How to grow new neurons and why you definitely want to!!! :)

Neurons or nerve cells are specialised cells of the brain and nervous system that allow you to do basically EVERYTHING!
Neurons are designed to transmit information to other nerve cells, muscles and glands and they allow the body to communicate NOT ONLY what is happening externally to the nervous system and brain and vice versa but allows the body to communicate with itself. So everything you think, do, feel and even a whole lot of things your body does that you’re not even aware of (hello homoeostasis) is all done through your neurons!

There are approximately 100 billion neurons in the brain, for a better idea on what that means...If you were going to count all 100 billion cells at a rate of 1 cell per second. It would take about 3,171 years! (extra fun fact: octopuses have 300 billion! that is why they're so smart!)
Most of these neurons are developed very early during the embryo and foetal stages of life and basically stop producing after 18 months of age.

Neurons do break down and can be damaged by unhealthy behaviours and just ageing in general. Some ways this can happen include...head trauma or concussions, headbanging (sorry metal-heads), alcohol, ecstasy, cocaine and cigarettes or tobacco, air pollution, pesticides, too much water, not enough sleep, cortisol which is released when you feel stressed. (that's right stress can be killing off your neurons so take more holidays!) and then there are psychological disorders and diseases that destroy your neurons too.

So its pretty hard to not do some damage but the good news is you can stimulate neuron growth (this is pretty new in the scientific community as it was previously thought that you could NOT grow new neurons!)
Its called neurogenesis and LEARNING, SEX, AEROBIC EXERCISE and DIET can all help you grow more neurons! approximately 700 are born in the hippocampus each day but these activities help strengthen them to keep them alive. Neuron production has been found to improve memory and mood. in fact many people with severe depression have been found to have low neurogenesis production.
In a study done on mice, neuron production more than doubled in the mice that had a simple running wheel in their cage.

(The little black dots are the neurons here)

Many people don't realise the importance of neurons until they start to experience the effects of not having ones that work so well either for themselves or by seeing someone they know experience this. For example, multiple sclerosis is a well known condition of the nervous system and the well known symptoms are of motor skill decline. MS is caused by a reduction of a substance called myelin that wraps around the axons of neurons and this keeps the communication between neurons fast, the break down of this substance slows the communication and caused disruptions to many functions, usually most obvious is movement.

For me specifically, I want to look after my neurons for mental alertness, learning and remembering because I've struggled with chronic fatigue since contracting glandular fever last year and I can’t believe how much I noticed a decline in my cognitive abilities! Also having strong and fast neurons helps to regulate emotions and I think I could use being a little bit less moody! ha! !

As we age our cognitive abilities decline anyway and we all participate in activities or day to day stresses that are killing our neurons so I think we could all benefit from actively working towards increasing our neuron production so get out there and exercise or eat some chocolate, learn some new things or what better way to convince someone to have sex with you then "i'm just trying to grow more neurons"

Please upvote, comment and follow if care about your neurons! :)

Note-This topic is extremely intricate and I have done my best to summarise and simplify. The general content is information I've been taught at uni but I've included some references i used to quickly double check.

https://newswise.com/articles/want-to-improve-memory-strengthen-your-synapses-heres-how
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neurogenesis-how-to-grow-new-brain-cells_us_56253c16e4b0bce347019a2c
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234146/
Images found on google image