During our 5,000 mile, year long walk across the country along the American Discovery Trail we were invited to stay in the home of a Cooperative Extension professor working for Kansas State University. Her main focus was the bridging of different cultures, the traditional white ranch culture and the Hispanic immigrants that typically worked in meat packaging plants. She shared a telling observation from this research: the rice and bean diet of immigrants in their native lands was better than the fast and processed food diet they ate in America.
This blog began with reporting on stories like that from our journey. You now know there was another, hidden reason for that walk across the country, to reboot Cindy’s life and her health. Her cognitive function did improve during the journey, but the gains were lost once we returned to normal life. That led to research regarding the impact of quality of life factors, particularly exercise, on brain health.
As I’ve continued to research and report on brain health, I have uncovered as well how much the issues of brain health and humanity are linked. For example, researchers across the country report that generosity reduces stress, improves brain health and increases life span. We are not hard-wired for greed after all, despite what those with vested interests might claim.
Studies also have shown that the same factors leading to cognitive decline in the elderly lead to smaller brains in the young. Most people intuitively believe that experiences related to different socioeconomic conditions impact later success in life; these studies confirm a physiological difference that society should not ignore. Children who start out economically disadvantaged not only have experiences to overcome, they have brain tissue to make up, due to such factors as greater stress … and a cheaper processed food diet.
After our walk across the country I started on a manuscript with a working title of Kindness across America. I was 60% done when work on the manuscript halted because of my expanding caregiver duties. Our current situation dictates that I give that project a new title and start anew, reflecting not only on the kindness and communities discovered along the way, but also on our own personal discoveries as we cope with the disease afflicting over five million Americans. The two themes of health and humanity relate more closely than some might suspect.
I have started writing this using Google Docs. If you are interested in providing feedback to help make this the best manuscript it can be let me know and I will share the Google Doc for others to comment. I also will post excerpts and updates from this new approach to an old project on this blog as I continue to share my ongoing discoveries about the quality of life, brain health and home care. Thanks for sticking with us on our journey.
