Unleash Your VitalityYour Guide To Natural Health, Personal Fitness & Lifestyle Freedom

We left off with Part 1 on the importance of building your neural network – in effect, challenging yourself with stimulating habits and practices that lead to the development of new neurons and connections. We also saw how certain key brain regions can be the major players in developing intelligence, “g”. Now that we’re challenging ourselves to perform mentally and building these new neurons, it’s time to tackle step 2: enhancing the speed and ease of neural communication.

Neural communication is the same thing as neural transmission; it refers to our ability to allow interaction between neurons to take place, and reap the benefits of this neural communication in mental performance, clarity of mind, problem solving skills, new ideas, etc.

The best way to get the big picture here is to imagine a groggy college student rolling out of bed at 2 pm during frat rushing season. Ask them any question that day, and you’ll probably find that it’s hard for them to find the right answer quickly – or even at all. Why is that?

They might know many of the same things as their favorite classmate, but that other classmate may be able to answer questions several times faster and with much more clarity because they stayed in and took it easy the night before. With this example, it becomes amazingly clear: you can be learning new information and building new neural connections, but still have all kinds of trouble with mental performance due to the ease and speed of transmission.

It should be refreshing to hear that the age-old, tried-and-true methods of living a healthy lifestyle are also the habits that lead to increased neural communication. Sleep is without a doubt one of the most important, with nearly every study ever done on the subject showing increased mental performance, problem solving abilities, creativity and more. You need those 8 hours of sleep for rest and recovery – of body and mind. Keep in mind that some of the most critical sleep cycles happen between the 6-8 hour mark, and the more you take advantage of these cycles as a regular habit, the better your mental performance will be.

Being active is also essential – but this doesn’t mean just working out. It means living a healthy, active lifestyle. Keeping the blood flowing with regular movement and workouts does all kinds of things to enhance your brain’s performance. Getting active and working up a sweat is the #1 way to clear out the “haze” of mental fog and find mental clarity…in minutes. Being active throughout the day will help you to maintain that crystal clarity and speed of transmission you’re looking for.

Of course, we also know that our diet affects our mental clarity in spades. Try eating a 4-course turkey dinner and then sitting down to learn something new…it’s not going to happen! Each and every meal is an opportunity to fuel ourselves with the highest quality nutrition available, and the best recipes for peak performance. Find the meals that actually deliver the results you’re looking for, and you’ll start seeing that what and how you eat dramatically affects your productivity and mental clarity.

The 3 powerhouses of restful sleep, living an active lifestyle, and eating a healthy diet that provides the personal energy you’re looking for all work synergistically to enhance the speed and ease of neural communication; again, this translates to a “clear head”, clarity of thinking, better creativity and problem solving skills, and a number of other benefits (not the least of which is stress reduction from being unable to find peace of mind). Start taking these habits seriously and you’ll be rewarded by serious results in your life!

Unleash Your Vitality,

John Brackett

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