78 organs you have within your biological body to keep you alive and going. But have ever wondered about that organ which is the master of all these organs and controls them for each and every function? Yes, your brain is that organ and that makes it your most vital organ. Now if I ask you what care and cautions you take for your brain? I can assume your answer...and it is "hardly much". People even forget to wear a helmet when driving their motorbike unless there stands a cop to check. From food to lifestyle, habits and activities, I can most easily show you that almost all our everyday deeds are more harmful to our brain health than beneficial. And then we keep complaining about our deteriorating physical as well as mental health. And you can take it as doubtlessly confirming that unless you consciously prevent and protect, passing time and growing age will eat away your normal brain functions and faculties. And we call that with names like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's and so on. But in many cases, if not most, we still do not care much.
Things ought to change otherwise somehow or other, directly or indirectly they can drain your brain with time and age. And this is perhaps the last thing that we should want to happen with us. Still we do not give enough time and concern to not let this happen or to prevent this at our best.
I specifically used the phrase “at our best” because I emphatically mean that. When it is about time and its effects, we are only empowered to try but not assure anything. Well there stands a good chance that you can considerably prevent your brain aging with flowing time. And even you can find some rare cases where the brain increases in performance with age rather than decline in performance.
Aging Starts in Your Brain
We all want to stay young for a long span of our life if not all throughout. Many spend huge amounts of money for therapies to stay young or look young. Well, in this regard I would like to emphatically mention that staying young and looking young is not essentially the same but may have a close relation.
You can look young even if you are aging inside. And even you can look a bit more aged even if you are not so much yet internally. We need to understand that aging is a non uniform process and there are a number of organs and physiological processes associated with the process. The skin and subcutaneous layers can speak a lot about your outer appearance and if you are looking young then it can be taken that the rate of aging of your skin and subcutaneous layers are slow.
But that does not anyhow guarantee the same for your other organs and systems. It is true that the health of your skin and subcutaneous layers are very intrinsically dependent on the health and performance of many organs and physiological systems of your body. Still you can find many cases where outwardly one appears to be young but internally not so much.
And the best examples for this are perhaps the film stars and models working in the glamour show business domain. They maintain their outer appearance at high expenditures but their habits and lifestyle make their internal aging faster than even average people. As a result their endeavour to look young soon gets spoiled and all their investment also goes into vain.
We need to understand that skin or any other organ is just one part of the total aging process. If we really want to slow that process then we need to hit the core. Because if one is willing to remain young then the first things that he has to take care of are his vital organs and vital counts. If vitals remain as young then there are good chances that the overall endeavour of remaining young will become a success.
Count Your Vitals
For slowing the aging process, controlling the vitals is the first and most important thing that has to be done. Our body has got quite a many vital organs and systems as well as some vital figures and numbers which works as indices when the question of health and fitness arise. And unless you are really fit you cannot claim to be young.
Vital numbers or counts are many. Among the most common are like the pulse rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, kidney and liver profiles, lipid profile, thyroid hormone level and basic blood counts, etc. Then there arise questions about your overall endocrine system. If one does not have enough anabolic hormones including optimal HGH levels then all the claims of being young are just baseless scientifically. It’s all nothing but myth.
Among vital organs and systems, the first and foremost is your brain. Then the second important fitness is concerned with the nervous system. Then is the heart and lungs including cardiorespiratory fitness. Your skeletal strength is also an important marker of your actual youth. In this article we are emphasizing on the brain as it is the most vital organ and system which controls all the other organs and systems of your body. And not only that, for studies and academic performances, youth and fitness of the brain is the most important issue.
Later in other articles I will also discuss the other vital counts and organs, and how they can optimize your academic performance if you can keep them young and fit. Though apparently the brain or any other part or system of our body may look abstract and independent from each other, but that is not the exact fact. Our body is a highly integrated system with a lot of inter-dependencies and we need to take concern and address all the interlinked elements or members if we want to achieve real youth and performance gain.
The Vital Brain
Among many vital organs and systems, the brain is our most vital organ and system as well. Many will confuse the brain system and nervous system as the same but actually it is not. Though it is true that the brain is mainly made of nerves but still it is not exactly the nervous system due to its various cognitive faculties. Brain’s interfacing mechanism with various organs and sense organs essentially constitute the nervous system.
So when we will speak about the brain then we have to understand the total of its systems including the cognitive functions as well as the nervous system. Together that makes the brain the most vital organ and system of our body and it controls all other vital as well as general organs and systems. Any problem or defect in the brain can create various symptoms at many different places in the rest of our body.
So aging of the brain is bound to have very significant effects on the other organs and systems within our body. Aging can be of two types at general categorization terminology. One is natural or normal aging and the other one is pathological or medical aging.
Natural aging is a common phenomena and occurs to almost everyone. Only the time of such aging varies from person to person and also varies the rate. It mostly depends on the genetics and lifestyle of the concerned person. In the same way, for some people it can occur at a very late age or at almost negligible rate. Brains of such persons appear to be young or almost like young even at a considerable old age.
We do not have much control over genetics but we definitely can optimize living standards in order to maintain good brain health at even much older ages. If we can prevent and slow down aging of the brain then all the other organs and systems of the body also tend to stay young and healthy at older ages.
Medical aging is more severe and dangerous than normal aging. It can result from any disease or bad health conditions that can arise from bad lifestyle, any accident or something like that. Medical conditions can alter physiological conditions, vital counts, organs functions and can even lead to systemic disorders which can greatly affect the health and aging process of the brain.