Life Changes

Have you been striving to make changes in your life, but without much success? Life changes are life goals we need to live a better and happier life.

We all need to make some changes in our lives because everything is changing in every moment. But making changes may not be as easy as we think: many of us are not only reluctant but also resistant to change. We all love staying in our comfort zones and hate venturing into an area of the unexpected and the unpredictable.

But the truth of the matter is that life is changing all the time, whether we like it or not. Any change is neutral: neither good nor bad; but our perceptions of the changes may play a pivotal role in the changes we are going to make in our lives. According to James Allen, author of As A Man Thinketh, men are “makers of themselves” and the human mind is the “master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.” That is to say, it is all in our minds. So if you can change your thinking, you may change your life—being a better and happier you. It is your choice.

The human mind is composed of the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, both of which process and interpret our physical sensations, leading to thoughts that may be positive or negative, depending on our mental input. Thus the human mind may play a pivotal role in either changing negative thoughts into toxic desires, or controlling them in a positive way.

Your conscious mind voluntarily controls your mental input (that is, what you want to and what you don’t want to remember); while it is your subconscious mind that involuntarily remembers all the physical sensations you are exposed to. But it is your subconscious mind that directs and controls your conscious mind. Your subconscious mind is the master mind behind all your actions and decisions in your life. Therefore, it is important to have the wisdom to understand better how your subconscious mind works in order to have better control of your conscious mind.

Your mind is powerful only if know how to control it. Learn how to empower your mind to control your mind to control your desires. For example, when you see something that pleases the eye, such as a beautiful dress or a watch, you may become desirous of it. That perception can be voluntarily rejected by your conscious mind, but it may be imprinted involuntarily on your subconscious mind, which, ultimately, controls and directs your conscious mind.

Make changes in your life, adapt yourself to these changes, and live your life as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

How to Change Your Perceptions

Wellness is feeling good about self with respect to the body, the mind, and the soul. Wellness may be synonymous with happiness.  Wellness comes from the mind – the mind’s perceptions of what the body  is experiencing in the physical world. Wisdom, surprisingly, can change the mind’s perceptions to make one feel better and happier.

Are you happy? What makes you happy? A successful career, satisfying relationships, good health, or material possessions? Which one, or all of those? No matter what, wellness is what makes you feel good about yourself, and what makes your life meaningful. If your life is without a purpose, and you are always drifting from here to there, you won't feel good about yourself or life in general.

Feeling good about oneself requires wisdom -- wisdom to know who you are and what you want in life. Without wisdom, you will not experience lasting well-being. Without wisdom, your living is like like chasing the wind, without any direction.

Wisdom is essential in the art of living well. It involves wisdom of the mind, the body, and the soul. They are all inter-related and inter-dependent on one another. For example, if you have satisfying relationships but your health is rapidly deteriorating, you will not feel well; or if you have a successful career but are emotionally distressed, you will not be in good spirit. Therefore, the overall wellness is contingent on the holistic wellness of the body, the mind, and the soul. To cherish and nourish this holistic wellness, your need wisdom, which holds the key to happiness and well-being of any individual.

Which is wisdom? Where does it come from?

Wellness begins with the mind first, and not the body or the soul. After all, you are what you have become by reason of your thinking. You are a summary of your thoughts, which make you who you are or what you have now become. Your past experiences and your perceptions of those experiences have "preconditioned" how you currently think. In other words, your background, and upbringing predetermine how your mind perceives your present life experiences. Given that your past exposure might not be telling you the whole truth, you, therefore, need wisdom to "empty" your mind and re-define your current mindset. That is to say, you must learn how to rethink your mind. Thinking is never easy and that is why so few people do it, according to Albert Einstein.

You are living in a physical world, and your life experiences are perceived by your body through the five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching). But these sensations may be positively or negatively interpreted by the mind, which stores past experiences of those sensations of body in both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The former voluntarily accepts or rejects those sensations, while the latter involuntarily includes whatever the subconscious mind is exposed to. True wisdom is the capability of the mind to know what is real and what is unreal. 

Tao wisdom is the ancient wisdom from China that shows you how to have an empty mind first to rethink your mind in order to separate the truths from the half-truths t Perceptionso Changeor myths.

