Menopause, mental health and brain fog explained | Dr Shahzadi Harper | EP 104

yeah so so you know one of the things is with regards to um you know brain fog with regards to general health and with with regards to preparing for our future you know we really need to sort of take stock at this point in time you know to to improve or change our lifestyle habits something like exercise exercise is great it helps to improve circulation to our brain so that brings more oxygen there so it will also help in the sense of with brain fog memory and mood also it helps to release those happy neurochemicals serotonin dopamine more adrenaline which help us feel good and and make us feel positive So, you know, it's really important to exercise.

And, you know, when I'm talking about it, I'm not saying that you have to be running marathons, but you do need to get a bit of a sweat, get the heart pumping a little bit.

Also, maintaining hydration, drinking water, so you're not getting headaches.

So you're, yeah, absolutely, Deborah, thank goodness for that.

Yeah, thank you for demonstrating.

So yeah, so drinking water, keeping hydrated, And also things like stress management.

I think we sometimes forget what a stressful life we live in.

Taking a bit of time out, thinking about mindfulness, thinking about yoga, something that you know that will help you sort of unwind, sort of calm down, even taking things like supplements like magnesium, vitamin B12 is very good for the brain and for mood, always vitamin D, you know, I always talk about vitamin D.

And actually, you know, I think something that maybe people aren't so aware about when it comes to general health, and particularly with brain is sort of the omega threes and the fatty acids, you know, they very much help with improving sort of that connectivity in the brain and raising our good cholesterol and lowering our bad cholesterol.

So all those lifestyle measures, oh, stopping smoking.

I mean, I sort of didn't say that because I thought, oh, everybody must know, stop smoking and drink in moderation.

But these are really important things because smoking, what that does is it narrows your blood vessels.

And so it reduces circulation.

It causes vasoconstriction.

And along with things like heart disease, lung cancer, it also does affect your brain health as well.

And just recently, we had a study from UCL showing that obesity increases your risk of dementia by 30%.

And what they were really trying to say was all of those risk factors that make you increase weight or you know, cause weight gain are things that we need to be addressing.

You know, eating a Mediterranean diet, stopping smoking, drinking in moderation, taking exercise and taking the right supplements.

And all of that is great advice from a lifestyle point of view.

And we all know we should be doing that, of course.

With COVID, it's not always that easy, is it? So we've got to make conscious decisions about our lifestyle.

You also mentioned stress there.

Because at this time of life, I'm thinking of so many people on our colleague sessions are saying, well, they're worried about COVID.

They're worried about working from home.

They're worried about maybe even having a job.