for all these different illnesses, diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, heart attack, stroke, and on and on.
But, I’m going to make this video a bit different, let’s look at it from a logical perspective.
Why is being at a healthy weight so important?
If we throw the statistics out and just look at it from a logical perspective. When we weigh more, our circulatory and respiratory systems have to work harder to deliver nutrients and oxygen to all parts of the body.
Our digestive system has to work much harder, mainly because we are eating more than we need, hence why we are overweight. If our body needs only 2200 calories per day, but we are shoving in 3200 calories a day, that’s 1000 more calories per day that our digestive system must digest and absorb.
So, in a year that is 365,000 extra calories our body is breaking down, digesting, absorbing, and storing. Let’s say you are looking to buy a used car, two identical cars, 3 years old, car 1 has 32,000 miles on it, and car 2 has 88,000 miles on it. Less wear and tear on the engine is going to lean you to buying car 1. Take the same perspective for your body.
It also puts more stress on joints, ligaments and tendons. More stress on these makes them wear down faster, and become more prone to breaking down and even tearing.
Being overweight has a dramatic effect on our happiness. Being overweight can lead us to seek isolation, and bring about poor decisions. We are looking for something to make us feel good, and food makes us feel good. So we are overweight, feeling bad, eating more food to make us feel better and the result is we gain even more weight, feel even worse, and make our health even worse.
It is a vicious cycle, that many times invades our social lives, as we don’t want to eat around others, and sometimes do whatever we can to avoid people or even being out in a public setting.
Being underweight is also unhealthy. People that are underweight are not getting enough nutrients in their body to allow it to function properly. It weakens the immune system; bones become fragile, increases fatigue, and decreases brain function, and can also decrease self-esteem and lead people to seek isolation.
As you can see, being at a healthy weight is crucial to physical and mental health. There is a link to Rush university medical centers’ healthy weight chart in the description box below.
Maintaining a healthy weight can be difficult. Our exposure to food is constant, it is no longer just nutrients that allow us to survive. Food has become something we look to for comfort and even as entertainment, I mean look at all the food channels on tv, and even on YouTube. If you want to improve both your physical and mental health, maintaining a healthy weight is crucial.
