Cultivate your brain as you would a grain.
“Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light..”
I think of a brain as I think of a grain (even the shape of it is provokingly similar to the shape of the brain).
In order for that grain to grow you have to cultivate it, prevent from too much sun, under or overwatering or insect infestation. You may need to add special nutrition to the mix for the grain to grow into your desired plant. And then finally you put some effort into growing the grain and you see how it branches out and shows as talented leaves, petals, nectars that attract pollinators like honey-bees. In the next few months I want to concentrate on ideas on how to age gracefully or rather - how to grow older gracefully. You can take a look at the article that I wrote after Valentine's Day, when I was celebrating my beautiful flowers that went from freshly cut, full of colors saturating my eyes with a beauty, to fading petals, bend forward stalks that I declined to throw away. I wanted to enjoy all stages of the short-lived beauties.
And no matter what we do there is an inevitable path to the deadline to all living things, it is just a matter of not giving up, protecting it and if possible giving it the best shot at maximum function.
Recently I came upon this talk at TED’s Radio Hour. It inspired me to let brain take a center stage as part 1 of series of aging with grace.
I start with the command center - the brain, the organ that is not easily visible, but nevertheless the GodFather of all things that make you - you. It's very hard to function without proper cultivation of the brain just like I presented with a grain example above. The first and foremost and mentioned in the video attached to his blog post is to avoid stress. Not every stress is detrimental to your life and there are situations that the stress makes you avoid harm, like escaping from the dog that is about to attack you or some other critical situation that only high levels of adrenaline is going to get you through that. What I'm talking about is the chronic, relentless stress that creeps into all areas of our life. 2020 emphasized how much reflection into our life we need and how we perform under multidirectional stress, and whether you are going to survive this difficult time or spiral down the pathway of destruction and doubt. Stress destroys neurons, which are cells in your brain that have a patchwork of connections with various territories, and are responsible for functioning of all of your parts of this organ, from the most primitive posterior part of the brain to the part where memories are being formed, hypothalamus and finally this part of a brain connecting with neurotransmitters, hormones and other substances - some of them perhaps not even discovered. So how to fight with stress?
The answer to this question is what I tackle next week with part 2 of the Brain Series. You can also follow the link to this video on the Year in Review and future direction of the blog.
