De-Age Your Brain
On a recent winter morning in a rehearsal room at the Brentwood Public Library in Long Island, New York, you could hear the wind gusting outside, but Nancy Maia, a retired teacher and a viola player in the Island Senior Symphony, was listening too intently to her conductor to notice. "It can be softer there," the conductor said, referring to the section of Bizet's "Carmen" the group was practicing. "And, folks, don't come in so early."
Maia played violin throughout her childhood, but gave it up for more than 20 years. She loves rehearsing and performing with the group, whose 50 members range in age from 40-something to 92. "I enjoy playing the instrument, I enjoy the tone of it, I enjoy the camaraderie," she says.
She's not just having fun; she's staying young. A growing number of medical researchers say that leisure activities that challenge the mind—like learning music, playing cards, knitting, and woodworking—can prolong healthy brain functioning.
"We used to think that you were born with all the nerve cells you were ever going to have, and all you could do over your lifetime was lose them," explains Guy McKhann, MD, founding director of the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University and coauthor (with Marilyn Albert) of Keep Your Brain Young (John Wiley & Sons, 2002). "Well, that is wrong. You do make new nerve cells." Mental challenges activate underused nerve pathways and connections in the brain. This, in turn, prompts the brain to produce growth molecules.
The result? A person's mental abilities, including memory, remain sharper longer. "In some cases, even mild forms of what we call a brain exercise have been shown to give you about six or seven additional years of cognitive ability," says Lawrence Katz, Ph.D., a professor of neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center.
The connection between certain types of leisure activities and reducing the risk of dementia has been widely reported. One study in the Journal of Gerontology finds that participation in a greater overall number of leisure activities during early and middle adulthood is associated with lower rates of both Alzheimer's disease and dementia in general. Another recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows reduced rates of dementia among people over age 75 who regularly exercise their brains through activities like reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing.
While these findings are exciting, Katz urges people to keep such research in perspective. "I've always been extremely reluctant to offer up brain exercise as a way of preventing disease," he says. "The bottom line is, until you're 75 years old, the perceived risk of developing Alzheimer's is considerably greater than the actual likelihood." Rather than promoting mental activity as a way to prevent a terrible, but relatively uncommon condition, Katz says, "I'd rather put it more positively: Just like you want to have your body in better shape at 70 or 75 so you can do things with your grandchildren, exercise your mind to keep your brain flexible and agile for as long as you can."
Ready to give your brain a workout?
Here's what you need to know:
Think in new ways.
"People get put off by the idea of brain exercise, often
because it's been narrowly defined as Mensa-type
activities," Katz observes. Of course, traditional
intellectual pursuits keep the brain active by challenging
particular mental faculties like mathematical or reasoning
skills. But any activity that forces you to think in new
ways—requiring you to use imagination, solve problems, or
make associations with information you already
have—stimulates the brain.
Change your routine.
You don't necessarily need a hobby, argues Katz. "There
are ways of living your everyday life that are more brain healthy
than others," he says. "Part of that is making small
changes in your routine, so you're not doing the same thing
over and over." Katz says that actions that break a routine
activity in an unexpected way—like shopping for seasonal
fruits at a farmer's market rather than picking oranges off
the same shelf in the supermarket every week—can increase
brain agility.
Turn off the tube.
"Watching TV is relaxation, not brain exercise," says
Katz. "The passive state of being fed information through
your visual system is, literally, mind-numbing."
Surprise your senses.
Activities that engage your senses in new ways also qualify as
brain exercise, says Katz. For example, cooking with a variety of
exotic ingredients or gardening simultaneously engage sight,
sound, touch, and smell. "It's very difficult to make
generalizations because for different people, different things
are going to work," says Katz. What's important is that
you do something regularly rather than nothing.
From NRTA's Live and Learn.
