Charger Blogger Discusses Fueling Your Brain for Finals

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the blog. As we transition into November, I’m reminded of the many great things about fall: cozy sweaters, warm mugs of hot chocolate, and -

Professor: “Final exams! Who’s excited?”
Author:
Author: huh?

Yeah: finals season. Y’know, that really big batch of stressful days back-to-back-to-back? Yeah, that thing. Ew.

Okay, okay — I can’t hate entirely. While final exams do serve their purpose of evaluating one’s understanding of material, they can also be very stress-inducing and make me want to munch my way through a box of girl scout cookies. That being said, finals season always gives me the challenge of and opportunity to optimize my brain health. If you’ve read my article about lion’s mane, you’ll know that it has neuroregenerative properties and actually made my headaches go away, which was fantastic. But what else is there to learn about one’s nog’?

A lot. There’s a lot of nog that goes into the nog’, apparently. Seeing that I study nutrition, we will be approaching this from a nutritional perspective, so please bear that in mind. There are so many things that can affect our brains aside from nutrition, so I’d avoid hyper focusing on the specifics. Health is all about consistency, and that is something I will continue to believe in and advise throughout my career.

In regard to the human brain, the ability of food “to prevent and protect diseases is starting to be recognized” (Gómez-Pinilla). The human body (in addition to the brain) is a very resourceful piece of biology. Not only is it able to regulate temperature, hunger signals, and how long you sleep without the interference of an alarm, but it’s able to tell you things you never remembered learning about. We are constantly absorbing things, especially in the digital era that we’ve entered. There’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding food, exercise, and general health, so my job is to cut through that and give you the truth. 🙂

Brain health — and overall health — is dependent on what you provide it for nutrients. For example, “a diet that is rich in omega-3 fatty acids is garnering appreciation for supporting cognitive processes in humans and upregulating genes that are important for maintaining synaptic function” (Gómez-Pinilla). In other words, omega-3 fatty acids enable the brain to think faster (and better) and help the body express genes (a sequence of DNA nucleotides) that enable it to continue to think, well, good. Not to mention, omega-3s are fatty acids that are able to help insulate a neuron’s myelin sheath — which is like neuron electrical tap. They insulate the electrochemical gradient shift throughout the neuron until it is deposited at the dendrite and distributed.

In short: omega-3 + neuron = big brain moment (this is heavily generalized, lol).

But what about other fatty acids? What about unsaturated fats? Most heart-healthy fats, such as olive oil, avocados, and nuts and seeds tend to provide a variety of minerals and vitamins in addition to caloric value to the body. These foods are nutrient-dense, and capable of giving particular items one may not be able to acquire from other foods (though highly unlikely, as most foods contain varying amounts of the same micro or macro-nutrient). However, “diets that are high in saturated fat are becoming notorious for reducing molecular substrates that support cognitive processing and increasing the risk of neurological dysfunction in both humans and animals” (Gómez-Pinilla).

Before anyone panics, let’s ask what saturated fat is. This type of fat is solid at room temperature and includes foods such as butter, lard, avocados (which I mentioned), and is often found in many processed foods, especially meat. Considering that most of the population in the world consumes heavily processed foods with saturated fats, it’s something to keep in mind when looking at the prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases within a given population. Taking this into account, note that things in small amounts won’t negatively impact your health — it’s small things over years that are able to do that.

Summarily, the relationship between diet and the brain is able to impact the following:

1. Brain development
2. Signaling networks and neurotransmitters (i.e. dopamine, serotonin, etc.) in the brain
• Some foods can produce more happiness, contentedness, disgust, etc.
3. Cognition and memory
4. Balance between protein production and degradation
5. Deteriorating effects brought on by chronic inflammatory processes (Rahman et al.)
• Remember how I said that small (acute) things over time can start to negatively impact your health? That’s what chronic inflammation is.

Of course, there are other aspects to brain nutrition aside from omega-3 and saturated-fat consumption. Different vitamins and minerals, proteins, and exercise duration and type — these all have their implications. While Zinc is essential for several biological processes, iron is necessary for healthy neurotransmission, myelination, and overall brain growth (Rahman et al.). Everything will do something in the body, it’s just important to be aware of the amounts of inadequacy and excess.

I know I’ve talked a lot of fancy words by now, so I’d like to wrap this article up with a list of my favorite brain foods and why I like to eat them.

For Iron:

• Heme (easily absorbed): beef (85% lean, grass-fed) with carrots and ‘taters
• Non-heme (less easily absorbed): spinach, kale, dark leafy greens

For Zinc:

• Pumpkin seeds, cashews, nuts (general), oysters, legumes, beans

For those Omega-3s:

• Fish! (Salmon, sardines, mackerel)
• Flax & Chia seeds (good for topping oatmeal, yogurt bowls, etc.)

Other Stuff:

• Coffee (yes, the tasty bean juice)
• Lion’s mane supplementation

Maybe I like the lion’s mane stuff so much because I’m a Leo, haha.

I hope this article has given you some nutritional direction, and perhaps even some cooking ideas. In addition to this piece, there will be a follow-up article on my studying methods as well as where I like to study on and off campus! Nutrition will not always be linear, so keep this in mind: Hyper fixating on food will not do you, or your body, any good. Keep things new, and trust yourself.

It’s just food.

With peace, love, and peanut butter, I hope to see you soon!

Beatrice ❤️

Beatrice Glaviano ’26 is a nutrition sciences major at the University of New Haven.