Parenting: It's a difficult time. After two years of toil and anxiety, a fortune on grinds, sleepless nights over CAO choices and cold feet over honours papers, the exams are now just weeks away. You've done your best. No one can accuse you of being unprepared, writesLouise Holden
Unfortunately, you did your Leaving Cert more than 30 years ago and you can't actually walk into the exam hall and sit it again for your child.
Over the next few weeks, the best you can do is issue plenty of encouragement and safeguard the tranquillity of the home. However, if you really need to do something to calm your pre-exam nerves, get cooking. While your Great White Hope doodles in the margin of his history book and daydreams about two weeks in Ibiza, you can play witchdoctor cooking up brain fuel to get him through the next two gruelling months.
In his book Optimum Nutrition for the Mind, nutritionist Patrick Holford describes five vital dietary measures to improve brain function. All the benefits described can be achieved through eating the right foods, although a comprehensive vitamin and mineral supplement is good to ensure that your student is getting all they need at this stressful time.
First things first - balance your glucose. If the student in the house is surviving on a diet of cola, white bread, chocolate and coffee the chances are his blood sugar levels are leaping like a lie detector during an ad break. Banish white bread, pastas and rice in favour of brown varieties, replace sugary drinks and caffeine with water and skimmed milk. Provide plenty of complex carbohydrates that release energy slowly - wholegrains, vegetables, fruit, beans and lentils. Try a breakfast of oat flakes or porridge sweetened with apple, or a boiled egg with wholegrain bread. Lunch could consist of reduced sugar baked beans on wholemeal toast, tuna with wholemeal pasta, tomato and lightly cooked vegetables, lentil or bean soup with green salad. Snack on fruit, nuts, seeds, and popcorn or wholegrain crackers with peanut butter, hummus or cottage cheese. If you can help your student to break the sugar addiction, he will no longer suffer from the slumps in energy and concentration that result from too much refined sugar in the bloodstream.
The second key to good brain function, according to Holford, is the group of nutrients known as essential fats. These are found in fish, seeds, seed oils (especially flaxseed/linseed), pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, walnuts, peanuts and so on.
To ensure that your son or daughter is getting enough essential fats to improve memory, concentration and retention, Holford suggests putting one measure of sesame, sunflower, pumpkin, lecithin and flax seeds in a sealed jar in the fridge. Add one heaped tablespoon to your student's porridge or oat cereal in the morning. Grind it in a coffee grinder if desired. This mix could also be added to a yogurt and fruit smoothie. Dish up at least two servings of oily fish (sardines, tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring) per week.
A particularly useful nutrient for memory function is the phospholipid. This is found in eggs and organ meats and also in lecithin, which you can buy as a supplement. Choline and seline are two critical phospholipids that can be obtained in fish, especially sardines, peanuts, eggs, liver and soy beans.
The fourth dietary boost to intelligence comes from amino acids. Adequate supplies of amino acids are especially important as exam time as they help us to relax, concentrate and cope with stress. Turkey, for example, contains the amino acid tryptophan which helps to release the happy hormone serotonin. Other foods rich in amino acids include brown rice, tuna, salmon, sardines, chicken, eggs, yogurt, beans and lentils.
Finally, says Holford, stock up on intelligent nutrients. B vitamins are absolutely central to proper brain function but many of us are lacking B vitamins such as thiamin and zinc. Thiamin (B1) increases mental stamina and is found in wholegrains and vegetables. Zinc deficiency is associated with "blank mind" - not what you want in an exam. It's easy to become zinc deficient - avoid blank mind by topping up on nuts, seeds and fish. Niacin (B3), improves memory and is also found in wholegrains and vegetables. Folic acid, critical to intellectual performance, is found in vegetables such as spinach and broccoli.
Once you've packed the cupboards with fresh fruit and vegetables, oily fish, nuts, seeds, lean meat, wholegrain breads and cereals and a good vitamin supplement, you can start phasing out the "brain drain" foods that interfere with your student's ability to focus and cope with stress. These include sugary foods, foods full of additives, caffeine and trans fats of the type found in fried foods and crisps. These trans fats get in the way of the essential fats, blocking their heroic work in the brain. Refined sugar brings no nutrients into the system but takes B vitamins with it on the way out.
If your child is a smoker, he or she should know that smoking depletes zinc, hampering memory and concentration. Caffeine makes the brain insensitive to its own natural stimulants, dopamine and adrenalin. You need more and more caffeine to feel normal resulting in adrenal exhaustion, tiredness, apathy, inability to cope. Avoid cola, coffee, strong tea and stimulant drinks high in caffeine. Starting the day with caffeine and sugar makes you feel better only because it treats the withdrawal symptoms created by your over consumption of refined sugar and caffeine the previous day. Break the cycle by starting the day with a caffeine-free drink such as a yoghurt and fruit shake or herbal tea.
I can't promise that a daily serving of sesame seeds and sardines will equal 20 extra CAO points but it will help your child to cope better with the exacting task ahead.
Optimum Nutrition for the Mind by Patrick Holford is published by Piatkus
