Brain-Healthy Lifestyle Is Best Defense Against Everyday Memory Problems
By: Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2004-12-13 11:52:09
What price do our brains pay for today's hectic, stress-filled pace and our tendency to try to "do it all," all at once? Is there anything we can do to lower the price?
These are questions a lot of people are asking themselves, judging from the response to an expert panel on Memory, Stress and Multi-Tasking held on Oct. 15, 2004, during AARP's annual Life@50+ | National Event & Expo, in Las Vegas. An estimated 3,000 people soaked up the latest news from neuroscience to find out how to keep their minds sharp at 50+. The session was part of the ongoing Staying Sharp series, an educational initiative co-sponsored by the NRTA and the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives to promote cognitive fitness.
The panelists, Jody Corey-Bloom, M.D., Ph.D., University of California, San Diego; Barry Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Gary Small, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that stress and multitasking can take a toll on memory, but that leading a "brain-healthy lifestyle" can help – at any age.
"I think there is a brain-healthy lifestyle, and that it may not only stave off future memory loss, but it enhances your quality of life," said Dr. Small. The panelists said that the cornerstones of a brain-healthy lifestyle are physical and cognitive exercise, together with a plan for managing stress, and eating a healthy diet rich in antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids.
"We've only recently begun to appreciate the importance of cognitive and physical aerobics. Physical aerobic exercise is critically important, because it gets oxygen, sugar (as glucose), and nutrients to the brain," said Dr. Bloom. "Cognitive aerobics can mean a lot of things: take a class, teach yourself something, read, learn, do crossword puzzles. Anything that stimulates the brain and the connections between nerve cells can be helpful."
"Mental aerobics can have as great an impact and as high a yield as physical aerobics," Dr. Gordon said. His suggestion: "Do something that you are interested in and that you find useful. This will really help expand your mind, and can have tremendous effects."
It was comforting for many of the attendees to learn that brain power can be improved at any age. In fact, Gordon says, "Some of the lessons of neuroscience are actually rediscovering what educators and teachers have known forever, which is that you can build up mental skills. It's what we call learning."
By Brenda Patoine, a science writer from LaGrangeville, N.Y., who frequently reports on neuroscience findings and their implications for everyday life.
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