Boost and Improve Brain Function with Dark Chocolate!
Chocolate may well be the world’s most craved food for a very good reason. For the most part, we eat chocolate because we love the rich, creamy texture and for the delicious taste. However, chocolate is more that just a “feel good” food; it also offers numerous benefits like boosting heart health and paving way for healthy looking skin . Research shows that chocolate may even boost and improve brain function. Consuming, very dark, high quality chocolate flavonols could be just the advantage you need to win your next chess match or scrabble game.
Improve Brain Function – Give Your Brain a Healthy Snack
Italian researchers conducted a study that has given good reason to believe that cocoa flavonols consumed as part of a healthy diet may improve brain function. For the study, participants were divided into three groups; the first group consumed a very small amount of cocoa flavonol beverage while the second group consumed a moderate amount of the same beverage. The third group consumed the highest amount.
Results demonstrated that those participants who consumed a moderate and larger amount of the beverage had enhanced hand-eye coordination, verbal memory, and task-switching. Scientists argue that the link between the flavonols and improved cognitive ability is related to improved insulin sensitivity. Dark chocolate, it seems, helps the body to lower blood sugar naturally. Science Daily reports on a similar study done in the United Kingdom where cocoa flavonols appeared to improve blood flow to the brain which in turn boosted cognitive alertness.
The impacts of these and other similar studies could be very far reaching and hint at the prospect that cocoa flavonols may improve brain function in people battling sleep deprivation and fatigue. Consuming moderate amounts of chocolate has already been shown to reduce the risk of stroke, lower blood pressure, and improve good cholesterol. Is chocolate good for you? Absolutely.
Dark chocolate contains magnesium, vitamins A, B1, B2, D, and E and is rich in antioxidants making its free radical fighting power worthy of consideration. Research has indicated that chocolate helps people live a long and disease free life. Interestingly enough, the worlds oldest living woman, aged 122 consumed 2.5 pounds of dark chocolate each week.
Choose Organic
To benefit most from consuming chocolate, try to choose organic, high-quality dark chocolate that contains at least 70% cocoa. Similarly, avoid mainstream candies provided by companies like Hershey’s. Eating unprocessed cocoa is best, as the body can more easily process the chocolate due to lower sugar levels. A small square of this dark wonder is all that’s needed daily to improve overall health, improve brain function, and keep your thinking clear.
Additional Sources:
Her name was Madame Calment §;-) and her old folks home is still next to one of France's finest chocolate candy makers …yummy !
Where can I get organic dark chocolate ? anything you can recommend to me ?
Brain can change instantly according to how the mind relates to it. Brain is endlessly adaptable. Other organs of the body also respond to positive and negative thinking, but their response must come through the brain first; it functions as command central for the rest of the body. Beliefs, expectations, likes and dislikes that you hold inside are creating change at the level of brain circuitry. Form a better relationship with your brain is to realize that you have a relationship. Once you realize this, you can choose to pay attention to the relationship and nurture it.Thinking your brain into better functioning is the most efficient way to improve it. The best way to relate to your brain is to inspire it. Approach your brain as if it had great untapped potential.
Take care of stress. Avoid dulling routine. Do something creative every day. Read poetry, spiritual material or anything else that makes you feel uplifted. Take time to be in nature. Bond with another person who is heartwarming. Pay attention to being happy. Make sure you take time every day by yourself to relax, meditate and self-reflect. Deal with negative emotions like anger and anxiety. Focus on activity that makes you feel fulfilled. Give of yourself. Follow a personal vision. Attach yourself to a cause that is bigger than you are. Take the risk to love and be loved. Music lessons and exercises could be used to improve certain brain skills. Being happier and more active help the brain more effective and compensating for pathological processes.
Brain fitness has basic principles: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change.
Games are a wonderful way to tease and challenge your brain. Suduko, crosswords and electronic games can all improve your brain's speed and memory. These games rely on logic, word skills, math and more. These games are also fun. You'll get benefit more by doing these games a little bit every day — spend 15 minutes or so, not hours. Daily meditation is perhaps the single greatest thing you can do for your mind/body health. Meditation not only relaxes you, it gives your brain a workout. By creating a different mental state, you engage your brain in new and interesting ways while increasing your brain fitness.
Your brain needs you to eat healthy fats. Focus on nuts such as walnuts, vegetables like spinach, celery and carrot, fruits like avocado, berries, apple and banana, tubers like sweet potato and beets. Eat more of these foods and less precessed food and meat.
Stories are a way that we solidify memories, interpret events and share moments. Practice telling your stories, both new and old, so that they are interesting, compelling and fun. Some basic storytelling techniques will go a long way in keeping people's interest both in you and in what you have to say.
Television and computers can stand in the way of relationships, life and more. Turn off your TV and computer, and spend more time living and exercising your mind and body. Physical exercise is great brain exercise too. By moving your body, your brain has to learn new muscle skills, estimate distance and practice balance. Choose a variety of exercises to challenge your brain.
Books are portable, free from libraries and filled with infinite interesting characters, information and facts. Branch out from familiar reading topics. If you usually read history books, try a contemporary novel. Read foreign authors, the classics and random books. Not only will your brain get a workout by imagining different time periods, cultures and peoples, you will also have interesting stories to tell about your reading, what it makes you think of and the connections you draw between modern life and the words.
Learning a new skill works multiple areas of the brain. Your memory comes into play, you learn new movements and you associate things differently. Reading Shakespeare, learning to cook and building an airplane out of toothpicks all will challenge your brain and give you something to think about.
We love our routines. We have hobbies and pastimes that we could do for hours on end. But the more something is 'second nature,' the less our brains have to work to do it. To really help your brain stay young, challenge it. Change routes to the grocery store, use your opposite hand to open doors. All this will force your brain to wake up from habits and pay attention again.
Organic Dark Chocolate?
Make yourself…, just mix with coconuts cream, organic dark coca powder, flaxseeds powder, marple syrup. Enjoy it