As an ancient Naturalist says that “Greenery is always good for health and mental well-being” The Same goes for the Mind Diet – which promotes green and leafy vegetable foods that improve cognitive function and boost your brain health.
In today’s fast-running world, everyone is overlooking their health and working hard for their financial strength. All our eyes and brains are consumed by the harmful side effects of digital rays. It resulted in brain fog, burnout issues, and sometimes cognitive decline.
Mind diet plays a specific role in improving brain function cognitive health of your brain and overall well-being of your body. It is the best diet and a highly popular diet among health enthusiasts.
But what is Mind Diet and How Does it Improve Your Cognitive Function?
What is Mind Diet?
Mind Diet is a combination of Mediterranean and DASH diets. Mediterranean diet is the eating habits of people who are living in the Mediterranean and have good heart health and people who are living in the Mediterranean show improved heart health.
The DASH eating plan was created by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to help improve blood pressure and heart health. The Mind diets are mixed up of two diets that help boost your brain health.
MIND diet stands for the Mediterranean-Dash Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay.
When does the Mind Diet Come to the light?
MIND diets are prepared for cognitive function improvements and boosting brain health. Dementia is the leading cause of death in the USA. In 2015 Dr. Martha Claire Morris and Colleagues at the Rush University Medical Centre and Harvard Chan Medical School of Public Health introduced MIND diets.
They run the project named RUSH Memory and Aging Projects (MAP) and 1000 participants are involved all are older adults. They conducted the studies for 10 years.
How they conducted the MIND Diet Studies to Check the Benefits on the Participants
- All the 1000 participants take the MIND diet with a defined set of daily serving sizes.
- For 9 years they filled out dietary questionnaires and gave two cognitive assessments annually
- Mind score was created to check the amount of food and nutrition they have taken
- According to their studies, they reach the conclusion that 10 foods are healthy and 5 foods are unhealthy for brain health.
- People with the highest MIND score had a slower rate of cognitive decline than people who scored lower in the MIND score chart
- These studies prove that MIND diets successfully improve cognitive function.
Why MIND Diet is Beneficial for Brain and Heart Function?
The MIND diet is highly beneficial for the function of the brain and heart. MIND diet promotes eating lots of green vegetables and fruits, especially berries. Berries and green leafy vegetables are rich sources of many vitamins and nutrients including iron, calcium, magnesium, Vitamin C, A, and flavonoids.
It also includes fish and eggs in your diet which is the rich source of Vitamin B, Vitamin B12, and E and Protein that improve brain and heart function.
Nuts that are rich in magnesium, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids improve cognitive function and heart health.
Lots of healthy foods that are rich sources of vitamins and nutrition improve brain health and cardiovascular functionality.
Other benefits are – :
- It reduces Oxidative stress in your body which reduces inflammation. Oxidative stress causes more damage to the brain and inflammation is your body’s natural response to the infection or injury.
- Research shows that the MIND diet helps in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and it also enhances the cognitive abilities of middle-aged people.
How to Take Mind Diet: Weekly Basis Chart
The researcher of RUSH University Medical Centre included 10 healthy foods and 5 foods that are unhealthy.
Per Serving = One Ounce or 28 gms
List of the 10 foods that are Healthy in the MIND Diets
Green Leafy Vegetables – Six or more servings per week. You can eat spinach, Kale, and salad leaves in your diets
Vegetables – Eat vegetables once per day that are healthy and nutritionally rich and avoid starchy vegetables.
Berries – Eat berries twice per week. Berries that include strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries all have anti-oxidant properties.
Nuts – Five or more servings each week. Nuts include almonds, walnuts, pistachios, hazelnuts, and cashews. They are a rich source of Zinc, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Selenium, antioxidants, and rich fibers.
Fish – Eat fish once per week, there is no substitute for fish in your diet. It is a rich source of Omega Fatty acids that help in neuroregeneration.
Whole Grains – Aim for atleast three servings daily. You can eat brown rice, Oatmeal, Whole Grain Pasta, Cereal rich source of Vitamin B and dietary fibers
Beans – Eat the beans four meals per week. Beans that include soybeans, lentils, and black beans.
Chicken – Try to eat chicken atleast twice per week.
Wine – Only a small glass daily but it is not recommended for everyone who is an alcoholic
Note: The serving size is too much for you, reduce it according to your diet intake.
List of the 5 foods that are unhealthy according to the MIND diets.
Butter – Try to eat less than one spoonful of butter daily. Instead, you can choose a healthy option like Olive oil
Red Meat – Avoid red meat completely from your diet, but if you want to add it to your diet eat no more than 3 servings per week.
Fried and Junk Foods – Avoid junk food altogether
Pastries and Sweets – Try to avoid that and eat no more than 4 times per week
Bottom Line
MIND diets a combination of prominent diets Mediterranean and DASH diets, both are promote heart and brain function.
MIND diets include 10 healthy foods in your diets and 5 unhealthy foods in your diets. These diets prevent Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease at an early age.
MIND diets include berries, fruits, green leafy vegetables, and Fish that are rich in antioxidants and Omega fatty acids.
These anti-oxidant-rich diets help in fighting free radicals that are the main cause of inflammation.
MIND diets are beneficial in so many ways, if you’re looking for diets that improve your cognitive health and heart function, this diet is surely the best choice for you.
