A healthy lifestyle supports a healthy body and mind. The concept of a healthy brain is not new but it has recently received increasing focus because of the importance of a healthy brain to a healthy physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual life. In a population that is increasingly comprised of older adults (with associated declines in cognition), adopting a brain-healthy lifestyle can reduce the risk of brain deficits and diseases and substantially improve one’s quality of life. Lifestyle factors, such as effective stress management, a nutritious diet, moderate and regular physical activity, a lack of substance abuse, and time in nature are important predictors of how well one’s brain will function throughout life.
STRESS AND BRAIN HEALTH
Stress affects every aspect of the body, mind, and spirit. Stress is difficult to define because it varies from individual to individual. What one person finds stressful might not bother another person. There are many types of stressors, and each can result in many different effects on the body. Stress affects the brain in ways that affect memory, learning, and mood.
Three levels of the Brain: Vegetative, Limbic System, and Neocortical
The brain is the cognitive center of the body in which memories are stored, ideas are generated, and emotions originate (Contrada & Baum, 2011). The human brain is further divided into three levels: the vegetative level, the limbic system, and the neocortical level (Freeman, 2004; Seaward, 2014):
- The vegetative level consists of both the brain stem and the reticular formation, which connects the brain to the spinal cord.
- The limbic system is the emotional center of the brain and contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and a structure called the amygdala. The amygdala links an individual’s emotional responses to memories and is strongly connected to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus modulates heart activity, body temperature, blood pressure, and endocrine activity, and it also contains the centers that modulate a person’s emotional condition and basic biologic drives (sex, thirst, and hunger). When the amygdala responds to danger or stress, it signals the hypothalamus to initiate the fight-or-flight response by the sympathetic nervous system.
- The neocortical level, the highest and most sophisticated level of the brain, is where an individual’s sensory information is processed (decoded) as a threat or nonthreat and where cognition (thought process) takes place. The neocortex houses the neural mechanisms that allow an individual to analyze, imagine, and create, utilizing intuition, memory, and cognitive organization.