Brain Power

the benefits of fasting is that eating less gives our metabolism a break, affording our body respite from this process.

a healthy brain is about feeling good

As well as making me feel a little better about my migraines, my neurology appointment also highlighted a lot of important things about the brain I have discovered while writing this book – information useful to us all.

Excitingly, recent studies suggest that the environment, rather than genetics, has the most influence on how the brain changes as we age, and eventual cognitive decline,1 leaving no doubt that what we choose to do in our daily lives is crucial to our brain health.

Meet your microbiome

Bad diet is the leading risk factor for death in the majority of countries around the world, claiming more lives than smoking.

One of those is to get enough sleep.

• If you have access to a weekly fruit-and-veg-box delivery, it can be a fun way to increase the diversity of the food you normally eat.

• Sprinkle mixed nuts and seeds on top of cereal, yogurt or soup – each variety counts towards your weekly thirty.

• The same goes for mixed salad leaves – an easy way to diversify your diet with minimal effort.

• Freeze excess fruit and vegetables to retain most of the nutrients, and pop them into smoothies or other dishes

• Eat mainly plants and try to get in at least thirty different varieties of plant-based foods a week. This includes fruit and vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds. Fibre, especially wholegrain, is particularly good.

• Avoid too much refined and heavily processed food, and sugary food and drinks.

• Herbs and spices are an easy way to add variety to your diet, and pack it full of flavour too.

the most important thing is to eat a diverse range of plant-based foods, in order to nurture a diverse microbiome.