Diet and Memory

Is there a connection between your diet and memory? The answer is yes - because your brain needs the right kind of energy and nutrients throughout the day to work properly.

These nutrients come from your diet. To remember things, you must be alert and be able to concentrate.

If you are unfocused, you are not going to perform at your best. Your diet and your memory are unavoidably linked.

Consider someone who eats fast food every day, for example. This type of food is high in fat and salt, both of which hurt the body and decrease energy. A clean diet allows the body to create the energy the brain needs.

So what are some of the best dietary changes you can make to improve your memory? Here are some powerful strategies you can try:

• Get your weight down if you are overweight. Many people are carrying around too much body weight. One problem with being overweight is that it can lead to problems with your blood sugar - including diabetes.

  Your brain's only fuel is the sugar in your blood. So controlling your weight can help keep your blood sugar steady, which can help your brain - and memory - work better. Not to mention the many other benefits of keeping a healthy weight.

  The South Beach Diet is a healthy diet that has helped a lot of people lose weight. You can get a free South Beach Diet profile here to see whether this diet could help you.

• Switch from regular sodas to water. A regular soda is a sugar bomb. You brain needs a steady stream of glucose to work properly, not a truckload of refined sugar dumped on it all at once.

  At the very least switch to diet soda - but I have heard that the artificial sweeteners in diet drinks can give you everthing from gas, to cancer, to memory loss. Drink at least 2 liters of water a day. This will also help you avoid dehydrating, which can hurt your memory directly.

• Take fish oil. Your brain needs certain types of essential fatty acids to work well, such as the Omega-3 fatty acids. To make sure you have enough of these in your diet, take a teaspoon or two of liquid fish oil per day.

  Read more about fish oil here

• Chew gum. Several research studies indicate that chewing gum can improve short-term and long-term memory. Some researchers found this even with sugar-free gum - so it's not the sugar.

  The theory is that the chewing motion helps increase blood flow to your head and brain. More blood flow means more oxygen, which helps your brain work better.

  I've never been a gum-chewer myself, but after reading about this research I've taken it up. So far I've been chewing Orbits sugar-free gum. Caution: don't overdo it, or your jaw will hurt the next day!

• Eat brain foods daily. There are certain foods that are either suspected to improve brain function or have been proven to do so. These include avocados, bananas, blueberries, eggs, flaxseed oil, oranges, salmon, and dark green vegetables such as spinach.

  Read more about the best brain foods for your diet

• Eat dark chocolate at crunch time. Research from the Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia shows that eating milk chocolate or dark chocolate can improve memory by as much as 20%. However, chocolate is also full of sugar and fat which is bad for you. What to do?

  Save the chocolate for crunch time. Right before an exam or before you give a presentation, eat a small bar of dark chocolate to give your brain a boost. The dark variety is healthier than milk chocolate, because dark chocolate provides benefits for your heart.

• Eat more small meals. Absolutely critical for the best mental performance is keeping your blood sugar steady throughout the day. The best way to do this is to eat five or six small meals during the day rather than three large meals.

  Overall, you may eat the same number of calories. But spreading out the calories into smaller meals actually helps your body more easily regulate your blood sugar.

• Take a vitamin supplement. This is a quick fix to cover any vitamin deficiencies you might have. Take one multivitamin a day with food.

  Read more about the best vitamins for improving your memory

• Eat breakfast every day. Even though breakfast-skipping is very common in the United States and other countries, students who skip breakfast have worse memories and get lower grades in school on average. Many research studies support this. Obviously, the negative effects of skipping breakfast also apply to adults and their performance at work.

  It's simple - your brain and body need refueling after fasting overnight. A quick example? Eat a banana and a piece of whole-wheat toast with peanut butter. (Avoid sugary stuff which will cause your blood sugar to crash later.)

• Eat a healthy afternoon snack. Blood sugar levels can dip in the afteroon for many people. A couple hours after lunch, have a healthy snack like a protein smoothie and a piece of fruit. This will help you maintain alertness throughout the rest of the day
• Cut back on white pasta and breads. Anything that spikes your blood sugar level will crash your brain later and leave you unfocused. Avoid foods made with white flour, such as white bread, white pasta, donuts, and so on. Instead eat whole grains. (I completely cut out white bread from my diet and only eat whole wheat.)
• Go easy on alcohol. I'm not going to lecture anyone on this. I think everyone knows that drinking too much kills brain cells. That's not where we want to go - if anything we want more brain cells! Drink moderately or not at all.
• Consider herbal supplements. There is mixed evidence that supplements like ginko biloba, tyrosine drinks like Red Bull, and brain boosters like BrainQuicken or Attend can boost brain function directly. You might try these on your own, but follow all warnings and check with your doctor if you are unsure or have questions about safety.
• Always brush and floss. According to a UCLA School of Dentistry research study, tooth and gum disease are highly linked to clogging in your carotid arteries (major arteries in the neck that send blood to the brain). Clogged arteries mean restricted blood flow - which means less oxygen and nutrients for your brain, which can potentially hurt your concentration and memory. So keep your teeth clean and visit the dentist regularly!
• Cut down on overall calories. If you really put away the food at mealtimes, consider cutting way back. A research article in Nature Neuroscience explains that when your stomach is empty, a hormone called ghrelin is released in the memory centers of the brain. This hormone causes new connections to form between brain cells. The study claims that when laboratory animals were injected with ghrelin directly, their memory and learning improved significantly.

There is no magic memory pill. Instead, the link between diet and memory is taking in the optimum fuel to keep your brain humming along at it's best. This will help improve your "natural" memory - a key part of the diet and memory connection. Then use the memory systems to build up your "trained" memory.