Remember the movie Limitless where Bradley Cooper pops in a crystal-like pill and it elevates the power of his brain and he can recall all the things that he read, saw, and felt in the past. What if you could simply get a pill like that to enhance the performance of your brain? Brain tonic is something that most people think will do exactly what the pill does in the movie. Not that it doesn’t enhance the power of the brain but obviously not to the extent the movie portrays.
Ayurvedic Brain Tonic
Brain performance is a pretty big thing and can’t be dealt in a wholesome manner. Hence, this time let’s just talk about the memory aspect of it that the brain tonic can enhance. You might be wondering about the side effects of the tonic, thus, we believe this is the right juncture to reveal the word “Ayurveda” here. Yes! We are basically talking about the herb called Bacopa monniera Linn which in other words is also called brahmi. This is widely believed to enhance the memory power.
However, since memory vastly depends upon the health of your brain, as a whole, it is important that you should remain mentally sound when you are a student. There are different things and exercises that can be done to improve memory. On the other hand, homeopathy also plays an important role in enhancing memory.
What Is Bacopa monniera linn?
Bacopa monniera linn aka Brahmi is a herb which occurs naturally in India and has a long history of use in the Ayurvedic medicine tradition in the treatment of a number of disorders, particularly those involving anxiety, intellect, and poor memory.
Bacopa monniera Linn: Brain Tonic
Bacopa monnieri is a homeopathic brain tonic that helps enhance memory and improve intelligence. It is prepared from an ancient herb that had been used traditionally for improving memory by stimulating brain cells. It helps to increase blood supply to the brain to help your brain in proper functioning. Moreover, experts say that there is no age limit to take the tonic. It can be taken by children as well as 60-year-old people.
Apart from increasing the memory power, it also helps relieve anxiety and improves concentration. Even old people suffering from dementia may take this memory enhancer. Studies have shown that the herb contains many active constituents, including a number of alkaloids and saponins; however, the major constituents are the steroidal saponins, Bacosides A and B. It is an excellent brain tonic suitable for people of all ages.
Research on Bacopa monniera Linn
Research 1
Reportedly, people taking homeopathic brain tonic made from the aforementioned herb has not complained about any side-effects so far. However, there are no published scientific studies of the effects of brahmi on memory in humans. So far it has only been tested on behavioral studies with rats. These studies have shown that it improves the rate of learning in a brightness discrimination task and a conditioned avoidance task, that it improves retention, as demonstrated by savings in relearning, and that it attenuates amnesia induced by immobilization, electroconvulsive shock and scopolamine. This latter finding involved administration of the extracted bacosides, A and B, and suggests that they influence cholinergic systems. Recently, however, it has been reported that brahmi has an antioxidant effect in the rat frontal cortex, striatum and hippocampus.
Research 2
Yet another study on the Bacopa monniera Linn in relation to human memory, suggests that the rate of learning was unaffected, suggesting that Brahmi decreases the rate of forgetting of newly acquired information. Tasks assessing attention, verbal and visual short-term memory and the retrieval of pre-experimental knowledge were unaffected. Questionnaire measures of everyday memory function and anxiety levels were also unaffected. This was a double-blind randomized, placebo control study in which various memory functions were tested and levels of anxiety was measured.
Bottom-line
Thus far, no such studies have reached to the conclusion which claims the impact of the Bacopa monniera Linn extract can improve the memory strength. However, if you analyze other studies or the ones that are mentioned above in a concise version, you will find a very close to positive results. Moreover, both the studies identify us with the common fact that it enhances memory. If you are concerned about the side-effects, it is probably very negligible. However, even the research on the side effects of the same is at a nascent stage.
