Give Your Brain a Boost
you can improve your mind, even as you age, author says
Pan Thao, photos by Andrea Paulseth |
Most, if not all, of us have had moments when we’ve walked into a room to grab something only to find that we can’t remember what we came to get. Why is it that our brain, this amazing organ that keeps us breathing at all hours of the day, cannot recall why we are standing in the kitchen? Instances like these are a part of what local author and brain coach Sandra Stanton calls “the fade.”
In her new book, Max Your Mind: The Owner’s Guide for a Strong Brain, which has been shared on 234 media outlets nationwide including Yahoo! and Reuters, Stanton writes about how individuals can beat “the fade,” a natural slowing of the mind, while welcoming “the boost,” the gifts that come with age. She has been educating the Chippewa Valley on brain health for years and has recently finished facilitating the Max Your Mind Class Series at the L.E. Phillips Senior Center, which will be offered again in the spring. Stanton shares insight into how this complex and mysterious organ can become stronger and healthier as we age.
Her fascination with the brain traces back to when she was 13 and her family moved from Morris, Minn., to Cumberland. She became intrigued with how memories of her close friends and their experiences in Morris were saved in this small space inside her head. She later became a teacher and school counselor and traveled the world, spending her time discovering how the brain works while helping others understand it, too.
“It’s not always downhill when you turn 19,” said Stanton. For a long time, scientists believed the brain could not generate new cells, but they know now that’s not true. “There is neuroplasticity, so the brain continues to change, and every week we get new brain cells. If we continue to challenge and work with them, they get stronger and stronger and we get to keep them. If we don’t use them, then they’re gone.”
Max Your Mind offers tips on how to work with the brain to keep it healthy and active. Each chapter includes reflections and applications to help readers apply the information to their own lives. Although there are things that do fade over time, such as working memory and detail discrimination, there are several ways to help alleviate this process. Visualizing the item or saying it out loud is one way our senses can help us remember what we wanted to retrieve from the kitchen.
The book is divided into four main sections, “Brain,” “Body,” “Spirit,” and “Relationships,” and each includes ways to fight “the fade” and bless “the boost,” from physical exercise and social connections to a moment of meditation and a gratitude basket.
“What we focus on and pay attention to will grow, and it will be a big part of our lives,” says Stanton. “You can make a choice to keep your world as big as possible by what you put in your brain and how you engage your brain. It makes all the difference keeping our lives rich and deep and being able to experience feelings, not just denying them but climbing through them so we get what we need to experience the next step.”
Max Your Mind highlights the connection between our brains, bodies, spirits, and relationships. It has been praised and recommended by many as a wonderful guide for a sharper brain as Stanton’s combination of science and personal experiences makes it an enlightening read and definitely a must for those of us still standing in the kitchen wondering what it is we came to get.
Max Your Mind (Morgan James Publishing) is available through a variety of online and brick-and-mortar outlets, including Amazon.com and The Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire.