Tao wisdom is the essence in the art of living well, It is the profound wisdom of the ancient Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works in world literature. The book has been popular for thousands of years due to its wisdom, which is simple but controversial, profound and yet intriguing. To fully understand it, you need to get all the essentials of Tao wisdom. Click here for more details.

With Tao wisdom, you may live a much better life, without depressive episodes now and then.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

No Ego No Stress

NO EGO NO STRESS  

"NO EGO NO STRESS" is a 134-page book by Stephen Lau on ancient human wisdom for stress relief. Specifically, it is about Tao wisdom, which originates from the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu, the author of “Tao Te Ching”—one of the most translated works in world literature. “Tao Te Ching” is popular due to its profound and unconventional wisdom, which is both intriguing and controversial. Learn how to let go of the ego-self to remove all the stressors in modern living due to finance, careers, relationships, etc. and live as if everything is a miracle.

NO EGO NO STRESS  is made up of 4 parts.

PART ONE: An Introduction to STRESS:

It explains how and where stress comes from; the damage and devastation of stress to human health.

PART TWO: Conventional Wisdom:

The major life stressors come from careers, money, relationships, adversity, and time. Conventional wisdom offers many strategies for stress relief, such as exercise, herbs, medications, meditation, and psychotherapies, among many others. Conventional wisdom may reduce stress levels, but it does not eradicate stress completely. Conventional wisdom only complements the ancient Tao wisdom for ultimate stress relief.

PART THREE:Tao Wisdom:

This part not only explains what Tao wisdom is all about, but also contains the complete translation in simple English of all the 81 short chapters of “Tao Te Ching” which is one of the most translated works in world literature. Going through the whole script, interpreted and translated by the author, will enable you to understand the essentials of Tao wisdom for stress-free contemporary living.

PART FOUR: No Ego No Stress:

Stress originates from the human mind: how it perceives and processes life experiences. What is stress to one individual may not be stress to another. This part explains in detail how having no ego can eradicate all stress related to career, relationship, money, adversity, and time.

Get your copy of NO EGO NOSTRESS

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Online Passive Income

If you wish to make some money online, it is doable. Just follow the expertise of some of the most successful online entrepreneurs. What you need is your passion and perseverance to turn your dream into a reality. Of course, you also need the right resources from those experts.

Click here to get the resources to make an online passive income.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Only Way Out of Depression

We are living in a world of depression: we see unhappy things happen to us, as well as to the people around us. Many of us strive to distract ourselves from these, but without much success. The only way out is to experience and embrace them with an empty mindset—the mindset of Lao Tzu,  the ancient sage, who was the author of Tao Te Ching,  the ancient Chinese classic on human wisdom. 

No Way! TAO Is The Way!

TAO Wisdom To Live And Survive In A World Of Depression!

TAO wisdom is the way to go through depression—experiencing every aspect of depression, instead of avoiding it with distractions or drugs—and thus the only Way to get you out of depression while living in a world of depression.

It provides many examples from news and everyday life to show you  how TAO wisdom can help you live as if everything is a miracle.

Don’t deny or stigmatize your depression! Go through it, and you may or may not get enlightened, but you will look at your depression differently.

To get your copy, click here. 

Stephen Lau

Empower the Mind to Overcome Stress

Stress originates from the mind. It is all in the mind. The intensity of stress is a perception of the mind. Stress is no more than your own perceptions of it. That is to say, it is your own attitude or personal reaction to certain events and experiences in your life. In other words, what is stress to you may not be stress to another person.

William Shakespeare once said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” John Milton, the famous English poet, also had this to say: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” Both spoke volumes of the perceptions of stress.

Therefore, subconscious energies of the mind play a pivotal role in stress management.

Stress may come in different forms. Your experience of stress can be past, current, and future.

Past stress—also known as “residual stress”—is stress from the past that you have not overcome completely despite the passage of time.

Current stress is a “current state of arousal” caused by an existing situation that requires your immediate attention but that you do not enjoy addressing it.

Future stress is “anticipatory stress” or worry about what might happen in the future. Residual stress can lead to future stress, passed on from unpleasant past experiences.

Perceptions of stress are generally based on the following: the more you care and value about something, the more stress you have; the more choices and options available to you, the less stress you have; the more conscientious you are, the greater is your stress; the more enjoyment you have, the less stress you have; and the more responsibility you have, the greater is your stress.

In short, stress is all in the mind—your thinking mind. The bottom line: empower your mind to live a stress-free life as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Body-Mind Inter-Connection

The mind plays a pivotal role in the overall wellness of an individual because there is a close inter-connection between the body and the mind.

Mind wellness

Overall wellness starts with the intent of the mind to be well and to stay well.

How well you are living your life right now is based on your past and present life experiences, as well as your projections of those experiences into the future. In other words, your thoughts of those experiences with their respective future projections become the raw materials and resources with which you are going to weave the fabric of your life.

Therefore, to live well, you have to know how to think right, and then act accordingly. That's not easy, and that's why Albert Einstein once said, "Thinking is hard; that's why so few do it."

Learn to empower your mind with knowledge and wisdom and live your life to the best you can.

Body wellness

Body wellness is more than just an absence of illness or ache and pain.

Body wellness means the body is capable of detecting signs and symptoms, as well as deciphering messages, from different organs and tissue of the body, giving warnings of any imminent disorder and disease.

The body is connected with the mind in the form of biochemical reactions in the body and nerve impulses in the brain. This invisible communication is responsible for the alignment or misalignment of the flow of energy between the body and the mind, and hence their overall wellness. The body is a product of both the mind and the soul.

There is much to know and learn about body wellness, just as Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said: "The life so short, the craft so long to learn."

Learn the craft and get the wisdom!

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

No Attachment! No Identity Crisis!

“We usually don't realize the thing that is defining our identity until that thing is taken away.” Tim Hiller

All human attachments are the raw materials with which one both consciously and subconsciously creates one’s identity through a period of confusion and uncertainty that inevitably leads to the identity crisis. Without human attachment, there will be no identity crisis.

Attachment is no more than a safety blanket to overcome fear—fear of change and of the unknown from that change. To cope with that fear, all attachments become distractions.

Attachment is basically your emotional dependence on things and people that define your identity, around which you wrap your so called “happiness” and even your survival. Attachment is holding  on to anything  that you are unwilling to let go of, whether it is something positive or negative.

We are living in a world with many problems that confront us in our everyday life, and many of these are not only unavoidable but also insoluble. To overcome these daily challenges, many of us just turn to attachment as a means of distracting ourselves from facing our problems head on, or adapting and changing ourselves in an ever-changing environment. All of our struggles in life, from anxiety to frustrations, from anger to sadness, from grief to worry—they all stem from the same thing: our attachment to how we want things to be, rather than relaxing into accepting and embracing whatever that might happen after we have put forth our best effort.

Let go of your attachments to avoid any identity crisis in order to live asif everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Your Wisdom Is Inside You!

Tao wisdom is the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage who was the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching. Literally, "Tao" means "the Way"; "Te" means "virtuosity"; and "Ching" means "classic." The book was written approximately in 6th century B.C. by Lao Tzu (which literally means "old master"). According to the legend, the ancient sage was forced to put down his profound wisdom into words before he was permitted to leave China for Tibet. Reluctantly, he expressed his wisdom in 81 short chapters with only 5,000 words, because he believed that true wisdom could not be expressed in words. The language he used was extremely simple and concise, but intriguing and paradoxical. That was one of the many reasons why the book has fascinated millions of readers worldwide.  Tao is also known as the Way—the way or direction to understanding true wisdom, whether it is human or spiritual wisdom.

Don't look elsewhere! Tao wisdom is already inside each and every one of us! Tao wisdom is inside you. Jesus said: “Seek and you shall find.” You need not look any further because it is right inside you! Ironically enough, it is not easy to find the Way: we tend to look to others or outside of ourselves in quest of that far-fetched and forever elusive wisdom.

There was the story of a beggar who asked a stranger for money. The stranger said he had no money to give him, and asked the beggar if he would look elsewhere for money, including the box he was sitting on. The beggar said he had been sitting on that box for years but he had never looked inside it. The stranger urged him to look inside the box. Reluctantly, he did. To his amazement, he found the box was filled with gold coins.

Yes, Tao wisdom is inside each and every one of us! But you have to look, just like the beggar did in the story!

Unlike conventional wisdom, which is external, focusing on the acquisition of knowledge, Tao wisdom, on the other hand is internal. According to conventional wisdom, knowledge is empowering; the more knowledgeable you are, the wiser you become. The ancient wisdom of Tao is quite the opposite: the more you know, paradoxically, the less wisdom you may have.

Accordingly, following the teachings of others, looking for role models to imitate, and making extra efforts—all recommended by conventional wisdom—they will not work for the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu. In Tao wisdom, you just look inside yourself because the internal wisdom is based on intuition of, insight into, and internalizing of your own experiences in life. It is "your" life and "your" own experiences that are uniquely yours. Looking for external sources does not help, and nobody can tell you how you should live your life. Only you have access to your life's blueprint, which is the essence of Tao wisdom in living.

Stephen Lau

Copyright © Stephen Lau

Tao Wisdom and Contemporary Wisdom

Tao Wisdom and Contemporary Wisdom

There was the story of a beggar who asked a stranger for money. The stranger said he had no money to give him, and asked the beggar if he would look elsewhere for money, including the box he was sitting on. The beggar said he had been sitting on that box for years but he had never looked inside it. The stranger urged him to look inside the box. Reluctantly, he did. To his amazement, he found the box was filled with gold coins.

Yes, wisdom is inside each and every one of us! But you have to look, just like the beggar did in the story! Many people believe that wisdom comes from knowledge. If you don’t go to college, you cannot be wise. Nothing could be further from the truth! Wisdom and knowledge are two separate entities: knowledge provides data and information, while wisdom is the application of the data and information gathered. Wisdom has much to do with the thinking mind—how it processes data and information received and then turn them into life experiences that ultimately become realities that define and create the personality of an individual.

Don't look elsewhere! Tao wisdom is internal wisdom; it is already inside each and every one of us!

Tao wisdom is the profound wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage who was the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching, which is one of the most widely translated works in world literature, perhaps only second to the Bible. Tao is also known as the Way—the way or direction to understanding true wisdom, whether it is human or spiritual wisdom.

Tao wisdom is inside you. You need not look any further because it is right inside you! Unlike conventional wisdom, which is external, focusing on the acquisition of knowledge, Tao wisdom, on the other hand is internal. According to conventional wisdom, knowledge is empowering; the more knowledgeable you are, the wiser you may become. The ancient wisdom of Tao is quite the opposite: the more you know, paradoxically, the less wisdom you may have. 

As a matter of fact, there was the story of a professor seeking the wisdom of Zen (originated from Tao) from a Zen master who kept on pouring tea into the already filled-to-the-brim teacup of the professor. Later on, the Zen master told the professor that in order to fully understand the wisdom of Zen or the Way, he must, first of all, empty all his preconceived ideas of Zen, that is, he must have an empty mind to be receptive of the wisdom. Hence, to fully understand Tao, one must empty one's mind of any knowledge previously acquired. 

The Book of Life and Living is an explanation of ancient wisdom, contemporary wisdom, and spiritual wisdom illustrated with concrete everyday examples. Create your own recipe for wisdom in living. 

Stephen Lau

Copyright © Stephen Lau

Increase Mind Power

You may have an amazing mind because your brain is made up of about 100 trillion brain cells called neurons, which are responsible for releasing chemicals known as neurotransmitters for effective communication between brain cells. To sharpen your mind, you have to inter-connections between your brain cells since they are all inter-connected. The more connections you have, the greater is your brain power. So, sharpen your mind by increasing your brain cell connections.

Your brain is like a recorder, which records all information on a tape (your neurons). A good memory means your brain knows when to turn on and turn off the recorder. This is crucial. However, the "when" factor is no more than your basic memory skills, without which, you just turn on the recorder all the time. The problem is that you may have just too many tapes: when you want to look for a certain tape, you may have problems finding the right tape and finding it right away. This is how and why people become forgetful, and forgetfulness is the inability to retrieve the desired information when needed.

As you continue to age (e.g. the beginning of senility, whether you like it or not), it takes you longer to recall things, as well as longer time to process new information. Things could even get worse with time: you develop the common tip-of-the-tongue problem in remembering a common word, or a familiar name. The term is "senior moments." Mental deterioration will continue if you live long enough: for example, you don't remember directions, or recall lists, among other daily annoyances and frustrations. Poor memory is associated with old age and a deteriorating brain.

