Brain Health: How to protect your mind and body every day
- The Natalie Kate Moss Trust
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Your brain runs everything.
Every thought, every decision, every memory, every movement. It's working right now as you read these words, keeping your heart beating and lungs breathing without you having to think about it.
And yet most of us take it completely for granted until something goes wrong.
We worry about our weight, our fitness, our skin. We service our cars and maintain our homes. But our brains? We assume they'll just keep working, that brain haemorrhages is something that happens to other people.
Here's the truth: Your brain health is being shaped right now by choices you're making without realising their impact.
The sleep you're getting or not getting.
The stress you're carrying.
What you ate for lunch.
Whether you moved your body today.
The good news is you have more control than you think. Brain health isn't all locked in by genetics. It's shaped by small, consistent choices across five key areas, and you can start making different choices today.
What is brain health and why does it matter?
Brain health is about how well your brain functions right now, today, in the life you're actually living. It's your ability to focus during meetings, remember where you put your keys, regulate emotions without feeling constantly overwhelmed, and maintain mental clarity instead of perpetual fog.
Poor brain health shows up as chronic fatigue that coffee can't fix, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, memory lapses, and that feeling of moving through water. Good brain health feels like energy that lasts, mental clarity that makes work engaging, emotional resilience, and sharp memory that keeps you confident.
The stakes get higher when we look at serious compromise.
Brain haemorrhage affects 4.6 million people globally each year, more than breast and lung cancer combined. Only 60% survive the first month, a statistic unchanged in 40 years.
What makes this tragic is that many brain haemorrhages are preventable. They're often the endpoint of years of elevated blood pressure quietly damaging blood vessels, weakened further by smoking, excessive alcohol, chronic stress, poor sleep, and unhealthy diet.
The lifestyle factors we can control.
The 5 Pillars of a healthy brain
Sleep: The foundation everything builds on
Sleep is when your brain does essential maintenance, processing memories and flushing out metabolic waste.
Poor sleep elevates stress hormones, forcing your cardiovascular system to work harder and straining brain blood vessels. After a poor night, your focus fragments, memory falters, decision making suffers, and emotional regulation collapses.
What helps:
Aim for seven to nine hours nightly at consistent times.
Create a cool, dark, quiet bedroom.
Reduce screens for an hour before bed.
Build a calming routine that signals sleep is coming.
Cut caffeine after 2pm.
Stress: Silent damage accumulating daily
Chronic stress releases cortisol and adrenaline constantly, raising heart rate and blood pressure, damaging vessels, and increasing haemorrhage risk. It physically changes brain structure, particularly areas handling memory and emotional regulation. Sleep suffers, creating a vicious cycle.
What helps:
Practice two minute deep breathing to lower cortisol.
Take 10 minute walks to process stress hormones.
Talk to friends about what's stressing you.
Break large tasks into small steps.
Create mini calm moments throughout your day, a slow cup of tea, two minutes outside, breathing pauses between meetings.
Diet and Nutrition: Fuel that protects or damages
What you eat profoundly impacts brain health. Low salt, whole food diets support healthy blood pressure. Colourful fruits and vegetables provide antioxidants protecting brain cells.
Omega 3s from oily fish like salmon and mackerel support brain cell membranes. Even mild dehydration affects concentration and mood.
What helps:
Add one extra portion of fruit or vegetables today.
Choose whole food snacks like fruit, nuts, yogurt instead of processed options.
Check labels for salt and choose lower sodium versions.
Eat oily fish weekly.
Keep water visible and drink regularly.
Alcohol and Smoking: Risks worth reducing
Smoking damages blood vessels, reduces oxygen flow, and elevates blood pressure. There's no safe smoking level for brain health.
Alcohol affects focus, mood, and coordination immediately, contributes to high blood pressure over time, and disrupts sleep quality.
Every reduction helps.
Cutting from 20 cigarettes to 15 to 10 provides progressive benefit. Reducing alcohol from nightly to five nights to three nights improves brain health incrementally.
What helps:
Track habits honestly for a week without changing them yet.
Plan two to three alcohol free days weekly.
Find alcohol free alternatives you genuinely enjoy.
Identify your triggers, stress, social situations, habit.
Seek NHS support if struggling to reduce alone.
Exercise and Body Weight: Movement that protects
Physical activity lowers blood pressure, maintains healthy weight, reduces stress, and increases blood flow delivering oxygen to brain cells. It stimulates growth factors supporting new brain cell development. People who exercise regularly sleep better and feel more alert, creating positive cycles.
You don't need intense workouts. Walking counts. Gardening counts.
Dancing in your kitchen counts!
What helps:
Move 15 to 30 minutes daily, brisk walking, cycling, anything raising your heart rate.
Start with five minute walks if currently sedentary.
Take stairs instead of lifts.
Walk with friends instead of meeting for coffee.
Track progress with simple checkmarks on a calendar.
Why download our Brain Gym Guide
We create a free Brain Gym Guide, that bridges the gap between awareness and action.
The guide includes reflection exercises to honestly assess current habits, practical tips you can implement immediately, and goal setting frameworks creating accountability. It recognises change happens through understanding why something matters, identifying where you are, choosing realistic first steps, and building gradually.
Download your free Brain Gym Guide now and take your first step toward a healthier brain.
It's designed for real people with real constraints. You don't need perfect discipline or ideal circumstances. You need practical strategies fitting into your actual life creating incremental improvement over time.
High blood pressure affects one third of UK adults, and half are undiagnosed because it shows no symptoms until serious damage occurs. The guide helps you understand and manage the lifestyle factors affecting blood pressure and brain health.
Your first step
Start with one pillar.
Look at sleep, stress, diet, alcohol and smoking, exercise, and assess where you struggle most or where change would create biggest impact.
Maybe your sleep is a disaster.
Pick one change and commit for a week. Setting consistent bedtime, cutting caffeine by 2pm, removing screens from your bedroom.
Maybe stress is drowning you. Choose one practice. Five minutes of deep breathing each morning, a 10 minute lunch walk, actually calling that friend.
Once that first change becomes habit, add another. Build gradually. Six months from now, you could have strengthened three or four areas through consistent small changes rather than attempting everything immediately, getting overwhelmed, and abandoning it all.
Long term brain health comes from patterns, not perfection.
You need generally healthy patterns with room for real life, occasional indulgence, and flexibility for changing circumstances.
Your daily choices
Your brain health isn't predetermined. It's being shaped right now by your daily choices.
Small, consistent changes create measurable improvements in brain health, cognitive function, and long term resilience.
Brain haemorrhages, stroke, and cognitive decline aren't inevitable. Many cases are preventable through lifestyle factors we've discussed. Yes, some risk is genetic or unavoidable. But enormous risk is within your control.
Start today.
Pick one pillar.
Make one small change.
Download the Brain Gym Guide and use the reflection exercises to identify where you are and what realistic next step would help.
Your brain is at the center of everything you do, everything you are. It deserves intentional care and protection. The time to start isn't someday. It's now.
