Healing herbs

Healing herbs
Echinacea and Calendula
Showing posts with label cognitive performance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cognitive performance. Show all posts

Saturday, 29 June 2013

6 Foods That Clear Brain Fog

While on my own personal journey to learn more about the pros and cons of consuming gluten, I ran across a common theme: clouding of the mind, also known conventionally as mental fog or “brain fog,” due to the consumption of foods containing gluten.

Conversely, I found that many who were omitting gluten from their diets, either voluntarily or on a physician’s recommendation, noted improvements in memory and mental clarity. If you’ve ever put your car keys in the freezer by mistake, looked for your car in the wrong section of the parking lot, or simply couldn’t think clearly for seemingly no reason at all, you may be able to relate.  

Often chalked up to a “normal part of getting older,” symptoms of brain fog include mild confusion, forgetfulness and/or the inability to think clearly. But this doesn’t have to be your fate!!!

Certain foods such as artificial sweeteners and dairy have been linked to mental fog, but more and more physicians are discovering that mental fog is quite strongly linked to gluten intolerance. Within weeks of eliminating gluten from my own diet, I noticed an ability to think more clearly.

Luckily, there are several foods that have been associated with improved cognitive performance that are naturally gluten free. Tired of losing your keys? Here are six foods you can reach for to clear up mental fog and boost your brain health:

Read more here

Thursday, 10 May 2012

How Sniffing Rosemary Could Boost Your Brain Power

Sniffing rosemary could boost your brain power, scientists have suggested.

Tests show that cognitive performance improves when a compound in the herb’s oil – 1, 8-cineole – is absorbed into blood. Biochemists at the University of Northumbria now want to see how the ingredient might affect our brains.

Rosemary has a long history as a traditional remedy with such widespread uses as a hair rinse and a cat repellent.

It has long been thought to boost brain power, so scientists were not totally surprised that respondents performed better in tests. However, they were shocked when they realized the rosemary oil has an effect on the blood, it was reported in the Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology journal.

Dr Mark Moss said: ‘We were not surprised by the improvement in cognitive performance following exposure to rosemary aroma as this has been demonstrated previously. ‘What excited us was the demonstration that performance was linked to plasma levels of 1,8-cineole following exposure.'

Tests on 20 people showed the natural compound was absorbed through the nose and into the blood plasma. For Dr Moss, this means there is a more traditional biochemical explanation for the increased cognitive performances previously demonstrated.

DailyMail