The good news is that you may not have dementia or Alzheimer's if your brain is still healthy. But you do want to avoid, or at least defer, for as long as you possibly can, the occurrence of memory-lapses.

Although you may have an amazing brain, you still need to learn how to harness its power and potential. 

1. Memory has to do with your senses: sight, sound, smell, and taste, and touch. They are your memory skills too, that is, tools for you to remember, store, and process information. Therefore, sharpen your senses to sharpen your mind. Protect and preserve your senses, for example, take care of your vision health, which is critical to having good memory, because sight is an important tool for remembering, storing, and processing information. There is a saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words." You still need good vision to see that picture. 

2. Avoid emotional upheavals, such as depression or stress, which can adversely affect your brain power. Practice daily meditation to calm your nerves, and let your brain relax and rest. Meditation is a powerful tool to optimize your memory skills. Learn how to meditate. All you need is patience and consistency.

3. Avoid pharmaceutical drugs wherever possible, especially over-the-counter ones, such as cold remedies and sleep aids. Drugs are dangerous chemicals that may damage your brain cells. Remember, brain cells, unlike other cells, do not regenerate, although you have trillions of them. Use natural herbs and home-made medicine, which are less toxic and have fewer side effects than the chemicals of pharmaceutical drugs.

4. Good nutrition enhances brain health. The rule of thumb is: What is good for the heart is also good for the brain. Eat a diet low in animal fat to avoid clogging blood vessels in your brain.

5. Try not to do too many things too quickly at the same time. This not only creates time stress but also disorients the mind. Learn to live in the present. Most of us don't; they talk on the cell phones while driving (they are supposed to be driving, not talking about things in the future).

Your brain is one of the most valuable assets in your life. You can keep it functional for as long as you wish. If there is a will, there is a way. Make it your first priority to sharpen your mind and protect your brain health.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Mind Power to Change Perceptions

Wellness is feeling good about self with respect to the body, the mind, and the soul. Wellness may be synonymous with happiness.  Wellness comes from the mind – the mind’s perceptions of what the body  is experiencing in the physical world. Wisdom, surprisingly, can change the mind’s perceptions to make one feel better and happier.

Are you happy? What makes you happy? A successful career, satisfying relationships, good health, or material possessions? Which one, or all of those? No matter what, wellness is what makes you feel good about yourself, and what makes your life meaningful. If your life is without a purpose, and you are always drifting from here to there, you won't feel good about yourself or life in general.

Feeling good about oneself requires wisdom -- wisdom to know who you are and what you want in life. Without wisdom, you will not experience lasting well-being. Without wisdom, your living is like like chasing the wind, without any direction.

Wisdom is essential in the art of living well. It involves wisdom of the mind, the body, and the soul. They are all inter-related and inter-dependent on one another. For example, if you have satisfying relationships but your health is rapidly deteriorating, you will not feel well; or if you have a successful career but are emotionally distressed, you will not be in good spirit. Therefore, the overall wellness is contingent on the holistic wellness of the body, the mind, and the soul. To cherish and nourish this holistic wellness, your need wisdom, which holds the key to happiness and well-being of any individual.

Which is wisdom? Where does it come from?

Wellness begins with the mind first, and not the body or the soul. After all, you are what you have become by reason of your thinking. You are a summary of your thoughts, which make you who you are or what you have now become. Your past experiences and your perceptions of those experiences have "preconditioned" how you currently think. In other words, your background, and upbringing predetermine how your mind perceives your present life experiences. Given that your past exposure might not be telling you the whole truth, you, therefore, need wisdom to "empty" your mind and re-define your current mindset. That is to say, you must learn how to rethink your mind. Thinking is never easy and that is why so few people do it, according to Albert Einstein.

You are living in a physical world, and your life experiences are perceived by your body through the five senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching). But these sensations may be positively or negatively interpreted by the mind, which stores past experiences of those sensations of body in both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The former voluntarily accepts or rejects those sensations, while the latter involuntarily includes whatever the subconscious mind is exposed to. True wisdom is the capability of the mind to know what is real and what is unreal. 

