It’s peak season for blueberries, a great reason to revisit the benefits of brain-boosting foods
Fast Company – We know that there is a strong connection between your physical health and work performance.
I thought I was doing pretty well. I consider myself a pretty healthy person: I try to run one half marathon a year, and exercise four or five times a week.
But like most people, I have my unhealthy habits. After using the sleep app Sleep Cycle for a few months, I’ve come to realize that my sleep quality and quantity is not as high as I would like it to be.
While I try to eat a healthy diet of lean meat and vegetables about 70 percent of the time, I resort to junk food when I’m stressed and drink way too much coffee when I don’t get enough sleep.
Somewhere in the process, my brain slows down and it becomes excruciating to think properly for what seems like a long stretch in the afternoon.
I’ve tried adopting “diets” for the sake of my brain and energy levels–but have largely failed due to its all-or-nothing approach.
Diets like the Slow- Carb diet, the Ketogenic diet, Whole 30, Paleo, and the Bulletproof Diet all tout amazing brain function as a result, but I hated their restrictive nature. The fact that a slip-up can undo a week of discipline discouraged me from continuing with any of those eating plans for longer than two weeks.
But since I notice a difference in my sleep and clearheadedness when I’m more conscious of what I eat, I was determined to find a plan that works.
A lot of Googling led me to the MIND diet, which was designed purely for greater cognitive function, as opposed to weight loss like most of the diets above.
The best part of all? it’s not all or nothing, adopting parts of diet supposedly still gives you mental benefits. I was IN … Read more.
