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To make it easier to connect with you and offer you more information on how you can enhance your brain health, I am now on Facebook and Twitter.
You’ll get breaking news about my media appearances, speaking engagements, blog posts, and more. Plus, you’ll get tips to help make your brain and body the best they can be.
Become a fan of my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the things we are thankful for in our lives. Many families have a Thanksgiving tradition of having each person say a few words about what they are thankful for before digging in to the delicious turkey dinner.
This is a wonderful tradition. But why do we wait until Thanksgiving to think about what we are grateful for? We should all be practicing gratitude on a daily basis. Why? Because it is good for the brain.
I actually did a study on gratitude and appreciation with psychologist Noelle Nelson. She was working on a book called The Power of Appreciation and had her brain scanned twice. The first time she was scanned after 30 minutes of meditating on all the things she was thankful for in her life. After the “appreciation meditation,” her brain looked very healthy.
Then she was scanned several days later after focusing on the major fears in her life. Her frightened brain looked very different from her healthy gratitude brain and showed seriously decreased activity in two parts of her brain.
Her cerebellum had completely shut down. The cerebellum, also called the little brain, is involved in physical coordination, such as walking or playing sports. New research also suggests that the cerebellum is involved in processing speed like clock speed on a computer and thought coordination or how quickly we can integrate new information. When the cerebellum is low in activity, people tend to be clumsier and less likely to think their ways out of problems. They think and process information more slowly and get confused more easily.
The other area of her brain that was affected was the temporal lobes, especially the one on the left. The temporal lobes are involved with mood, memory, and temper control. Problems in this part of the brain are associated with some forms of depression, but also dark thoughts, violence, and memory problems.
In Noelle’s scans, when she practiced gratitude, her temporal lobes looked healthy. When she frightened herself with negative thinking, her temporal lobes became much less active. Negative thought patterns change the brain in a negative way. Practicing gratitude literally helps you have a brain to be grateful for.
In addition to enhancing brain function, experiencing gratitude has been shown to have antidepressant effects. Feeling gratitude lifts your mood and fills you with grace.
Patients often tell me how good it feels to recognize positive things and cool people that are part of their lives. Pets, friends, sunshine, physical health, jobs, family, parks, music, exercise, and food are all examples of things depressed patients have been grateful for.
I recommend that every day, you focus on five things you are grateful for. Write them down on a sheet of paper. You can print out this page and write them down here.
5 Things I Am Grateful For Today
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
4. _______________________________________
5. _______________________________________
An incredible news story came out of Belgium this week, where a man named Rom Houben who had been diagnosed as comatose for 23 years appears to have been conscious the whole time.
According to the news account, a doctor used state-of-the-art imaging equipment to look at the Houben’s brain and determined that he was not in a vegetative state as previously diagnosed. With the help of a speech therapist, Houben typed out a message today saying that he felt reborn.
The doctor uses brain imaging, such as PET and MRI scans, to review about 50 cases a year. According to his findings, about 40 percent of patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state in fact have some degree of consciousness.
As a neuroscientist, this is stunning news. Being awake but unable to move or communicate is a condition known as “locked-in syndrome.” It is a terrifying existence in which a person is trapped inside their own body, almost like being buried alive.
This story makes me wonder how many other people in comas are actually more aware than people know. If we never look at the brain, how do we know?
Why is the health industry lagging in realizing how important it is to use brain imaging to diagnose and treat patients?
I have been advocating brain imaging in the mental health arena for nearly two decades. We have the technology. We know it works. We have shown that it can be helpful in diagnosing patients and targeting the best treatments for them.
Now is the time to make looking at the brain a routine practice in the physical health and mental health fields.
Low levels of vitamin D have been associated with depression, Alzheimer’s disease, MS, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity. New research has found that low levels of vitamin D have also been linked to an increased risk of death in older adults.
According to a study from European and American researchers that appeared in the journal Clinical Endocrinology, vitamin D deficiency raised the risk of death from all causes, with the risk of death from cardiovascular causes even more pronounced.
The researchers analyzed data from 614 men and women with an average age of 69.8. Blood levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D were measured at the debut of the study. At the end of the study, approximately six years later, 51 of the study participants had died, 20 of whom had died of cardiovascular disease.
The scientists found that the people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were at a 124 percent increased risk for death from all causes and an incredible 378 percent increase for death from cardiovascular causes.
This new study reinforces that Vitamin D is critical to overall health as well as brain health. It helps keep bones healthy, improves the immune system, reduces inflammation, and may protect cognitive function.
Typically, we get vitamin D from the sun, but because we are wearing more sunscreen and spending more time in front of our computers, our levels are falling and our health is at greater risk. And, it is an EASY FIX
Too many of us aren’t getting enough vitamin D “¦ including me! When I had my levels tested, they were very low”¦ and I live in sunny Southern California. I found that I needed to take a daily vitamin D supplement of 5,000 IUs to get my levels in the optimal range.
I test the vitamin D levels of all of my patients, and I urge you to test your levels, too. If you want to check your levels, ask your doctor to do a test called 25-hydroxy vitamin D. If your levels are low, take a vitamin D supplement.
The Amen Clinics makes a variety of high-quality vitamin D supplements, including a vitamin D liquid supplying 10,000 IUs of natural vitamin D, a 1,000 IU supplement, and a 2,000 IU supplement.
You have to eat right to think right. That’s why I have become so alarmed about the eating habits in the White House. Find out what I had to say about what America’s political leaders are consuming in my blog on the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-amen-md/the-obama-health-initiati_b_362266.html
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