Brain Nutrition – The Importance of Nourishing Your Greedy Brain

We’ve all heard the phrase “you are what you eat.” When it comes to the brain, our most important organ, this idea that we become what we put into our bodies through nutrition takes on even greater meaning. The importance of brain nutrition becomes quite obvious when we consider a few key factors. The brain consumes a disproportionately large portion of the nutrients ingested by the body. The function of brain cells is heavily impacted by these nutrients available in the brain. The functioning of our brain cells determines how we function. Thus our mood, attention, memory, etc., are all functions of brain nutrition.

The Greedy Brain – Why 40 Percent Of All Your Nutritional Intake Is Actually Brain Nutrition

Our intelligent body knows how important the brain is and so allocates its resources accordingly, allowing the brain to consume a disproportionately large portion of the nutrients we ingest. The brain weighs only 1 to 2 percent of your total body weight, but 20 percent of the air you breathe, 25 percent of your blood flow, 30 percent of the water you ingest, and 40 percent of the nutrition in your bloodstream is sent to be consumed by the brain. This means that 40 percent of your nutritional intake can be directly thought of as brain nutrition.

Nutrition’s Powerful Influence Over Brain Function

Nutrients available to the brain have a huge impact on the healthy functioning of our brain cells or neurons. Nutrients affect neuronal function either directly, being metabolized without precursors, or indirectly, by affecting production of other substances in the brain that determine brain cell function.

The billions of brain cells or neurons communicate via neurotransmitters — including serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine — that send signals through the brain’s complex of pathways. Brain function is determined in large part by the action of these chemical messengers. Losing mental agility in old age, for example, may result from the brain cells’ failing to communicate effectively rather than from cell death. Proper brain nutrition influences the production and action of neurotransmitters. For instance, research shows higher levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in lab rats that are fed blueberries, which are rich in antioxidants. Dopamine, in turn, is important for cognition, motivation, mood, attention, and learning.

Other examples of nutrients which affect brain function include tyrosine, an amino acid found in protein which also supports the action of important neurotransmitters; the mineral magnesium, which can reduce hyperactivity and irritability; and omega-3 fatty acids, which can improve mood, attention, and alertness.

Brain Nutrition Is Super Important To Your Well-being And Your Life

Thus, nutrition has a huge impact on how we feel, think, and function. Our emotions, our memory, our ability to concentrate and accomplish tasks, and hence our lives are heavily impacted by what we put into our bodies, be it food, nutritional supplements, or drugs.

Makes you think twice about eating that big mac or drinking that coke, doesn’t it? Makes you want to check the nutritional information of everything you buy at the grocery store, right? It makes you want to find out exactly what foods and supplements are beneficial for brain function and which are detrimental. You might think to yourself: what a drag! Well, the negative impact of ignorance on your brain is an even bigger drag. Knowledge is power. Now go and use brain nutrition to empower your mind and your life!

Art – Not Only a Subject But Skill

Education in Art is a very simple course. The main criteria are that a person should be creative and should be imminent with new ideas. The Arts stream is much more beyond just acquiring general knowledge. There are lots of categories in Arts that one can opt for. This field is actually visualizing the concept and doing it in practical.Arts stream revolves around various fields like Fashion Designer, Interior Designer, Jewelry Designer, Filmmaker, Photographer, Singer, Dancer, Teacher, and the most demanding field is Journalism. Every category has good scope in future. Art Education helps one to think in different ways and give a different perception to the concepts. An art is treated as the main phrase in culture. In today’s competitive world Art is the richest field, one just need to have good creative mind. Art education is very easy in its syllabus. One should decide the exact field in Arts that he/she would like to make a career in. And then there are courses available of those fields.Art Education is managed and taught in a much planned manner. The education in this field is very flexible to learn. In Arts one has to get deep knowledge about the past like history, discovery etc. while learning Arts one needs to have sense of current happenings. While studying Arts one finds the course more and more adventurous in learning.An Art living person has lots to achieve in his future. Fine Art is one of them, Fine Arts basically deals with sketching, drawing, sculpting, graphic interiors etc. Art teaches you the important values of life. Art is such a subject that there are many interesting things to do and choose one of them as a career. Art is the expressive from all other fields. Art keeps on expanding interesting ideas and topics. Gratitude and contribution in Arts enlarge education and make it as strong field.There are many Art colleges and Art degrees. The Art education is form the ancient period. In arts no subject is evaded. From some or the other means art is involved in each field, which is the key point of Art.There are some main points one must always reflect on while studying Arts:Imagination and Innovation: One should be creative in thinking and come up with new innovative ideas. Most of the Art projects are based on this criterion. The Art students are not given the repeated path to get knowledge but as an alternative of it they are given the liberty to self research and come out with new concepts keeping in mind the basic principles. The Art education is useful to other fields as well. To think creatively there are brainstorming in all kinds of assignments and try out. All Science, Math, Philosophy all subjects requires creativity which is again a part of Art Education.
Elucidation: One should have the qualification of interpreting the concept. Interpreting is also an art, one who holds this art is always able to convince the opposite person. This Art qualification is again useful for every field.
Conversation: Having conversation or discussion is very important to keep the flow of good track in team mates or colleagues. Having conversation is the important part of education. Discussing the topic is a natural process of education and which is successfully built up.
Designing: Art has lot to do with designs, sketches etc. But some Arts require creativity in getting a unique piece out of it. The designing can be done on Computers or on paper. It can be digital or paper work. Designing is used in every field, some may use geometric shapes, vector graphics or straight lines or some go with free hand drawing, raster graphics. But the highlighting point here is that Designing is also an art. As mentioned earlier Art derives from the Ancient time so no field is left without having a light shadow of Arts. In fact, all subjects have gained something or the other from Arts. Art Education helps to exemplify many things in various different fields. Art is not restricted to any boundary. Art Education improves in developing character and helps to give loom to all challenges in life.

