Cognitive Health: What is it? Why is it Important to Maintain?
Why is it Important to Maintain?
You know how they say when your mind works fine, everything else falls in place.
Nevertheless, cognitive health is that one thing that has always remained underrated in medical studies. While other areas for overall well-being gained predominance, studies regarding cognitive health have only managed to snatch the spotlight over the past few years.
Before we delve into discussing cognitive health and its vagaries, let us try and establish what cognitive health is.
Well, simply put, cognitive health refers to having a healthy, functioning brain that caters to things like building attention, directing simple to complex movements, power of expression, learning new skills, recalling memories, social perception, and dealing with feelings and emotions.
Thus, it won’t be an exaggeration to say cognitive health is the key to peace and happiness within.
Having said that, a new research study tracing the role of magnesium complexes in boosting learning and memory power in rats seems to have made quite a breakthrough. The study that was published in a journal called “Neuron,” emphasizes how intake of magnesium complexes can be a full-proof way to enhance cognitive function and thereby delay the deterioration of memory function in humans as we age.
This post reflects on the findings of the study and further discusses the significance of cognitive health and why it should be a serious consideration.
How Magnesium Complex Helps In Boosting Cognitive Health
When it comes to the proper functioning of tissues overall, administering sufficient doses of magnesium complex has depicted synaptic plasticity, and more so, in cultured brain cells. This is exactly what tempted the researchers to prolong the study towards investigating whether increasing the levels of magnesium complex can help boost cognitive health in animals.
This is sensible because boosting magnesium levels for an active brain isn’t easy with oral supplements. Thus, the researchers went on to develop a new compound of magnesium altogether. Namely Magnesium-L-threonate (MgT), which had a positive impact on rats depicting a significant change in cellular and behavioral change.
Further, when the cellular changes were put under the microscope, the total number of functional synapses also showed a sharp increase. Thus, as a result, the key signaling molecules were activated, leading to enhancing both short and long-term synaptic processes needed to boost memory and learning.
Because a good percentage of the general population suffers from magnesium complex deficiency, and with age, it just gets worse, the research findings hold key to developing a new strategy for better cognitive health.
For cases related to memory decline due to aging, intake of magnesium complexes can help to great lengths in mitigating the odds and thus saving on expensive treatments.
What Else Can Help With Enhancing Cognitive Health?
Besides the intake of magnesium complexes in your diet, there are a lot of other things that can help to enhance cognitive health, including:
- Regular exercise– It almost goes without saying how exercise can benefit cognitive health. As blood circulation improves, recurring episodes of stress and anxiety take a pause. Exercise also greatly improves the quality of sleep, which in turn is an important determiner to help boost cognitive health.
- Good sleep– Sleep deprivation or disturbed sleep has often been linked to issues like memory loss, difficulty concentrating, and loss of interest in work or other avenues of life. It is recommended to sleep at least seven to eight hours a day to help improve your cognitive functions.
- Mindfulness meditation– Mindfulness meditation is based entirely on cognitive behavioral therapy. It helps to teach people to pay attention to their feelings and thoughts consciously. That way they can always let go of their negative sentiments without being too judgemental.
- Positive neuropsychology– Positive neuropsychology is that one thing that readily deals with the relationship. It exists between the brain and the subsequent behavior of an individual. It takes qualified clinical neuropsychologists to conduct a range of evaluations. Help characterize certain changes on a cognitive level that usually has roots in the central nervous system. At times, serious issues like brian injuries or conditions like Parkinson’s disease. Or for that matter, any other disorder affecting movement can also be addressed.
Embracing Magnesium Complex In Your Diet
In multiple clinical settings, low magnesium complex has been directly linked to cognitive imbalance. For the majority of cases, things go unrecognized, and the symptoms are being misdiagnosed. For something else or appear as associated symptoms of other conditions.
Take fatigue for instance; a telltale sign of magnesium complex deficiency. People often complaining about fatigue tend to overlook the same. This is because fatigue as such is a broad symptom. Usually the first sign your body gives out when your system is running low on essentials. Other symptoms that have been often linked to magnesium complex deficiency include:
- Leg cramps
- Sudden onset of anxiety
- Eye twitching
- General restlessness or insomnia
- Migraine headaches
- Panic attacks
- Irregular heartbeats
- Premenstrual cramps
Reportedly, more than eighty percent of postmenopausal women who also might have osteoporosis. A not so well-controlled type 2 diabetes have shown magnesium complex deficiency at large. All such conditions are also known to bear a direct or indirect link leading to an imbalance in cognitive function.
Wrap Up
The inclusion of magnesium complexes in your regular diet can’t be stressed enough.
If you have been fighting recurring symptoms of anxiety, depression, mood swings, or memory loss, chances are you are not getting enough magnesium complex. Before things turn worse, you should reach out to your healthcare professional at the earliest.