Healthy Habits for Healthy Brains Here are 7 ways to insure the good health of your brain. 1. Get a good night's sleep. The brain is very active during the sleep cycle.  Sleep coincides with the release of growth hormone in children and young adults. Sleep appears necessary for our nervous systems to work properly. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm http://www.ehow.com/about_4780824_health-benefits-sleeping.html 2. Have dinner as a family. Regular family dinners correlate with many wonderful outcomes: lower rates of substance abuse, teen pregnancy and depression, as well as higher grade-point averages and self-esteem. Dinner conversation is a more potent vocabulary-booster than reading Stories told around the kitchen table help our children build resilience. Regular family meals also lower the rates of obesity and eating disorders in children and adolescents. http://thefamilydinnerproject.org/faq/ http://www.ehow.com/info_8236026_studies-importance-family-dinner.html 3.  Read Read to your children long after they can read themselves. Read material above the child's independent reading level to develop vocabulary and language skills while providing exercise to the imagination. Reading also provides good exercise for the adult brain. http://www.ehow.com/video_4790951_reading-benefit-brain_.html 4. Play games. There are so many benefits of play including: reducing stress, honing problem solving, social skill development, physical health,... http://www.ehow.com/facts_5770313_benefits-family-playing-games_.html  5. Use a helmet. If you fall from your bike, the bicycle helmet takes the force of the blow — instead of your head. Wear the helmet flat on the top of your head. Make sure the helmet covers the top of your forehead without tilting forward or backward, and the straps form a V shape under each ear. Fasten the chin strap below your chin — not to the side or along your jaw. If the bicycle helmet rocks from side to side or front to back, use the sizing pads that came with the helmet to get a better fit. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bicycle-helmet/HQ00324 6. Get outside and have some fun. Exposure to natural sunlight provides many health benefits. Sunlight provides 1,200 frequencies of light which all act on some part of your body. They power the cells, regulate your biological clock and help produce hormones, they affect your metabolism, give you the equivalent of vitamin C and vitamin D. When you're not getting enough light, all these functions start diminishing. Artificial light cannot provide the full spectrum of light frequencies needed. John Ott was a pioneer in analyzing the effects of artificial light on the human body and time-lapse photographer for Walt Disney too. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15585788  7. Use a seat belt.   Enough said.     Brain T shirts