Thursday, September 7, 2006

Where am I and where did I park my car?


So have you ever had one of those days when you are sure you have lost your memory forever? I mean the one where you cannot remember a single thing, forget where you parked your car at the mall, forget peoples names, addresses, phone numbers, and you go back into the house three times because you forgot everything you needed for the day. I have those days once and a while but sometimes they are so overwhelming that as the day continues it keeps getting worst and worst to the point where all I can think about is what will I forget next.

They say that age brings this on, but I speak to many younger people that have this problem decades before they could be considered to have age related memory loss, and I have come to the conclusion that it is diet and stress based. How else would so many younger adults have all of these geriatric problems? We overeat all the time but what we overeat has no nutritional value and cannot possibly feed our brains, or for that fact feed anything in our bodies.

I find that when people increase their protein intake, their memories get better, as protein feeds the muscles, the organs and the brain. Junk food, although great tasting is nice on the palate, but empty on the nutrition scale. So what do we do? As stress increases and as we pile on more and more work on our plate, and as long as we keep running around in circles, eating badly, not getting enough rest and sleep, how can we possibly expect to be mentally sharp and well tuned? I think supplements may be the answer, but where do we start.

There are a few blends and some singular herbs to take a look at. Remember, you have to add in eye strain also as this can affect your memory as well. So I usually start people off with a good quality Ginkgo Biloba to increase blood flow to the brain. This can be used by almost everyone, except if you are on a blood thinner or have severely high blood pressure, although most physicians will approve it. The next nutrients I would add are Vinpocetine and Huperzine, as well as DMAe, and PS or Phosphatidyl Serene. It really depends on how bad the memory is, and if the lights are on and nobody is home, so to say. I usually recommend starting with one and adding the others in one at a time. If you start with all of them, you really will never know if you actually needed them all, so start slowly.

Once again, many of us have stress related and diet related memory problems. So many of us have self induced stress as well as the kind you do not have any control over, it does not matter to the body, it is still stress. There are although many people that have actual physical and mental problems and health related problems that actually do affect their memories, and simply de -stressing is not going to work. Many of them use nutrition to help out, as pharmacological drugs are either not available, or their success is not what people are looking for, or side effects outweight any benefits. I find that people in this category do the research, and find this route works very, very well for a large percentage of them.

So whether you are mentally slipping because of your age , your health, your diet or just basic overload, do not forget to put some great brain nutrition into your daily supplement program, it may just be exactly what you need for your brain to do its job.





1 comment: