News and Events

Welfare & Health

Article: Active Mind for Healthy Aging

Researchers believe that many of the supposed age-related changes that affect the brain, such as memory loss, are actually lifestyle related.

Here are some tips for keeping that mind active!

Improve your mental fitness
Memory loss can be improved by 30 to 50 per cent simply by doing mental exercises:

• Keep up your social life and engage in plenty of stimulating conversations.
• Read newspapers, magazines and books.
• Play 'thinking' games like Scrabble, cards and Trivial Pursuit.
• Take a course on a subject that interests you.
• Cultivate a new hobby.
• Learn a language.
• Do crossword puzzles and word games.
• Play games that challenge the intellect and memory, such as chess.
• Keep stress under control with meditation and relaxation.

Boost your memory
Good recall is a learned skill. There are ways to improve a failing memory no matter what your age:

• Make sure you're paying attention to whatever it is you want to remember. If you're busy thinking about something else, you might not notice where you're putting the house keys.
• Use memory triggers, like association or visualization techniques. For example, link a name you want to remember with a mental picture.
• Practice using your memory. You might want to try and remember short lists by using memory triggers such as a walking route that you know well. For example, mentally attach each item on a shopping list to a landmark along the route. You might want to imagine putting the bread at the letterbox, the apples at the next-door neighbour's house and the meat at the bus stop. To remember the list, you just have to 'walk' the route in your mind.

Some conditions that can affect the brain's ability to function, such as stroke, are associated with a sedentary lifestyle. Keeping an active body is crucial if you want an active mind:

• Get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day to deliver an oxygen boost to the brain - exercising in three ten minute blocks is enough to deliver significant health benefits.
• Regular exercise can improve your brain's memory, reasoning abilities and reaction times.
• Avoid the complications of obesity (such as diabetes and heart disease) by maintaining a healthy weight for your height.

Eat a healthy diet
Good nutrition helps to keep your brain in optimum condition:

• Make sure your diet contains sufficient B group vitamins.
• Glucose is the brain's sole energy source, so eat a balanced diet and avoid extreme low carbohydrate diets.
• Narrowed arteries can reduce blood flow to the brain, so make sure you eat a low fat, low cholesterol diet.
• Avoid smoking and drinking to excess.

Getting older doesn't necessarily mean that the mind stops working as well as it once did. However, some of the conditions and events more common to older age can be an underlying cause. It is worth checking with your doctor to make sure any cognitive changes, such as memory loss, aren't associated with drugs or illness.

Source: Better Health Channel