Thai Wives And Girlfriends – A Few Stories

Anyone who lives in Thailand for a while hears stories about western men (or farang as we are known here) and the bizarre behaviour of their Thai wives and girlfriends. To those looking from the outside it is often a source of amusement. Sometimes it is just strange behaviour. Other times it is a shocking willingness to totally cheat their farang partners.Some of the things these women do just make you laugh but there are other times they take
your breath away with the sheer audacity of their actions; their ability to put aside any semblance of morals and just scheme away to their own ends. There are other times when it is just their plain stupidity that takes the breath away.The following four stories all happened around my own little housing estate in Phuket where there are quite a few farang-Thai couples. These stories are just a small sample of the things Thai women can get up to.Unreasonable BehaviourA young European guy and his Thai girlfriend have lived in the house opposite me for the last three months. They are both very sociable and quickly introduced themselves. We sometimes share a few drinks in the garden He seems like an easy-going guy. She is very chatty and usually happy. She doesn’t drink, smoke, gamble or take drugs which is a promising start for Thai girlfriend material.The problem is she regularly goes completely off the rails. Every two or three days they have a huge argument. I say argument, but in fact it is usually only her voice you can hear screaming abuse. She throws things, windows get broken and then there are tears and drama in the street.The upshot is usually that she packs her bags and declares she is leaving for good. A big show is made of this. She comes to say goodbye to us because she is never going to see us again. She calls a taxi and then stands outside her house shouting to her boyfriend that she is leaving for good.He quietly stays inside and ignores the whole charade. The thing is we all know she isn’t leaving. She may be back the same day. If not, she will return the next day somehow looking triumphant. In fact, this pretence of leaving has become so shallow that instead of taking her packed bags, she now makes a habit of hiding them in our house so she doesn’t have the hassle of carrying them.What are the arguments about? Some of them are the usual accusation that he is playing
around with other women. Often, it is that he has spent money on something she thinks is wasteful. But it is HIS money! He pays her a generous allowance. When Thai women do this routine of trying to stop their farang boyfriends spending their money, it is not because they want to save him money. There is a simpler motive. The more the boyfriend spends, the less there is leftover for her to squeeze out of him.This girl has already told my wife she has three other farang boyfriends. This is one of the things us westerners just don’t get. It is not only that they play these games and deceive their boyfriends. They think it is something to boast about and if they can boast about it right under their boyfriend’s nose, all the better. Why she thought my wife wouldn’t tell me, I don’t know. She probably assumes all Thai women deceive their farang partners and that my wife would be impressed at her cunning.I wouldn’t get involved in other people’s relationships so I will not be telling this guy about the other boyfriends. Anyway, I don’t think he is such a fool. He is returning to Europe this week and I doubt if he will be continuing his relationship with this particular Thai girl – but you never know.GamblingThe previous occupants of this same house were a European guy and his Thai wife. He worked in Europe for six months a year and lived in Phuket for the other six months. He had been doing this for years and when he was in Phuket, they always seemed to have a good relationship. The problem was that for the six months he was away, his wife had to entertain herself and her vice was gambling.Gambling really does seem to be a major problem for some Thai women. I know several of the Thai wives on our estate play a regular card game. They all say the same thing. It is just a bit of fun for small money. I have seen them play and it is not for fun. They get very intense, there is little conversation and although the stakes start small, they quickly grow. I have heard of women winning or losing as much as 30,000 baht in these ‘fun’ games.There seems to be something in the Thai mentality that leaves them very open to gambling
addiction. Perhaps it is their belief in lucky numbers and fate. Whatever it is, there is good reason why gambling is illegal in Thailand. It is an endless source of problems, especially for Thai women with money and time on their hands such as wives of farang.So every morning this Thai woman set off for her local card game. Sometimes she would be gone for two or three days – they really can play that long. She had been doing this for years and I guess she wasn’t losing too much. But then the problems started.The first sign was when she started asking to borrow money. At first, it was only small sums that we were happy to give her. But then she wanted 10,000 baht. I knew this was a sign of a serious problem. She was chasing her losses. The only way she could repay the money was if she got lucky at cards so I refused her the loan.Of course, there are other ways to borrow money in Thailand. Once one of these girls is on the slope she will keep sliding. Soon there were rough looking Thai men appearing on her doorstep demanding repayment. She sold her motorbike and started renting one instead. She sold jewelry and furniture but used the money to chase her losses and the loan sharks kept appearing. She started disappearing for a week at a time. It was obvious her situation was out of control. Then she was gone.I don’t think the loan sharks got her. She packed her bags in the middle of the night and ran. There were rumours about how much she owed and for those sorts of sums she would have
