Studies show that test scores increase 20 percent when your child’s brain is nurtured. It is a growing organ that changes every minute. A brain is capable of remarkable changes up to the age of 25, when it is said that a person is capable of making concrete decisions.

By maximizing the brain’s functioning, intelligence is highly predisposed in everyday activities.

So how do you help this along?

Some ways you can help nurture your child’s brain include:

• A healthy diet. Three meals a day, complete with proteins and complex carbohydrates for mental energy, are essential. Don’t forget the foods with antioxidants to help improve memory! Try to avoid processed foods and foods with high sugar content.

• Start the day off with a good breakfast. Eggs and nuts are great for memory and brain development.
• Sneak in fruits and vegetables such as beans, legumes, and nuts. Be creative; kids are picky. Make a healthy dip to go with the vegetables.
• Omega 3 (healthy) fats help improve cognition. – Tuna, salmon, avocado, walnuts and almonds all are good sources. Flaxseed is high in fiber, helps with digestion and can be disguised in food.
• Whole grains help memory function. Complex, whole-grain carbohydrates contain folate and other B vitamins which help increase memory function and are also rich in fiber, giving a flow of energy so that your child can master that science test.
• Iron-rich foods are great for improving mental alertness and energy levels. Lean red meat, chicken, spinach, beans, dried fruits, and whole-grains are excellent choices.
• Calcium helps build strong bones. Milk, cheese, yogurt, or smoothies all provide calcium.
• Water helps with concentration. Instead of a sugary soda, add a slice of orange, lemon, or lime.

Physical exercise is key to health at any age. For kids, fun, age-appropriate physical exercise will help improve coordination and mental energy. Play ball, do crafts, listen to music, try word, logic and memory games and puzzles — and get kids into the sunshine and away from the television and computer screens.

Don’t forget positive reinforcement — a sticker or affirmative words can go a long way.

As an adult, we recognize that memories from our childhood can play out in our adult world in challenging ways.

With a trained therapist, you will be able to break down psychological resistance. This resistance often disguises itself as defense mechanisms. By doing this, you can better understand how your behavior today stems from your childhood memories and experiences.

So how do you do all of this?

1. Embrace the bad memory. Accept who you are and how your life is today.
2. Muster up the strength so that you can mentally say “This is the feeling that I have dreaded. I have felt it and faced it completely. Now, I can let the feeling go.”
3. Cultivate a positive self-image connecting you to the present rather than the past. Practice mindful breathing. Cleansing your mind and body helps lift your spirits and can eliminate unpleasant associations to memories.
4. Reconnect with the current happenings and people in your life. Recollect positive memories to counterbalance the negative ones.
5. Establish a new connection between the old memory and new emotions. Express yourself in creative ways such as writing, painting and crafts.

Bad memories and experiences can consume you negatively in your personal life, career, and relationships. They lie there in your unconscious where they can’t be deleted or undone. Overcoming painful childhood memories can be complicated.

The best place to start may be with an experienced counselor.

Therapists can easily lose track of their own issues, ignore their own problems, and at times have difficulty shutting off the therapeutic process.

In order to be a good therapist, it is necessary to take care of ourselves — our clients depend on it. Just because we know everything there is to know about stress management doesn’t mean that therapists can’t become mentally exhausted. If you are feeling “depersonalization” toward your clients or possibly yourself, you could be experiencing emotional fatigue.

Here are some ways that I like to keep balanced.

I use my colleagues’ expertise regularly. We go to lunch and consult each other on difficult cases. We bounce around different techniques and approaches that could heighten the therapeutic process.

I belong to many professional organizations and am very involved in my community. I feel that if I have the support of my community, then I am not alone in my journey. I enjoy volunteering and giving back to my community whenever possible. It makes me feel good to see that I have helped others with a small donation of my time.

I enjoy spending time with my family. Going to the beach and reading or walking is especially refreshing. I have two Labrador retrievers who demand a lot of attention. I find a great escape just going out into the backyard and throwing the Frisbee for an hour.

My family enjoys going on vacation. I take two trips a year with the family and then one with just my husband.

My practice is in my hometown. I have developed many friendships over the years. I enjoy spending time with many different groups of people. I am very thankful for the friendships that I have made.

In college, I had different goals. I could do and wanted to do everything that came to my mind. I achieved more things in one day than most people did in a week. My priorities have changed. I have a family now and I find it necessary to relax. Now, I want to balance giving and getting – attention to my family, friends, spouse, community, and solitude.

As a mental health professional, self-care is a minimum standard of professional practice. Your clients deserve to be served by a healthy, well-balanced health care professional. Every mental health professional has vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and needs. Take time today to identify yours.