INTERNET, NERVOUS SYSTEM AND AGEING

 BRAIN FITNESS

 

Consider the simple act of using a pen to write on paper. Your brain and spinal cord begin by signaling your radial and median nerves to have your hand put the tip of your pen against a sheet of paper. As soon as the tip of your pen contacts the paper, sensory receptors in your writing hand shoot information back to your spinal cord and brain via your radial and median nerves. This feedback is what gives you the awareness to apply enough pressure to make ink flow, but not so much pressure that you tear the paper. This and other types of neural communication go back and forth countless times to allow you to write a legible sentence.

Ultimately, your nervous system is much like the internet - it's a highway for information to travel at a speed that is too fast for most of us to fathom. And just as cable and fiber optic lines need to be maintained to ensure proper transmission of internet data, the highways for your nervous system - your brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves - need to be maintained to ensure optimal health.

How to Promote and Maintain a Healthy Nervous System

1. Ensure optimal nutritional support for your nervous system.

Your brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves are coated with a layer of fat, called myelin, which provides insulation to your nervous system. When myelin is not properly maintained or is eroded by autoimmune illness, you are bound to experience any number of symptoms of nerve dysfunction, common ones being muscle weakness, inexplicable chronic pain, and diminished vision.

Action Step: Ensure adequate intake of healthy fats, and ensure adequatevitamin D and vitamin B12 status. All are essential to maintaining optimal myelin and nervous system health.

In looking to make sure that your body's needs for vitamins D and B12 are met, be sure to understand the differences between synthetic and natural vitamins.

2. Exercise your nervous system on a daily basis.

As explained earlier, the simple act of writing requires that you use all major components of your conscious motor and sensory pathways; a number of different sensory receptors, peripheral nerves, synaptic connections within your spinal cord, major tracts within your spinal cord, and nerve tissue throughout your brain need to be utilized with great precision and coordination to produce neatly written words.

Action Step: One of the best ways of keeping your nervous system fine tuned is to spend a minimum of 15 minutes per day writing on paper as neatly as you can.

Writing with pen on paper is far more effective at exercising your nervous system than writing with a keyboard on a computer, as typing on a keyboard doesn't require as much fine motor control as writing on paper.

An alternative to writing on paper is to draw on paper, as drawing with precision also requires intensive use of all of the major components of your conscious motor and sensory apparatuses.

Getting back to the client that I recently saw for intermittent muscle weakness, within days of following the suggestions mentioned above, he noted a significant improvement in his grip strength. Interestingly, he mentioned that he hadn't written on paper on a regular basis for more than 25 years prior to beginning a daily ritual of writing for 15-30 minutes each evening. He was surprised to find out how much energy was required of his brain and his writing arm to produce neat and coherent sentences.

Clearly, taking optimal care of your nervous system requires that you pay attention to all of your daily choices. The main point of this article is to encourage you to provide optimal nutritional support for your nervous system, and to take up the habit of writing on paper on a regular basis - both of these actions can go a long way toward keeping your nervous system healthy in the years ahead

 

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On aging ………

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key!

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life you become 18.

Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 18. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there.

Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them." (Ofcourse, you try to maintain your BMI, it will help you anyway)

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's. Avoid MENTAL OBESITY

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.