How to Look After Your Brain as You Get Older
As we age, many of us will expect to
become more forgetful. What we might not realize though is that we can also
expect to see our IQ diminish. ‘Fluid intelligence’ (the ability to wrestle
with an abstract concept and produce a useful answer) is negatively correlated
with age, meaning that the older we become, the slower we get.
What’s more, is that age brings the
risk of numerous neurological diseases from Alzheimer’s, to Parkinson’s, to
dementia.
But is this inevitable? Or is there
in fact a way to slow down and prevent age-related cognitive decline? Read on
and let’s discover some of the best things you can do for your brain…
Use it or Lose It
Simply, the best way to prevent your
brain from deteriorating is to use it more. The more you challenge your brain,
the more you will produce the necessary neurotransmitters that encourage
plasticity and that keep you learning and keep you nimble.
One of the big problems as we get
older, is that we tend to stop learning new things or subjecting ourselves to
new experiences. This can actually lead to the brain becoming less malleable
and adaptable – the connections that you no longer use will be ‘pruned’ and the
ones that you do use will become strengthened, making it hard to ‘learn new
tricks’. Just like an old dog!
This will also reduce the amount of
neurochemicals like dopamine and norepinephrine you produce. The result is that
you become less interested in new things, less motivated and generally less
cognitively nimble.
Move More
What’s also highly important is to
move your body more. The brain is actually designed primarily for moving the
body and this is the primary way that it learns about its environment. The more
you move around and the more you challenge yourself to learn more motor movements, the more your brain
will grow and strengthen.
This has actually been demonstrated
in studies – where it has been seen that people who move less as they get older
will become more likely to see
decreases in fluid intelligence.
Nutrition
You knew this was coming – nutrition
is also highly important if you hope
to boost your brain power and keep it optimal as you age. The role of good
nutrition is to fuel your brain with all of the micronutrients it needs to
perform optimally – that means amino acids to repair damage, saturated fats to
help with communication through the brain and vitamins and minerals to help
synthesize neurochemicals and enhance signals throughout the brain.
If you go long periods without
getting nutrients in your youth, this can end up causing cumulative damage that
will affect you once you’re older. For these reasons, it’s absolutely essential
to keep feeding your brain with the best nutrients and to avoid things like
alcohol that you know are bad for it. Also important is to find antioxidants,
which will help to protect the brain from damaging free-radicals that can form
tumors.
Look after your brain in your youth
and it will take care of you when you’re older!