Tao wisdom is the ancient wisdom from China that shows you how to have an empty mind first to rethink your mind in order to separate the truths from the half-truths t Perceptionso Changeor myths.

Tao wisdom is the essence in the art of living well, It is the profound wisdom of the ancient Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works in world literature. The book has been popular for thousands of years due to its wisdom, which is simple but controversial, profound and yet intriguing. To fully understand it, you need to get all the essentials of Tao wisdom. Click here for more details.

With Tao wisdom, you may live a much better life, without depressive episodes now and then.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Make A Smart Kid Smarter

Make your child or grandchild smarter.

29 Smart Steps to Teach Your Smart Kid to Read

This 117-page is based on how I taught my daughter to read some 30 years ago. 

Like all proud parents, I was and still am proud of the fact that I could teach her how to read when she just turned three (most children learn at the age of five). The TV and all electronic devices may not be as effective as YOU, the parent, to teach your child through everyday intellectual interactions, games, and activities. 

This book provides 29 steps that could begin as early as your baby is one-month-old. My daughter became a proficient reader when she was five (reading books with little or no illustrations). By seven, she would not let me teach her anything -- she could find everything from books. It paid off and it's worth all the initial efforts in teaching her to become an early reader. Now she's an attorney in the United States.  I wrote this book because she has recently become a mother herself, and that's why I wrote this book to share my experience some three decades ago.

Also, read my book" Make Your Smart Baby Super Smart.

Stephen Lau

A Healthy Brain

When you think about being healthier for longer, think Alzheimer's disease, dementia and memory loss.

When you think about physical fitness, you generally think from the neck down. But your brain health plays a critical role in almost everything you do: thinking, feeling, remembering, working, and playing—even sleeping.

Maintain optimum brain health throughout your life.

  

A healthy heart

Your brain health has everything to do with your heart health. Remember, what is good for your heart is also good for your head.

The strongest evidence linking brain health to heart health is that your heart pumps about 20 percent of your blood to your brain, where billions of brain cells are nourished by oxygen and nutrients from your blood.

Consequently, if your heart is not pumping well, or if your brain’s blood vessels are damaged, your brain cells may have trouble getting all the food and oxygen they need. Insufficient blood flow to your brain cells may result in poor nourishment, leading to cognitive decline, dementia and neurological dysfunction—which are all signs of aging.

Breathing right

Breathing affects your brain health because it supplies oxygen to your brain cells.

Always maintain good posture, which leads to healthy breathing and consequently a healthy heart. Learn to breathe right!

Good nutrients

Your brain cells need nutrients, which are transported to them through your blood vessels. A healthy diet makes a healthy brain. Given that any condition that damages your heart or blood vessels can adversely affect your brain’s blood supply, and hence nutrients to your brain, a healthy heart complements a healthy brain.

Consume a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, fiber and low-fat dairy products, with a reduced level of sodium and saturated and total fat, to get all the good nutrients for your brain health. Eat only super foods.

If you drink, limit alcohol intake to two drinks a day for men and one for women for better brain health.

A brain-healthy diet is one that reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes, encourages good blood flow to the brain, and is low in fat and cholesterol. Like the heart, the brain needs the right balance of nutrients, including protein and sugar, to function well. A brain-healthy diet is most effective when combined with physical and mental activities and social interactions to provide the best brain health for you.

Weight control

A long-term study of 1,500 adults found that those who were obese in middle age were twice as likely to develop dementia in later life, and those who also had high cholesterol and high blood pressure had six times the risk for dementia.

• Reduce your intake of fat and cholesterol. Studies have shown that high intake of saturated fat and cholesterol clogs the arteries and is associated with higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

• Use mono- and polyunsaturated fats, such as olive oil. Avoid trans-fat in processed foods.

• Avoid fad diets, which only temporarily control your weight but permanently upset your body metabolism.

Exercise, walking, or other moderate exercise for 30 minutes each day not only pumps up your heart, making it younger and healthier, but also maintains your body weight. Yoga, in particular, is ideal for weight loss for any age.

Controlling your body weight holds the key to preventing Alzheimer's disease, which impairs brain health.

Stephen Lau  

Copyright© by Stephen Lau