Glucose Is Important For Our Brain

Your brains uses more than 20% of your body's total energy even though it only comprises about 3% of your total weight! Your brain runs almost exclusively on a sugar called glucose, yet your it has no place where it can actually store glucose. So what does this mean? It means that all the glucose your brain needs must come from your blood. This is why your blood glucose levels are critically important in determining how well your brain works. And as you've probably already guessed, your glucose levels are affected by what you eat. For example, after you have a big hearty dinner your glucose levels will rise for awhile, peak, and then begin to slowly fall as your body uses and stores the glucose in your other cells. When you wake up in the morning your blood glucose levels are at their lowest level. About an hour after you eat a meal your glucose levels are at their highest level.
Have you ever looked at a graph of the stock market for a day's worth of trading? If you have, you know that it's not just a straight line that slowly rises or slowly falls throughout the day. Instead, it looks like a 3-year-old scribbled on a piece of paper with a crayon; it fluctuates up and down repeatedly. Maybe it rises in the morning for a few hours, falls slightly before lunch, then rises again, then falls, then rises, then falls a bit... This is exactly how your blood glucose levels work - they rise and fall throughout the day depending on when, what, and how much you eat.
This is really important because your brain works best at moderate blood glucose levels. If your glucose levels are too low, your brain doesn't function optimally, and if they're too high, your brain also isn't performing at its peak. So how do you keep your glucose levels in between the highs and low? By not starving yourself and not gorging yourself. The goal is to try to keep your glucose levels relatively constant, more like a scribbling 5-year-old instead of that scribbling 3-year-old. In general, this means you should eat smaller meals and have healthy snacks in between. You also need to eat food that takes your body time to process. Your body handles all foods differently. Why do you think you feel satiated for the next four hours after eating a big bowl of oatmeal and some whole wheat toast with peanut butter, but are hungry 15 minutes after drinking a can of soda and eating eating some chips? The soda and chips take your body minimal time to break down while the oatmeal, toast, and peanut butter take a long time to break down. Which choice do you think will keep your glucose levels more constant for a longer period of time? Yes, the oatmeal, toast, and peanut butter. Here is a graph I made of a typical person's glucose levels throughout the day versus a graph of what you should strive for:

The differences should be obvious. Notice how the typical person's glucose levels aren't optimal for hours at a time? Notice how the typical person's glucose levels go up and down like the Space Mountain rollercoaster, only it's not nearly as exciting? And notice how your glucose levels are lowest in the morning? This is why breakfast is by far the most important meal of the day and is the reason why I have dedicated a whole series of articles about how to eat breakfast. Other articles will discuss how to eat throughout the rest of the day to maximize your brainpower and productivity so you don't suffer those post-lunch dips. You know, when you go into a food-induced coma and start drooling on your desk or mindlessly play solitaire on your computer...
And just to show how crazily, incredibly, unbelievably important glucose is in helping you learn faster and remember more, in the next article I'm going to tell you about some amazing scientific studies on mice and humans that prove glucose really does control how well your brain works. If you don't believe me after reading the studies, well, then, you probably don't believe the studies proving the earth is round either.

So here's the take-home message:

Your brain runs exclusively on a sugar called glucose. Glucose is brought to your brain via your bloodstream. What you eat determines how much glucose is in your bloodstream, and thus, how well your brain works. If you want to perform your best, you need to eat good foods at appropriate times throughout the day to maintain a relatively constant level of glucose. Doing this will boost your brainpower an incredible amount.