When it involves staying healthy and fit, leading a mentally energetic lifestyle is just as essential as regular physical exertion. Just as your muscles get stronger with use, brain exercise keeps your mental skills and memory in good condition.
Any brain exercise is best than being a complete mental couch potato. But essentially the most impactful activities are those who require you to do things easily and comfortably. Playing infinite rounds of solitaire and watching the most recent documentary marathon on the History Channel may not be enough. “If it's too easy,” says Dr. Fabini, “it's not helping you.”
Four Mental Health Strategies
Become a lifelong learner: You spend the primary half of your life constructing dense networks of connections between brain cells. Scientists call this “cognitive reserve”. Continuing to learn latest things builds and maintains these connections.
Push your brain: Think of all mental activity as a continuum. Watching a TV documentary could be on the passive, mildly difficult end of the spectrum, while learning how you can communicate in a brand new language could be on the energetic, highly difficult end. Mentally difficult tasks have the best impact with regards to cognitive reserve. “Be open to new experiences that make you see the world and do things differently,” says Dr. Fabini.
to be restless: A stereotype of aging is that young individuals are daring explorers but older individuals are timid homemakers who “know what they like.” Stereotyped though it could be, it's easy to fall into. Stepping out of your comfort zone occasionally challenges your mental abilities. An example of that is traveling to a city you haven't been to before, which forces you to explore unfamiliar surroundings.
Be Social: Aging researchers have discovered that social isolation puts people susceptible to losing a number of the brain reserves they've built up over a lifetime. There are some ways to be social. A great way is to volunteer in a social environment, which means that you can interact with various kinds of people and puts you in latest situations.
Don't forget your body
Healthy mental aging should involve the remainder of the body. There's loads of evidence that physical activity that gets your heart rate up is nice for the brain in addition to the center.
And if the exercise involves mental skills and balance, like a racquet game or a walking round of golf, it's even higher. As you beat your opponents on the court or on the green, you could also notice a greater ability to maintain rating in your head.