Tips 3 and 4 👍
… I have mentioned before that you need mental challenge – at number 2 in these 12 tips to prevent dementia. Tip 3 is “look after your mental well being” and Tip 4 is “stay socially active”
I see these as contributing to each other.
Rather than just individual mental challenge and care for your mental well being, you can join clubs, societies or businesses that take advantage of your wisdom and experience and continue to exercise your brain.
Or you can choose to study a subject that has always fascinated you but you didn’t have the time for before.
Someone said to me recently, “walking the dog twice a day is not enough of a mental challenge”. While walking the dog has its own physical and psychological benefits, it’s not a mental challenge.
There are many brain gym apps nowadays, and games needing strategic thinking, tactics and rapid action such as Wordle, Bubble Shooter or Brain Gym.
My own newest adventure is, as you know, to live to be 100, cure my Parkinsons and stave off dementia. That takes some research, planning and action – much of it on this website.
Mental Exercise as Medicine
I have found that regular exercise is brilliant for improving my Parkinson’s symptoms, something I’ve written about before. Recent research shows that brain exercise also plays an important role in improving your health.
Just over a quarter (27%) of people said they do activities to challenge their brain every day. Lets be part of a push to get more people mentally active in order to offset mental decline later in life
The Detail
As we know from Tip 1, quality sleep is critical to protecting the brain..
In 2019, Effendy et al. studied effects of brain gym on the quality of sleep and anxiety in the elderly, and found that brain gym significantly improved the quality of sleep and reduced anxiety after eight weeks of intervention. Exercises are proven to act as effective as hypnotic drugs in reducing Insomnia
In Sept 2022 further research was published on the influence of brain gym activities on sleep – see the full paper here.