Brain health is a crucial aspect of aging, with 1 in 9 adults over the age of 65 experiencing cognitive decline, as suggested by the CDC. While this decline is a natural part of aging, enhancing brain health can significantly improve your quality of life and help you maintain independence and confidence in your senior years.
But what can you do to support your brain health and retain your shape functions for as long as possible?
Brain Training
Engaging in brain training and memory games is not just a pastime but a powerful tool to support your brain health. These games keep you thinking and present challenges that you need to figure out. By doing so, they support natural brain functions and help you create pathways that facilitate good health and ward off decline. This active engagement in brain training empowers you to take control of your cognitive health.
Great games to play include chess, card games like solitaire, spider solitaire, and mahjong, as well as crossword puzzles, sudoku, and more.
Exercise
Exercise can be an exfoliant way to preserve your physical, mental, and cognitive abilities. When you exercise, you increase blood flow to the brain, delivering the essential nutrients your brain needs to function.
It doesn’t matter what type of exercise you do as long as you are active to the best of your ability as much as possible. Whether you’re walking, swimming, strength training, or cycling, it doesn’t matter. This flexibility in exercise choices is designed to encourage and motivate you to incorporate activity into your life at any age to help you improve your brain health.
Learn Something New
Learning is not just a hobby but a key to improved brain health. It helps to encourage new cell growth and create pathways. Both of these are vital for improved brain health and help to keep things firing as you need them too. This emphasis on the importance of learning is designed to inspire and encourage you to learn as much as you can for your brain health and mental well-being.
Again, like exercise, what you learn isn’t essential. But learning as much as you can benefits your brain health and even your mental health.
You can learn to play a musical instrument, learn a new language, learn how to play a new sport or learn a new skill. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re enjoying yourself and putting your grey matter through its paces to support your cognitive functions.
Stay Healthy
We have already touched upon the importance of exercise, but you also need to ensure you are living a healthy lifestyle. This means quitting smoking, cutting down or quitting drinking alcohol, eating a healthy, balanced diet, staying active, getting enough sleep, and anything else that ensures you are living your best life and supporting your body to help you do so.
Stay Connected
Isolation and loneliness are significant factors contributing to a decline in cognitive health. Retreating from others and not being a part of society can occur for many reasons; however, it can be massively detrimental to your health. Retaining human connections, talking, socializing, being around others, and having meaningful conversations are all excellent ways to improve your mental health and support healthy brain functions now and in the future.
Category: WebTags:
