Like all other a part of your body, your brain needs day by day exercise. Neglecting your brain health could make you vulnerable to degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.
As a neuroscientist, I’ve spent many years guiding patients with memory problems through brain-enhancing habits and exercises — a lot of which I practice, too.
Listed below are seven brain rules I follow to maintain my memory sharp as a whip at 81 years old:
1. Select fiction when you possibly can.
You’ll be able to learn lots from non-fiction works, but they are sometimes organized in ways in which mean you can skip around based on personal interests and former familiarity with the topic.
Fiction, alternatively, requires you to exercise your memory, as you proceed from starting to finish and retain a wide range of details, characters and plots.
Incidentally, I’ve noticed over my years as a neuropsychiatrist that folks with early dementia, as certainly one of the primary signs of the encroaching illness, often stop reading novels.
2. Never leave an art museum without testing your memory.
“Western Motel” by Edward Hopper 1957. Oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 50 1/8 inches (77.8 x 128.3 cm). Positioned within the Yale University Art Gallery, Latest Haven, Connecticut, USA. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)
Superb Art | Getty
My favorite painting to do visualization exercises with is Edward Hopper’s “Western Motel,” which depicts a lady sitting in a sunlit motel bedroom.
Start by intently studying the small print until you possibly can see them in your imagination. Then describe the painting while looking away from it.
Illustration: Olivia de Recat for CNBC Make It
Did you include the tiny clock on the bedside table? The gooseneck lamp? The piece of clothing on the chair on the lower right of the painting? Are you able to recall the colours and the composition of the room?
You’ll be able to do that with any piece of art to spice up your memory.
3. Keep naps under 90 minutes.
Naps lasting anywhere from half-hour to an hour and a half, between 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., have been shown to extend later recall for information encoded prior to the nap.
Several studies have also found that naps can compensate for poor sleep at night. For those who struggle with insomnia, a mid-afternoon nap can boost memory performance.
Through the years, I’ve trained myself to nap for exactly half an hour. Some people I do know have learned to nap for under quarter-hour, after which get up refreshed and reinvigorated.
4. No party is complete without brain games.
My favorite activity is “20 Questions,” where one person (the questioner) leaves the room and the remaining players select an individual, place or thing. The questioner can ask as much as 20 inquiries to guess what the group decided.
Success will depend on the questioner’s ability to maintain clearly in mind the entire answers and mentally eliminating choices on the idea of the answers.
Bridge and chess are also great for exercising your memory: So as to do well, you could have to guage previous games, while also considering the long run consequences of your decisions prior to now and present.
5. Eat brain foods.
- B: Berries and beans
- R: Rainbow colours of fruit and veggies
- A: Antioxidants
- I: Include lean proteins and plant-based proteins
- N: Nuts
- F: Fiber-rich foods and fermented foods
- O: Oils
- O: Omega-rich foods
- D: Dairy
- S: Spices
And excellent news for chocoholics (like me): A 2020 study found that cocoa flavonoids, the ingredients in dark chocolate, can enhance episodic memory in healthy young adults.
6. Use images for hard-to-remember things.
My wife’s dog, Leah, is a Schipperke (pronounced “SKIP-er-kee”). It’s a particular name, but I’d have the toughest time remembering it. So to finally give you the chance to reply “What type of breed is that?” on the dog park, I formed the image of a small sailboat (small dog) with a burly skipper holding an enormous key.
Get within the habit of converting anything which you discover hard to recollect right into a wild, bizarre or otherwise attention grabbing image.
7. Don’t sit on the couch all day.
One recent study of 82,872 volunteers found that participants 80 years or older who engaged in moderate to high level of physical activity were at lower risk for dementia, compared with inactive adults aged 50 to 69 years.
Even only a shift from sedentary non-activity (prolonged sitting, a “never walk when you possibly can drive” attitude), to lively movement (standing, climbing stairs, walking a mile day by day) made a difference.
Home tasks has also been linked to higher attention and memory scores and higher sensory and motor function in older adults.
Dr. Richard Restak, MD, is a neuroscientist and writer of 20 books on the human brain, including “The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind” and “Think Smart: A Neuroscientist’s Prescription for Improving Your Brain’s Performance.” Currently, he’s the Clinical Professor of Neurology at George Washington Hospital University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. In 1992, Dr. Restak was a recipient of The Chicago Neurosurgical Center’s “Decade Of The Brain Award.”
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