Like your muscles, your brain needs regular workouts to stay healthy and fit as you age.
Benefits of Brain Exercises
- Increases Cognitive Reserve
- Protects Your Memory
- Delays or Prevents some Neurological Changes
- Helps Regain Lost Brainpower
**Catholic nuns- Autopsy revealed Alzheimer’s lesions with no symptoms, lived a life that increased their Cognitive Reserve: Life of Meditation, Continued Study, Eating a low fat diet, Strong social ties with nuns and community.
How to Do this:
Stimulate Your Brain in Several Ways (Brush your teeth with your opposite hand; read a variety of material including comic strips, novels, and the newspaper)
- Use Creativity
- Challenge
- Novelty
Do Not Become Passive — will atrophy
Be Creative: Sculpt — Use Play dough, you can re-use it, paint, craft kits
Test Your Recall: Make a list — Grocery items, Things to do, Family Birthdays, etc. — and memorize it. An hour later, see how many items you can recall.
Learn a Foreign Language or to Play a Musical Instrument: Stimulates the Brain by listening, memorization and challenging and teasing your brain
Play Games: Any games, the more variety, the better: Monopoly, Cards, Chess, Electronic Games, Board Games .Its Social too!
Stay Connected and Socialize: Have Company for Dinner, join a club, support groups, pets
