brainpower

Check out the benefits of fasting for your brain and find out how to boost your brainpower with intermittent fasting.

It always amazing what fasting can do for your brain. To start seeing these incredible cognitive benefits, you have to fast for at least 18 hours a day.

Ketones and its therapeutic for brain

With an 18:6 intermittent fasting pattern, you would fast for 18 hours and have a 6-hour eating window. This means no snacking while fasting. You can eat during your 6-hour window, but I recommend only two meals. If you are still hungry, add more fat at the end of your meals.

Ketones are very therapeutic for your brain. There are three ways to get your body to produce ketones:

  1. Go on the keto diet
  2. Fasting
  3. Exercise

Many people have damage to their brains from chronic glucose exposure caused by a high-carb diet. Glucose is a poor fuel source for the brain. When you switch the brain’s fuel source from glucose to ketones, the ketones can bypass the damage and feed your neurons directly.

If you never switch to ketones, you are at a higher risk for diabetes and the complications that can come with diabetes, such as dementia, neuropathy, and diabetic autonomic neuropathy.

Diabetic autonomic neuropathy can manifest as:

  • High pulse rate
  • Exercise intolerance
  • Orthostatic hypotension
  • Gastroparesis
  • Constipation
  • Esophageal dysmotility

The potential benefits of fasting

The potential benefits of fasting for your brain:

  1. It helps slow down age-related brain decline and brain-related diseases
  2. It allows the brain cells to get the fuel they need
  3. It helps reduce inflammation in the brain
  4. It helps stabilize neurons
  5. It helps the nerves connect better
  6. It supports genes that increase the repair action of neurons
  7. It boosts antioxidants in certain parts of the brain
  8. It causes autophagy, which recycles damaged proteins in the brain
  9. It can help improve structures in the brain
  10. It can help improve your mood
  11. It supports your ability to learn and focus
  12. It supports your memory
  13. It helps improve your motor skills

Data

  1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6836141/
  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3219306/
  3. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/in-depth/15-simple-diet-tweaks-cut-alzheimers-risk/art-20342112