Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay
You’ve read here about the benefits of walking and other exercises to keep physically fit, and you probably know your brain also needs exercise to stay healthy. But do you know you can increase your brain function as you age?
Don’t buy the lies
We’ve all shared the jokes about senior moments and heard the sad stories about dementia. However, we should not let jokes and antidotes displace the truth about the aging brain.
It has been a long-held misconception that our brain capacity diminishes with age. Our brains began to shrink slightly in our 30s and that continues into our sixties. That does not necessarily mean a reduced mental capacity.
Heightened research begun in the 1990s by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health and continuing today has disproved the old concepts about old brains.
That research has shown that neurons, the cells that enable information transfer in the brain, can increase as we age, instead of dying off as originally thought. This process of neuron development called neurogenesis was thought to be impossible late in life.
Grow your brainpower
So does this research say you can grow your neurons?
Yes.
How you live - your daily experiences - can improve your brains, neuro network, and cognitive function.
Though childhood is the most fertile time for brain development, neuroscientists now know you can maintain and build brainpower as you age. That is because your brain growth and development is not based solely on genetics and childhood experience. Adult activities and experiences also contribute to brain health.
According to an article in the Harvard Review by Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts, “Brain-imaging studies indicate, for example, that acquired expertise in areas as diverse as playing a cello, juggling, speaking a foreign language, and driving a taxicab expands and makes more communicative the neural systems in the parts of the brain responsible for motor control and spatial navigation.”
That means we can physically change our brains by learning new skills. Of course, that takes effort. You can not learn new skills by watching television,
You can learn new tricks
Unfortunately, many Seniors let themselves be hemmed in by old cliches. Just because a lie gets repeated often, does not make it a truth. One of the most damaging lies for Seniors is the old chestnut - “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. This old dog lifts a hind leg on that lie.
Not only can we Seniors learn new tricks, we bring experience to the mix.
Many researchers say that new tricks or variations on old habits are the very prescription for maintaining and improving cognitive function.
“Exercising, keeping your brain active, and maintaining creativity can actually help to prevent cognitive decline and memory problems.” Melinda Smith, M.A., Jeanne Segal, PhD., and Monika White, PhD. wrote in the nonprofit publication Getting Help. “The more active and social you are and the more you use and sharpen your brain, the more benefits you will get. This is especially true if your career no longer challenges you or if you’ve retired from work altogether.”
Smith, Segal, and White recommend three actions for maintaining and improving mental acuity.
Vary your mental activities. If you like to work puzzles or take quizzes, try different and harder puzzles and quizzes. Instead of a jigsaw, try a geometric puzzle. Instead of a quiz in a subject you’re familiar with, try one on a subject you know little about.
Do something familiar differently. Years ago I watched from the second story as a friend of mine took a convoluted route to meet me. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he tried to vary his route to keep mentally sharp. Turns out researchers have found varying the way we do things adds to mental capacity. Taking a different route through the grocery store, brushing your teeth with a different hand are all little things we can do to boost our brainpower.
Learn something new. A new mental challenge is one of the best ways to stay mentally sharp. Learn a new language, take up golf, learn macro may, or any other new endeavor will help your brain thrive.