7 Daily Habits That Affect Your Brain Health Negatively
We have daily behaviors that affect our brain health negatively, and we are not even aware of them. We know more or less what we need to do to improve our cognitive skills, increase our intelligence level, and take care of our brain health. By exercising and eating healthy, including brain exercises such as solving puzzles in our routines, we can try to do something good for our brain with good living habits and strategic games that support cognitive skills. But do we know the patterns that harm our brain, the body’s most important organ?
The brain is a susceptible organ affected by the external environment and can damage the working system. A malfunctioning brain is a malfunctioning body. For this reason, we must review and repair the causes that damage our brains. As the Brainusermanual team, after reminding you of some of the most known substances to harm the brain, we will explain six daily habits that negatively affect your brain health but that we can’t stop doing. First, let’s remember the most common brain-damaging things you know.
Physical Trauma Affects Brain Health Negatively
Even slight concussions and accidents affect the brain. Unfortunately, sometimes accidents are inevitable in our daily life. We do not recommend wearing a helmet to protect your head, but stay away from dangerous sports and silly machines at the amusement park!
Using Drugs Affects Brain Health Negatively
Using some sleep and relaxation drugs (antidepressants) other than substances other than the recreational drugs we know causes severe damage to the brain. While it may feel good in the short term, it can be disastrous in the long run.
Alcohol Consumption Affects Brain Health Negatively
Although it is said to be good for the heart, it harms the brain. Even moderate drinking affects brain function. People who drink alcohol have smaller brains. Brain size matters. It disrupts the prefrontal cortex function. The prefrontal cortex is about planning, forethought, and judgment.
Obesity/Overweight Affects Brain Health Negatively
Fats store toxic, harmful substances. The more fat you have in your body, the worse your brain is. Excess fat is bad for your entire body. All your body systems and organs are forced and worn out. Obesity also increases the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Malnutrition Affects Brain Health Negatively
Just as there are great foods that nourish your brain (click to learn), there are foods that can slow down your brain and cause it to become clogged. However, if you pay attention to what you need to stay away from, your brain will continue to do its job perfectly until you pass from this world to other dimensions. Remember, you are what you eat.
Low Blood Flow Affects Brain Health Negatively
Blood circulation brings oxygen, sugar, and vitamins to the brain. It removes toxins. Nicotine, excess caffeine, and inactivity reduce blood flow to the brain.
Chronic Stress Affects Brain Health Negatively
A troubled marriage, hard work, and financial problems cause chronic stress. Under constant pressure, the brain releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol increases appetite and sugar cravings and leads to weight gain. It lubricates the skin and increases acne breakouts. It increases muscle tension and chronic pain. It raises the pressure.
Sleep Problem Affects Brain Health Negatively
An irregular sleep pattern and chronic sleep disorders adversely affect physical, emotional, and cognitive health. Remember, only one thing can replace sleep, and that is sleep!
Smoking Affects Brain Health Negatively
It slows the blood flow to the brain and body. Smokers need to take high vitamin C and do sports. Otherwise, you will see aging from the skin of the smoker. If they don’t reduce smoking, their brains could also age. Set a date and quit smoking.
Excess Caffeine Affects Brain Health Negatively
The fact that too much of anything is harmful also applies to foods containing caffeine. Therefore, you should avoid excessive caffeine consumption to protect your brain health. Furthermore, since excessive caffeine also causes dehydration, you should immediately restore the water you lost to the body.
Watching Too Much TV Affects Brain Health Negatively
Excessive television viewing is associated with hyperactivity in children and Alzheimer’s Disease in adults. Watching TV for more than 2 hours a day increases obesity. Television presents limited choices that are imposed on you. You can choose the content that can improve you by determining the tutorial content from the internet.
Violent Computer Games Affects Brain Health Negatively
Some computer games train and improve your brain, but unfortunately, most popular games are like drugs. It leads to violence and learning difficulties. In brain imaging, these games activate the same brain area as substance use.
Water Loss Affects Brain Health Negatively
Water is life. 70% of the body and 80% of the brain is water. Brain function declines if you don’t drink enough water. Irrigate your brain with plenty of spring waters. Make sure the water you drink is clean and running water. Since we all live in cities, we can’t find clean water to drink other than blue plastic bottles. For this reason, according to our information, if you freeze and thaw water, when it becomes water again, its energy will be as high as running water in nature for 12 hours, and it will heal you.
