Anti-Age Your Brain
According to The Gerontological Society of America, the brain loses tissue from your 30s onward. Studies have shown that aerobic exercise actually improves cognition and overall cerebral health. Yet another reason to stop using that treadmill as a clothes rack.
But beyond physical exercise, how can you keep your brain sharp well into your golden years? Scientists believe that exercising your brain can create synapses that will help you maintain your mental acuity as you age.
Her are a few tips courtesy of wikiHow.
• Learn. As people age they tend to think they are unable to learn new skills. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, learning a language, how to play an instrument or to use a computer program not only keep your brain young, but keeps life interesting…and keeps you marketable.
• Play. Games and puzzles like crosswords, Sudoku, Scrabble and computer games keep those synapses firing.
• Read. Reading often and a variety of books, magazines and newspapers increases you vocabulary and exercises your brain.
• Remember. Try to memorize things whenever possible. Keep a grocery list in your pocket. But before you reach for it, try to remember what you wrote on it. Memory is one of the first things to fade if you don’t use it. And with cell phones and computers to recall contacts and to-do lists, people use their memories less and less.
• Test. You thought the only tests you had to worry about were in your CE classes. Use computer games to test memory and attention and watch it improve as you train it. This will give you the encouragement to keep at it.
• Write. Writing is not only cathartic, but it helps you to organize the thoughts in your brain and to take ideas and synthesize them into something tangible.
• Meditate. Spend time each day quietly sitting. Clear your mind of the clutter and just be. Just five minutes of this type of reflection a day can help you become a more relaxed and centered person.
• Eat. The bad fats you consumer not only clog the arteries in your heart. Studies have shown that your brain can actually become clogged with the plaque-like substance ordinarily found in unhealthy hearts. Foods with Omega-3 fatty acids boost intellectual stamina. Think of fish, nuts, tofu and squash as brain food.
• Calculate. Skip the calculator and attempt simple math functions mentally.
• Switch. Use your left hand instead of the right or vise versa and exercise the opposite side of your brain.
Exercising your brain can be part of your everyday activities. And when you're the one reminding your kids where they left their shoes, you will be happy you didn't take your brain for granted.