to do a good job of disappearing. There were calls from her husband asking why he could not contact his wife. When he returned to Phuket, there was no sign of her. She had not returned to her family, or at least not that they would admit. She just ran away from it all, the debts and the marriage.Pretend PregnanciesA good friend of mine was very pleased that his wife was expecting their first child. His wife’s sister was also pleased but for slightly different reasons. She wanted copies of the ultrasound scans of the foetus. She had an Australian boyfriend who she was siphoning like an old banger. She had already twice convinced him she was pregnant and needed medical expenses. Then of course, she had two miscarriages and so needed more medical expenses.Now she was trying the same routine for a third time but he was proving a little harder to convince. He wanted to see the ultrasound scans. So what good fortune that her sister just happened to be pregnant.My friend absolutely put his foot down. No way would he let his child be used as a tool in a Thai bargirl scam. It is one thing to stand back and watch these girls rip off their farang boyfriends. It is a totally different thing to play an active role in the deception.Without a copy of an ultrasound scan, her bluff was called and she was caught out. The Aussie boyfriend dumped her. All kinds of drama followed. She had a Thai boyfriend and together they were living the high life. Without her benefactor, she quickly ran up huge debts. The Thai boyfriend left her. She got her mother to take out a loan. She defaulted on the loan and her mother spent two days in prison until my friend paid her bail – after all, she is also the mother of his wife.So much drama and heartache that you think she might actually learn her lesson. And then would you believe it – the Aussie boyfriend decided to give her another chance. Now she is spending his money like water again and convinced that everything she did has worked out for the best.Oh yeah, one other thing she hasn’t told the Aussie boyfriend. He is very keen to start a family but she cannot have children. She is infertile.Losing EverythingAll these previous stories fade in significance compared to what happened to this guy. I don’t know him personally but I know his neighbours. He worked in Bangkok and came to Phuket at weekends to see his wife. Their relationship was already rocky and they were working towards agreeing an amicable split. They owned the house but there was still an outstanding mortgage.One weekend he returned home to find it deserted. Everything of value was gone. He was confused and started looking for an explanation. He was soon given one by a bank representative who arrived shortly afterwards. The bank has repossessed the house. “That cannot be” said this guy. “I pay the mortgage every month”. The bank guy explained – “that mortgage is with a different bank. Your wife took a second mortgage on the property and she has not paid.”The farang guy realised he had lost verything. He started looking for a way out but there was none. Can I take over the payments? It is too late. I will get a lawyer! It is too late. We have been taking action for months. It is finished now. In a blind fury, this farang guy started smashing up the house. The bank called the police and they arrested him. The house was no longer his property so he would have to pay for the damages.Over the next few days, the full extent of his wife’s treachery became apparent. She had
not only taken a second mortgage on the property but also she had used it as collateral for
a loan from the local mafia. She had taken the money and disappeared. There were now two banks and the local mafia arguing over who had claim to his house.I had met his wife only once a few weeks before. She came around our house asking for a
100,000-baht loan. She said she would write up a contract and pay back 110,000 baht the very
next week. Naturally, we refused this generous offer. She must have known even then that she had no intention of paying. She carried on doing the rounds until she found a sucker willing to give the loan. It was actually a local Thai guy she fleeced. It is a small world. Another friend of mine recently met this farang guy working offshore. He was working all the hours he could get to pay off his debts. The bank with the original mortgage has insisted he must pay it off or they will have him blacklisted from Thailand. He still loves Thailand and his life here and does not want to be blacklisted.ConclusionI certainly don’t want to generalize and say all Thai women are scheming or crazy. All four of these women had one thing in common; they had all worked in the sex industry. That is not to say that all Thai girls from the sex industry are bad. It is not even that all Thai girls who have never worked in the sex industry are good. However, on the whole this sort of behaviour is much more likely to come from women who have worked in the sex industry.The tourist sector of the sex industry is all about extracting as much money as possible from the customers. The girls learn to lie, scheme and play their customers like a fiddle. They can take the same mentality into their long-term relationships. They are still playing the game and unfortunately, the basis of their relationship is how much money they can squeeze from their farang.I do know plenty of guys who have great Thai wives. I would go as far as to say that the
sort of stories above are the minority and most men who settle in Thailand find a great woman. The cultural differences will always cause a few difficulties and Thai women certainly do a few things we find strange. As long as both sides are willing to compromise then it can all work out fine.This is not a purely Thai phenomenon. I know men who have been fleeced by women in their
own countries. And the divorce rates in the west are so high that there is really no point in harping on about the number of failed farang-Thai relationships. This devious side of the Thai female is not a universal truth. However, these stories do seem to be more common here than elsewhere. I think it is mostly a by-product of the way many of these relationships started.

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