Spring Clean Your Brain!
Experts help you clear out the cobwebs and hike memory and mind power.
Who has been counting ceiling cracks at 3 a.m.? Overdoing the Netflix and chips? Maybe some of us, but not Daniel Levitin. His survival mode in stressful times: learning to play the ukulele. Lisa Mosconi jumps on her new trampoline and drinks a daily green smoothie. Both of these neuroscientists know how critical it is to take a top-down approach to your well-being—focusing on not only mental health but also the physical health of your brain.
“They’re intertwined; it’s all one,” says former National Institute of Mental Health director Tom Insel, M.D., who co-founded Humanest, an online community for mental support.
As we move into what we hope are post-pandemic better days, here’s how to shake off the mind-and-body doldrums and start fresh this spring.
BE BRAVE “Aging brings with it a reduction in desire to try new things. Fighting that tendency is neuroprotective,” says Levitin, author of Successful Aging. Since turning 60, he has ta en flying lessons in a single-engine plane and passed his FAA test. Ƃlrea`y a songwriter, while isolating `uring the pan`emic, he learne` new instruments and recor`e` a solo album°
MEDITATE—YOUR WAY Ƃ `aily practice for
avi` *erlmutter, M° °, author of Brain Wash, is to focus on `eep inhales an` exhales while sitting comfortably with his eyes close`° º or someone else it coul` be saying a mantra, or a religious event. The key is to be, momentarily, in the present, not thinking about what you `i` or will `o° That’s how meditation does its magic,” he says.
RESPECT YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK
“I abandoned the idea of staying up as late as I felt li e° I½m much more rigid now about going to bed and waking up at the same time every day,” says Levitin. “After age 60, even one night of going to bed an hour late messes up our biorhythms—and
memory—for more than a wee °” e installe` blac out curtains, sets an alarm to avoi` sleeping in an` ta es melatonin a few days a month “to give my biological cloc the signals it nee`s°”