The UltraMind Solution (108 page)

Nutrients and Herbs for Sleep

Take an extra 200 to 400 mg of magnesium citrate or glycinate before bed in addition to what is on the basic supplement program. This relaxes the nervous system and muscles.

Try 1 to 2 mg of melatonin thirty minutes before bedtime.

If you are still having trouble sleeping, make sure all of the keys outlined in Part IV are in balance.

What’s the point of having a healthy brain if you don’t use it to engage more fully in life? The joy of life is in all the things we humans get to experience—love, learning, discovery, connection, understanding, wisdom, and curiosity.

You can eat well, exercise, learn to relax, and sleep well, all of which will nourish your brain. But then what do you do with it?

Engage fully with your life. In work. In play. In love.

But to do that you must keep your brain active. The mental decline we commonly see with aging is very much due to imbalance in nutrition, hormones, immune and digestive function, damage to our energy metabolism, toxins, and stress.

But some of it is also from lack of use. Just like your muscles—you need to use it or you lose it. Brain fitness is a real phenomenon. In a study of over 450 adults over seventy-five years old it was shown that just reading books, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and board games, playing a musical instrument, or dancing can all reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
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So mental workouts also are needed. That is, doing something new, different, and challenging with your brain. You want to sprout new neural connections and wake up sleeping parts of your brain.

In college, I learned two thousand Chinese characters, which I think helped me get through all the memorization of medical school. I started playing basketball at forty and tennis at forty-five. And I spend a lot of time trying to understand the mysterious, complicated world of genes and molecules. You must find what works for you.

What follows are some ideas that can get you started. I also recommend
Dr. Gary Small’s book
The Memory Prescription
, Dr. David Perlmutter’s
The Better Brain Book
, and
The Healthy Brain Kit
by Drs. Andrew Weil and Gary Small. There are many other helpful tools available for mental aerobics. The important thing is to keep your mind and brain engaged and active.

Be creative—write in a journal, paint, make music, or dance.

Seek out new ideas through attending lectures or local classes.

Try a new hobby.

Do math in your head instead of on a calculator.

Memorize all your friends’ phone numbers, and all your credit card numbers.

Travel and explore new places.

Play word games, do crossword puzzles or Sudoku.

Join a study group, a book club, or start a “conversation” dinner club where you pick a topic and everyone has to engage and share.