How do our commitment to technology, our inability to stay away from our social media accounts, and our failure to give up on multitasking, which seems to be a necessity of the modern age, affect our “brain health”? Here are six daily habits that we have difficulty giving up, which negatively impact brain health:
1-Taking a Negative Attitude
Negative thoughts can take over all of us from time to time, but it is essential to realize that even a negative review engulfs us like a swamp, grows exponentially, and brings other negative thoughts. Especially if the frequency of occurrence of these negative thoughts is much higher than ‘from time to time,’ it means that the alarm bells are ringing. Because according to research, negative thoughts cause us to experience a dark spirit and put our brain health at risk. A study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s & Dementia reveals that people aged 55 and older who consistently have negative thoughts have cognitive loss and memory problems. He also points out that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease were also present in the participants. To protect your brain health, you can distance yourself from negative thoughts, keep a gratitude journal to focus on what you have, use meditation and breathing techniques to reduce anxiety, and surround yourself with positive people.
2-Continuous Exposure to Information
Think of all the data your brain has to deal with in a typical day. Now compare this number with the daily information your parents had to deal with when they were your age. The result is clear. We are constantly exposed to everyday stimuli: emails, notifications, Instagram stories, TikTok videos, podcasts, and 24-hour live streaming. Unfortunately, this constant stream of data can make it almost impossible for the brain to retrieve any information efficiently, as it gradually increases the amount of information it needs to process.
For this reason, you can protect your brain health by staying away from your social media accounts and computer screen from time to time. Turn off your notifications and mute emails. You will see that you will feel much better.
3-Spending Too Much Alone Time
Of course, we all need loneliness from time to time, but too much is harmful to the brain. Being with other people as a social being is very important for brain health and positively affects well-being. A study from 2021 points out that less socialized people have less of the substance responsible for processing information in their brains. A similar study at the University of Michigan reveals that even just 10 minutes of face-to-face talk daily can help mark improvements in cognitive performance and memory. Friendships in social media accounts do not contribute to brain development as they do not meet the need for socialization. That’s why you should go out, get involved in new environments, meet new people or spend more time with your loved ones to increase your socializing time. In addition, you may be interested in The effects of loneliness on physical health.
4-Working Sitting for Long Periods
Studies show that the average adult sits for about six and a half hours daily and continues without knowing how this action damages the brain. A 2018 study notes that sitting too much causes negative changes in the area of the brain that controls memory. When the sitting habits and memory of the participants in the study are examined, it is revealed that those who sit longer have cognitive decline, poor memory, and forgetfulness symptoms. If you have a desk job or need to sit for long hours during the day, you can add reminders to your phone to stand up, increase your daily exercises, and make a habit of moving. You may be interested in Sitting too much makes you unhealthy even if you exercise.
5-Not Caring About Ear Health
Many of us may overlook the relationship of the ears, neighbors of the brain, to cognitive health. However, when we think about it, we realize that our ears are one of the essential mediators that enable our brains to receive information from the outside world. Studies point out that one in four adults in the United States has symptoms of noise-induced hearing loss, and hearing loss is the third chronic health problem after diabetes and cancer. On the other hand, it is also emerging that hearing loss in older adults is related to brain health problems such as Alzheimer’s and brain tissue loss. Therefore, it is essential to take care of ear health. To take good care of your ears and thus protect your brain health, you can wear noise-canceling headphones on airplanes, stay away from disturbing noises such as lawn mowing and construction noise, turn down the notification sounds on your electronic devices, and take noise-free breaks during the day to enjoy the silence. It may interest you as A candidate to become your new favorite activity. Intermittent silence
6-Not Giving Up Multitasking
Multitasking may seem an age-old skill, and you may think you’re great at it. However, there is a point where you are wrong; multitasking is not as efficient as many people claim. The reason is that it dulls the brain. Experts in neuroscience point out that the human brain is not very good at multitasking and that multitasking has cognitive costs. According to a study from Gresham College, being busy with another job while trying to concentrate on one task can lower your IQ level. While preparing a critical report, checking your emails can damage your brain and decrease productivity. That’s why you can put your tasks in order as much as possible and tackle each simultaneously while boosting your focus and supporting your brain health.
7- Keeping Complaining
Research conducted at Stanford University revealed the damage that complaining does to the brain. Not only complaining but also listening to someone else’s complaint has a negative effect. ”Listening to a complaint is also harmful to the brain” Research revealed that listening to someone’s complaint for more than 30 minutes also harms the brain. “Negative and negative thoughts are constantly detected, and you can realize when they occur, and you can do exercises to replace them with alternative positive thoughts. Very practical and very useful.
