I have recently watched the series online called “Broken Brains”.  An excellent set of presentations by experts relating their successes restoring damaged brains.

The information boils down to recommending lifestyle changes to heal a brain whether it is damaged due to an injury or whether it is failing to adequately and appropriately serve one because it has been assaulted in too many ways.

The following are the routes (exceptionally simplified here) that help restore “normal” brain function – whether it is from autism or Alzheimer’s or concussion or vascular dementia or MS.  Here are some of the changes needed.  And NO, changing only one or two of these is not adequate to change your brain’s future.  You need to address and deeply incorporate all of these if you want to change the health of your broken brain!

1. Optimize your nutrition. This is a core to healing the brain.   Get rid of any unhealthy foods – meaning ALL of them.  If the food does not look the way it would have when brought into your great-grandmother’s home, if it has been processed, if it is not free of GMOs, or if it is not organic, it does not belong inside your body.  Eat fruits and vegetables and get loads of fiber from these.   And eat them as fresh as possible.  Eat many colors and make vegetables about 2/3rds of each plate of food; eat grass fed beef and other meats; eat wild caught fish or at least those sea food items found near the top of the food chain, such as the smallest ones like sardines.
2. Incorporate many fermented foods and other supports to ensure you develop and maintain a healthy gut “microbiome”. You need a gut teaming with healthy microbes to ensure only healthy fully digested “food” reaches your cells.
3. Consume “right” fats. Do not consume any low fat or diet forms of foods or beverages.  Your brain needs the right fats in order to work properly because the cells walls in your body and particularly the brain cells have to have fat – specifically healthy fats!   Omega 3 fatty acids are critical to brain health.  Examples of healthy fats: avocados, raw nuts, wild caught salmon, …
4. Avoid toxins and appropriately eliminate the ones you may have accumulated. Tone major toxin for most people is mercury.  It is still found in many tooth fillings and in vaccines.  Avoid the hormone disruptive toxins such as those found in plastics.  Avoid tap water and drink clean water free of chlorine and fluoride and other pollutants.  Avoid all contact with pesticides and insecticides.  Over 80,000 toxic substances are found in our environment.  Avoiding most of them is challenging, if even possible.  But we can lessen their effects by making best choices.   Get out in fresh air; avoid molds, chemicals, and formaldehyde off-gassing in your own home; use organic personal products from shampoo to toothpaste and more.   Make informed choices!
5. Balance your hormones so they can do their jobs perfectly. Hormones are the directors of your life.  If they are not functioning optimally, if they are in too short or too high supply, the body cannot work at its best. The most commonly out of balance glands is our essential thyroid!    When the thyroid is not functioning optimally – apart from so many other areas of your body being affected negatively by its malfunctioning – an imbalanced thyroid ensures that your brain is deprived of its ability to build new brain cells – especially in your hippocampus where this area controls mood and memory.  Low thyroid functioning leads to depression and to poor cognitive function.  Many doctors fail to diagnose thyroid problems and thus fail to help this gland work “optimally”.  The thyroid gland functioning optimally is critical to ensuring your brain health is maintained!  If any of your other hormones are not functioning at their highest possible state, then other health challenges arise and each one can create a cascading effect – and these malfunctioning hormones may be a root cause to some poor health symptoms you are experiencing.

6. Get rid of inflammation. Chronic inflammation is now believed to be at the base of all diseases you might manifest.  Inflammation is our body’s natural defense reaction to injury and it is supposed to happen.  However, if we assault the body with multiple toxins, if we habitually neglect our digestive system, etc.  then the inflammation response can be turned on and stay turned on creating a constant state of inflammation which then harms the body.  Locate your inflammatory triggers and avoid them.  Cool down inflammation by ensuring you are not deliberately creating an environment where inflammation becomes chronic.  Anything from lack of restful sleep, too much stress, poor nutrition choices, and more, can lie behind chronic inflammation.  To get well you must avoid inflammatory situations.
7. Fix your gut. Your gut microbiome is perhaps one of the most critical areas to tend carefully.  The billions of microbes that live in your gut, that maintain the health of this environment and that contribute as symbiotic aids to your life need to be supported so they can do their jobs.  If unhealthy microbes take over the gut, you will find yourself getting ill or manifesting a disease.  It is your responsibility to ensure that the good microbes inhabit your gut, that you feed them the healthy foods they need, the fiber they require to do their work, and “inject” them with healthy probiotics frequently.  These gut microbes communicate directly with your brain’s microbiome so you cannot have a healthy brain without a healthy gut.
8. Sleep. During restful sleep your body can do its repairs.  Without respecting this need for between 6 and 8 hours of sleep each night you are not allowing your body to clean up debris, to remove dead cells and “take out the garbage”, nor to have the time to restore and build new cells.  Build yourself the healthy habit of getting sufficient restful sleep every night.  Catching up does not work!
9. Stress must be relieved! Learn ways and use them to dissipate stress.  Stress can cause inflammation.  Being under constant stress is harmful to the body.  Learn breathing exercises, meditation, regularly do yoga, – many more stress relieving choices exist.  Find ways to let go and relax your body so it can maintain its health.  Calm your mind!
10. Exercise. Movement is critical to health. No, it is not listed as number 10 on this list because it is less important than other things above it.  It is as essential as breathing! Find a way you enjoy to exercise your body regularly.  This may be going for long walks; it may be high intensity training.  Or it may be some combination of these or something in between – but get moving every day!
11. Build healthy mitochondria! The trillions of little energy machines living in our cells need to be nurtured. All the health enhancing steps listed above contribute to the health of these tiny engines.  Without the mitochondria, you cannot survive.  Treat them with respect.  The cell membranes of the mitochondria are made of healthy fats (if the mitochondria are going to be able to work for you) so avoid the unhealthy fats and consume the healthy omega 3 ones!

The above are the most basic guidelines for creating and restoring your body and your brain to be at its best.  If you would like to dig deeper into any of these, you are welcome to contact the Owl’s Nest Oasis to arrange for a private consultation.

wish you a healthy energy filled, enjoyable day!

Eleanor Bentley

ONO Co- Founder