Take years off your brain age now
It’s never too late to look after the health of your most vital life organ
With the average lifespan tipped to rise to 100, we’re asking more of our bodies than ever. But losing our memories doesn’t have to be part of it.
A study at Massachusetts General Hospital found a small number of “super agers” in their 60s and 70s could perform memory tests as well as people in their 20s.
Being a super ager isn’t simply luck of the draw. The Disconnected Mind, a study by Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh, found that a quarter of brain-aging is down to genes while three-quarters is dependent on lifestyle.
From our mid-50s onward, we lose one per cent of muscle mass each year — and it’s similar in the brain.
It’s not just memory. Ali Trelle, of the University of Cambridge Memory Lab, says: “Attention, memory, navigation, there are different things we do every day that you might think are different but rely on common brain areas. Something that’s good for attention, is likely to be good for memory and brain health as a whole.”
It’s never too late to look after your brain. James Goodwin, chief scientist at Age UK, says: “If you think, ‘I’m not getting things as quickly as I used to,’ you can improve that. A big one is stopping smoking.”
Here are some other things we can do.
1 Break routine
If your idea of looking after your brain is doing the crossword every day, Ali Trelle says their youth-preserving qualities are a red herring. “Those things can get quite repetitive and your brain gets quite good at it. The brain isn’t going to be as challenged as much as doing something that’s quite novel to you.”
2 Learn a language
A 2013 study published in the journal Neurology found that individuals who spoke two languages developed dementia an average of fourand-a-half years later than people who only spoke one language. Experts say the earlier you learn, the better — but it’s never too late.
3 Take the stairs
If there’s a magic bullet to slow brain-aging, exercise is it. Try taking the stairs, carrying the groceries or cleaning the house to up your exercise levels; it will boost your memory, too.
4 Get some sleep
“The brain is designed to go through a certain number of different levels of consciousness during the night to restore and recover its daytime processes,” says Goodwin.
It’s only when we reach deep sleep that we consolidate new memories. As we age, the quality of our sleep diminishes, contributing to a decline in brain health.
Boost your deep sleep by avoiding long naps.
5 Say Om
Meditation and yoga are effective stress busters. Trelle says: “We know it has a positive impact but we don’t know why exactly. It could have something to do with reducing stress hormones that have a toxic effect on our brains.”
Knitting, another well-known stress buster, also has positive effects on the brain. A 2013 survey of about 3,500 knitters showed the more they knitted, the better cognitive function they had.
6 Have sex
A study by the University of Manchester discovered that seniors who were still sexually active also had better brain power.
In particular, sex promotes the release of dopamine, a chemical released by nerve cells to send signals to other nerve cells.
7 Throw a party
A 2012 Dutch study found that loneliness increased the risk of developing dementia by 65 per cent, with scientists speculating that it may cause harmful inflammation to the brain.
“It’s almost unbelievable, but loneliness is worse for your health than 15 cigarettes a day, being an alcoholic and being morbidly obese,” says Goodwin.
8 Get a job!
Working is good for keeping your brain young. Psychologist Deary’s study, The Disconnected Mind, found that those people who had complex jobs, did better than those who didn’t.
And it wasn’t just computer engineers or astrophysicists, people who had roles that involved complex social interactions showed signs of better brain health.
“If you work in the leisure business, sorting out holidays for lots of demanding people, then that kind of complex activity was as good as someone sitting on a computer all day,” says Goodwin.
9 Play a musical instrument
Melissa Maguire of the Yorkshire Brain Research Centre points to the fact that music activates both sides of the brain. Getting them to work together involves cross communication through the corpus callosum, the relay centre in the middle of the brain, which might enhance networks in the brain.
10 One thing at a time
Research has shown that doing one thing at a time, rather than all at once, strengthens our ability to learn, understand and apply new information.
And multitasking is linked to increased cortisol production, a stress hormone that leaves us feeling tired when we need energy to concentrate.