Serotonin from Niacin?

Teatime
Teatime
Serotonin is the neurotransmitter in the brain that helps you to relax and aids in restful, deep-REM sleep so essential to keeping your brain in good working order for massive coding check projects : ) .

If you’re not a nerd who engages in massive coding check projects, serotonin still helps you feel relaxed, confident, and calmly happy.

The amino acid L-Tryptophan (and its cheaper precursor, 5-HTP) do this quite well.

But there may be an even cheaper alternative: Vitamin B3 (niacin). IF you can handle the heat of its well known side effect, skin flushing.

Niacin has been shown to effectively lower cholesterol levels, but it seems to have the terrific additional benefit of raising serotonin levels in the brain.

Dr. Abram Hoffer did some well-known studies showing niacin’s amazing benefits for schizophrenic patients. Looks like it is highly beneficial for the rest of us–

Read more here.

Is Exercise Brain-Protective? Evidence Mounts as Apparent Correlation Between Cognition and Gait Emerges

Teatime
Teatime
Merry Christmas Eve to all!

As we’re gathering together with friends and relatives, it’s always interesting to see how much–or how little–we’ve all changed in a year’s time. Some are blossoming as others fade. Children grow like weeds, voices lower, voices richen, some fall silent.

As a child, I was always fascinated by the adults in my circle. I had an extremely elderly, matriarchal and imposing great-grandmother whose light faded noticeably from year to year, to the point that once I had graduated from bibs she was relegated to them. Although I was quite small, I remember seeing her fed at the table one year and in her sickbed the next and then she disappeared altogether.

Remembering her this year, I thought about how apparent the decline had been, how no one was surprised as she made her transition from ruler to ruled one.

And I wondered if any of us has the ability to see this decline in ourselves, so we can actually DO SOMETHING before it overtakes us.

In my opinion, yes we can. And it’s the same old answer: STAY PHYSICALLY ACTIVE.

Here is a terrific analysis of the issue from a July 2012 New York Times article by Pam Belluck: Footprints to Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s are Seen in Gait.

Pam Belluck (@PamBelluck) does a masterful job detailing some studies performed in Basel, Switzerland that yielded some surprisingly simple diagnostic tools that can help reveal impending cognitive decline. In my own opinion, I think this also reveals an opportunity to some to “reinforce their wiring.”

Read the article and you’ll see what I mean. Be sure to watch the attached short video clip that shows a woman walking, then walking while counting backward by two’s; a picture is worth a thousand words.

Enjoy the holidays (and especially that vital after-dinner walk)!

Brain Boosting Power of Exercise

Teatime
Teatime
Here’s yet another article detailing the brain-building power of exercise, from Prevention Magazine.

“When sedentary adults in one study jogged for half an hour 2 or 3 times a week for 12 weeks, their memory and ability to juggle tasks improved by 30 percent. Just as important: Inactivity stops this process. When the participants returned to their couch potato ways, they lost 10 percent of the gain after 6 weeks.”

Next time you’re asked why you bother to exercise, tell them you’re building your Hippocampus. Believe me, 98% will think it’s a new muscle group:

“A 2007 study found that exercisers who did two 3-minute sprints memorized new words 20 percent faster afterward than those who skipped the workout. Cardio exercise increases blood flow, triggering growth in the area of the hippocampus responsible for memory and verbal learning, research shows. The proliferation of new brain cells may actually be linked to a bigger brain. In a University of Pittsburgh study, the most aerobically fit had an average 7 percent larger hippocampus size than their sofa-sitting peers did.”

Motivation! Now get back on the treadmill. Now.

Read the complete article, along with its 7-day plan called the “ultimate brainpower workout” here on MSNBC. Work That Hippocampus, People!