Boost Your Brain Power

In this sneak peek at his new book, Food Can Fix It, Dr. Oz delivers proven ways to improve your memory, sharpen your mind and keep your neurons firing for life

DR. OZ SAYS: We’ve all had this experience — you can’t remember where you parked, or the last of the four things you needed to pick up at the supermarket…or you blank on the name of your friend’s husband or take an uncomfortable minute to recall what day of the week it is. Plenty of things that should be no-brainers (garlic — that’s the fourth item!) sometimes require real effort.

Don’t panic! To a large degree, this “spacing out” is a natural part of aging, though surveys have shown that the prospect of memory loss scares people more than the threat of cancer, heart attack or accident.

But here’s the thing: Alzheimer’s, dementia and memory-related problems are not necessarily inescapable. You can prevent, slow the progression of and in some cases even reverse some of these issues.

The best way to think about your brain is to visualize a phone network. Your brain’s neurons are like individual callers, sending messages to and receiving them from each other. When information makes it from one neuron to the next, it’s a successful “call,” and that neuron stores that information for future use. This is how memory is built — messages are filed away for later.