Most often, you choose your diet based on your body type. In the process, you inadvertently end up neglecting your brain. This is where the concept of a brain diet comes to play. Brain diet comprises of brain foods and supplements that are meant to improve your memory, concentration and lift up your mood. Foods that are good for brain development are necessary as they improve your mental and emotional health.

Essential Brain Diet Foods to Consider

Coffee
Surprising as it may sound; coffee is indeed a food that tops the list of the best foods for brain development. The components of coffee, caffeine, and antioxidants, help your brain by increasing alertness, improving mood and concentration. This is possible because caffeine blocks adenosine, which is a chemical messenger responsible for making you feel sleepy. It also boosts the so-called ‘feel good’ neurotransmitters like Serotonin. The presence of antioxidants in coffee, on the other hand, ensures that a person who drinks coffee over the long term is less prone to neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson.

Fatty Fish
Fatty Fish is an excellent food for brain diet, and this is mainly because of its concentration of omega-3 fatty acids. About 60% of our brain is made of fat, and half of this fat belongs to the Omega 3 category. Omega 3 fat is used for building brain and nerve cells that, in turn, help us in the process of learning and retention of memory. Among the additional benefits of fatty fish or omega 3 fats, it slows down age-related memory decline and associated diseases like Alzheimer’s. Thus, baked fish or broiled fish can be considered as one of the most recommended brain foods.

Broccoli 
Broccoli is known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory components. As for its significance in mental health, it is high in Vitamin K, which forms sphingolipids, a fat found in high concentration in the brain cells. The intake of Vitamin K by eating broccoli helps to improve your memory and also protects your brain from damage.

Turmeric 
This yellow colored spice is considered to have a lot of positive effects on a person’s mental health, apart from its usual purpose of adding flavor to your dishes. This is because the main ingredient in Turmeric is Curcumin which is effective in crossing the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain cells directly. Further, it clears the amyloid plaques, and thereby improves memory in people with Alzheimer, while also boosting Serotonin and Dopamine that plays an active role in lifting up your mood. Overall, intake of turmeric with other foods paves the way for faster and healthier brain cell development.

Dark Chocolate
The effectiveness of dark chocolate in lifting up one’s mood is pretty much proven. It contains brain-boosting compounds like caffeine, antioxidants and most importantly, flavonoids. Now, flavonoids in chocolate gather in those brain areas that particularly deal with learning and memory. At the same time, they slow down an age-related mental decline and enhance memory to a great extent. Eating chocolate makes people feel positive and happy because it affects the brain directly.

Walnuts 
While nuts, in general, are good for improving mental health, walnuts are considered an essential brain diet because they have additional Omega 3 fats, along with the goodness of the nuts. The antioxidants and Vitamin E in walnuts further ensure improvement in cognitive abilities and prevention of neurodegenerative diseases. Vitamin E works well in protecting your cell membranes from free radical damage.

So, add these essential foods and spices in your daily diet, to take the maximum possible care of your brain health