Without your brain who are you?

It gives you the ability to think, to learn new things, to remain independent, to maintain loving relationships, to know where you are, your location and time. Your brain provides you with the freedom of choice that you have currently. Conscious thinking forms part of your personality, some people might even say it is your personality.

Brain health is becoming increasingly more important, as we are living longer. Here are some tips on what is important to include, on a daily basis, for your brain health. Physical activities, brain activities, eat good quality nutrition, get good quality sleep, and significant social interaction. The latter is generally a task women are particularly good at. I appreciate COVID19 has put a bit of a spanner in the works for social meet ups, but there are plenty of online virtual social events to get involved in. It is not the same and doesn't provide the same experience, but the neurons (where all that physiology of thinking occurs) in your brain will benefit regardless. Getting a socially distant walk/run or swim in for now is available to all of us.

I hope you are ready for some of the science. Memory problems associated with menopause are multifactorial. Some of these factors are hormonal changes, such as differing oestrogen levels, higher cortisol (the stress hormone) levels, blood pressure, stress levels, if you have a chronic disease, energy levels, sleep quality etc

Ok first the bad news. The incidence of memory problems in menopause transition is reported by up to 2/3s of women! And the good news, it is thought that these are transient and do not become chronic postmenopausal issues. There is also no evidence that these, what are referred to as functional deficits, are indicative of dementia. (Wagner et al. 2020)

Thats great to know but can acupuncture help you during those years when you feel frustrated and for some women also fearful. You might be that woman who recognises a difference in the following areas of your life. Your mood might be low, your relationships might be difficult, finding the right words sometimes can be difficult and often remembering where you left your keys, your phone and your wallet are a challenge! The great news is yes. Acupuncture is incredibly helpful for brain health.

If you are to look at, Alzheimers Disease which is a disease that affects the brain, then yes acupuncture is effective. Most of you know someone of have met someone with this disease. A meta analysis study on this specifically (which is an examination of many independent studies on the same subject, in order to see trends) by Huang et al. 2019, found that acupuncture provided benefits for cognition (understanding and thinking). They found that acupuncture alone was better than conventional western medicine for the treatment of Alzheimers Disease. Just for clarity, I need to say that a diagnosis of Alzheimers is only given by a medically qualified doctor.

This was a rigorous excellent quality review of the evidence. They compared the use of acupuncture in people who were diagnosed with Alzheimers disease (which causes cognitive decline and is a cause of dementia) to those that were treated with medication alone. The results were conclusive. Acupuncture is better.

Acupuncture has been shown to be helpful in many of the factors, or areas, that are considered to play a role in declining brain health.