Exercise is great for the brain – really!
Amber Elizabeth – brains, body and a great personality
Better body, better brain.
That’s what the research is saying. We kind of knew it, but now a number of studies have shown that people who exercise regularly actually learn faster, remember more, think clearer and are less prone to depression and cognitive decline. So stop with the crossword puzzles and get on that treadmill and be smarter, live longer. Just slip into some mind-numbing exercise and presto, you’re on your way.
For serious, female fitness buffs, the magazine Oxygen will give you a lot of information and ideas about health, fitness and food. For men, Oxygen’s October cover girl, Amber Elizabeth is worth emulating – and it’s her mind, not her body that you will be interested in.
Back to exercise. Of course, we know that we should eat right too: More veggies, fruit, fish and a whole lot less gluten. Yes, less gluten is the new news. The evidence is in and the gluten-free rush is on. Most supermarkets and restaurants (the smart ones, like Kelseys) are now catering to people on gluten-free diets. If you eliminate most of the gluten from your diet, you will lose weight, clean out your system, have more energy and be healthier. And it’s easy. I didn’t need to lose much weight but lost 16 pounds without even trying. But that’s another story, this one is about getting smarter.
Carl Cotman, director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at the University of California in Irvine says that exercise acts as a mild stressor and spurs protective benefits associated with calorie restriction and the release of brain-building growth factors. It’s a (more…)
“People are the worst”
Coming 2026
My personal history is the stuff they write books about. And that's what I am doing. The working title, "Chains of My Father: Marry White."
"The ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." - Barack Obama
This perspicacious line from the Prologue of Barack Obama's "Dream from My Father" wrenched my aspiration into action. I started writing, furiously. Unlike Obama's perspective, my pain had been for the opposite reason: I was not seen by whites as a "tragic mulatto," rather I lived every day of my childhood hoping whites were not "searching my eyes for some telltale sign" that I WAS mulatto. This is my story.
It's historical fiction because I cannot find enough records to substantiate all facets of the story. I've combed the genealogy, traveled to my father and grandmothers' birthplace, walked the graveyards, searched the churches and ... well, all the facts aren't there. I have written three books based on the genealogy of other families but my ancestors emerged from a journey that left too few records – slavery.
My paternal, great grandmother was a "freed slave." My grandmother, Amelia, was born to a mixed race slave named Mary (we do not know her last name) and a white, French plantation owner, the Count de Poullain, in Grenada, West Indies. Amelia was raised in the "Big House" and in adulthood, in an attempt to escape her black heritage disowned her mother, telling her, "Get out and never come back." Amelia, as a mother of twelve children, enshrined into the family commandments, "Marry white." Many did, including my father. My mother was a lovely, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant born in England. They met in Canada where my dad studied and became a doctor.
It has taken five generations for the descendants of Mary to free themselves from the stigma of their black heritage but today my children embrace it. Unfortunately, the past 250 years have been a wasteland of bigotry, racism and bullying. But, on closer look, we see not only the brutality, fear, violence, and murder but also the self-respect, dignity, love, kindness, perseverance and indomitable spirit.
As of the spring of 2025, the depth of historic perspective and the sweeping inspiration of oppressed people has created a two-volume duology of which I have only arrived at the middle of the 19th century. 1840 is the year my great grandfather was born, the beginning of Volume II, and he's pushing me to make sure our story is published by the summer of 2026.
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