The dietary supplement industry is big business — in the United States consumers invest over 27 billion dollars on vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements each year. Around 3.5 billion dollars of this total is invested in one of the quickest growing sectors of the nutritional supplement industry: brain-enhancers referred to as nootropics.
A nootropic is any drug or supplement that will enrich cognitive capabilities — the mental activities that deal with logic (rather than emotions). A person uses nootropics thinking they’ll be improving their motivation, memory, creativity, or focus.
The people who get into nootropics really get into them. It’s not rare for somebody to shell out one hundred bucks or much more per month on consuming what they believe is the perfect combination of brain-enhancing nutritional supplements. Most of us would definitely be very thrilled to take a pill that boosts our brain capability, however not too many of us can afford or justify dropping such serious money on supplements. Fortunately, verybigbrain.com points out that the good news is that anybody can get the advantageous effects of these supplements at very little cost. This is because nootropics are naturally a component of a lot of the foods we eat.
Dark Chocolate
Chocolate is known for being great tasting, but not really healthful. This characterization is justified — for milk chocolate, though not for dark chocolate. Measured up to milk chocolate, dark chocolate contains a lot less sugar and higher amounts of cocoa. And we know that it’s the cocoa that’s the nutrient rich component of chocolate. Cocoa is rich in flavonoids — antioxidants that are found in several plants. Flavonoids are known to increase blood flow in the brain and improve oxygen levels, two things that benefit cognitive activity. If you’re one who loves chocolate, continue to enjoy your treat. Just remember, when it comes to chocolate, dark chocolate is much better.
(Not White Wine)
Resveratrol is a natural substance found in several plants, including many types of grapes and berries. Red grapes are quite high in resveratrol, and that high quantity ends up in red wine. Resveratrol is an antioxidant, meaning it’s a substance that can slow down the aging rate of your cells. Resveratrol promotes the proliferation of neurons (brain cells) in the brain’s hippocampus — described as the brain’s memory hub.
Why red wine, and not other wine types? Though white wine also includes some resveratrol, red grapes have more. On top of that, red wine goes through a fermentation process that is longer than white wine, resulting in more of the grape skin’s resveratrol goes into the wine.
Dark chocolate, now we find out it’s also red wine. Who would have thought increasing your brain power can be both very simple and pleasant.
Oily Fish
The oily part of oily fish might make this fish seem bad, but in this context we’re talking about omega-3 fatty acids, which are important, desirable fats. Close to 55 percent of a person’s brain is comprised of fat, with omega-3 fats the most important type of that fat.
Omega-3 fatty acids help with the health of the membranes that envelop brain cells and assist in the maintenance of brain cell connections. Low levels of omega-3 fatty acids are accompanied by memory issues, and it’s been shown that maintaining adequate levels of this fat can supply shielding against Alzheimer’s disease.
A person can’t go wrong with a few portions each week of an oily, rich fish like tuna or salmon. In addition to providing brain benefits, omega-3 fatty acids are thought to help in preventing arthritis, cancer, and heart disease.
Coffee
There’s a good chance you can likely guess what substance in coffee furnishes a mug of java the capability to boost your brain power. It turns out that caffeine is probably one of the most popular substances in nootropic stacks — cognitive-enhancing supplements that combine numerous nootropic compounds. As every consumer of caffeine understands, caffeine has been shown to improve a person’s energy. But, caffeine also improves a variety of brain functionalities such as mood, memory, and focus.
Caffeine performs its magic in a range of ways, such as by encouraging the body to produce additional dopamine — a hormone, that passes information between neurons. Dopamine has many positive effects on the brain, such as memory retention and focus.