Change Your Brain to Change Your Behavior: 11 Easy Habits for the New Year : Since 1991, my team at Amen Clinics and I have built the world’s largest database of brain SPECT scans related to behavior, totaling more than 225,000 scans on patients from 155 countries. We have seen patients as young as nine months and as old as 105 years.
Our brain imaging work has taught us many important lessons about the daily practices and habits of brain and mental health that we teach our patients. One lesson that everyone can benefit from: there are certain tiny habits we can all practice that will make an enormous difference in our lives.
Tiny habits are just that: the smallest actions you can take that have a maximum impact. They aren’t just general lifestyle improvements: they help improve your brain’s health and guard it against further harm. They’re clinically proven, as well. While it’s true that having some kind of epiphany can change your brain, as can a change made in your environment such as what and who surrounds you, taking baby steps is just as powerful. It addresses the major risk factors to brain health that “steal” your mind.
The 11 Risk Factors
Just as investing wizard Warren Buffet has his two rules of investing — #1: Never lose money, and #2: Never forget rule #1 — I have two rules of brain health. Rule #1: Never lose brain cells. Rule #2: Never forget rule #1. Given science, given our ability to do sophisticated brain scans, and given our ability to see how the brain reacts and changes to different factors, the risk that can cost you brain cells aren’t mysteries. You probably know some of the obvious ones: drugs, excessive alcohol, infections, toxic chemicals, and head injuries. My team created an acronym to remember them: BRIGHT MINDS.
Here are some of the lesser-known factors: being overweight; sleep apnea; high blood pressure; diabetes, prediabetes, and high blood sugar levels; drugs for anxiety; highly processed foods that have been sprayed with pesticides and include added sugar and artificial ingredients; having hormones out of whack; and too much stress, negativity, and hanging out with people who have bad habits.
At least some of these probably sound a lot like life. You likely deal with at least one of these nearly every day — and you may not realize how closely they coincide with feeling low or acting out. That’s where the tiny habits come in. If you want to change your behavior, you need to improve your brain health.
Incorporate a new practice into your daily life by adding one of these tiny, brain-healthy habits to your usual routine. Each addresses one of the BRIGHT MINDS set of risks:
- Blood flow: To improve your blood flow, walk like you are late for 45 minutes at least four times a week.
- Retirement/Aging: To keep your brain young, engage in 15 minutes of new learning every day.
- Inflammation: To prevent harmful inflammation, floss your teeth regularly to avoid periodontal disease.
- Genetics: To understand where you stand as far as inherited risks, get to know your family history of risk factors and start preventing them as soon as possible.
- Head trauma: To reduce the odds of a head injury, commit to giving up the bad habit of texting while driving.
- Toxins: To detoxify your body, start taking regular saunas.
- Mental health: To improve your mental health, face and question your negative thoughts. Whenever you are sad, mad, nervous, or feel out of control, write down your negative thoughts and ask, “Is it really true?”
- Immunity/Infections: To boost your immunity and your ability to combat infections, learn and optimize your vitamin D level. (Optimal is 50–100 mg/dL.)
- Neurohormone issues:Improve the health of your neurohormones by test your hormone levels annually and work with your doctor to optimize them.
- Diabesity: Weight gain and diabetes can wreak havoc on the healthy brain. Just switching to a brain-healthy diet can have a huge impact. One simple way: add a colorful vegetable to your dinner plate.
- Sleep issues: To improve your sleep and leverage its healthy effects on brain health, aim to get seven hours of sleep a night
No matter what your condition, you can change your behavior (and your brain) with these very simple, tiny habits, if you make them of your life. It’s not enough to do it once. But each can have a tremendous benefit. Even better, as you start to feel brighter and more present, and your general outlook improves, you’ll naturally begin to pick up other good habits as well. The impact of these tiny steps is life changing.
Author:
Daniel G. Amen, MD is a physician, board-certified child and adult psychiatrist, award-winning researcher, 17-time bestselling author, and in-demand speaker. He’s Founder and CEO of Amen Clinics, which holds the world’s largest database of functional brain scans relating to behavior. He’s lead researcher on a landmark brain imaging and rehabilitation study on pro football players. He’s been on health-related podcasts, television programs, books, articles, music albums, and movies; and made numerous court and public appearances. His new book is Change Your Brain Every Day: Simple Daily Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Memory, Moods, Focus, Energy, Habits, and Relationships.
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