Feed Your Brain to Make it Stronger
By: Max K. Erkiletian
Tags: Aging, Brain, Health, Seniors, Neuroscience

You can improve growth and function at ANY age

Image by Chenspec from Pixabay

It is the repository of all we know and have ever experienced; it has the capability to solve problems and create them; it is the uninhibited fountain of dreams and ideas and the channel of disciplined action. It is also the largest sex organ in our bodies (but size doesn’t matter).

Of course, I am referring to our brains. In particular, I am referring to our aging brains.

First, let’s dispel the popular myths. These are the things holding us back, inhibiting us from enjoying the fullness of our aging brains.

Misconception: As we age, our brains decline, resulting in an inability to recall information and master new things.

Certainly, at some point, we have all found it a little difficult to remember a name, misplaced our keys, or taken a little longer than usual to perform a mental task. Those “senior moments” are not necessarily signs of mental decline. They are signs of mental change.

In some ways, a healthy older brain has been shown to function better than healthy younger brains.

“Studies have shown that older people have better judgment, are better at making rational decisions, and are better able to screen out negativity than their juniors are,” according to an article from the Harvard Medical School’s Harvard Medical Publishing.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts note that work began in the 1990s has “yielded a broad front of research and training that has upended some deeply held beliefs about the brain. One such belief is that the brain necessarily diminishes with age. It turns out that neurons, the basic cells that allow information transfer to support the brain’s computing power, do not have to die off as we get older. In fact, a number of regions of the brain important to functions such as motor behavior and memory can actually expand their complement of neurons as we age. This process, called neurogenesis, used to be unthinkable in mainstream neuroscience.”

In short, we can physically improve our brains and brain function. How? The same way we improve our physical function — through a good workout. But not just a physical workout — a regular brain workout.

Brain imaging studies have shown you can make changes in your brain by learning a new skill, such as studying a new language, playing a musical instrument, taking up a new hobby, or doing almost anything you’ve never done before.

The simple use of will power can also improve your brain’s capabilities. Further brain imaging studies have shown that participants were able to control the sensation of pain through concentration. Accomplished practitioners of meditation have long been able to control physical pain or irritation.

“These advances in neuroscience suggest that there is no reason why your brain at 60 can’t be as competent as it was at 25,” according to Gilkey and Kilts. “That would not have been news to thinkers such as Socrates, Copernicus, and Galileo, who were all still at the peak of their intellectual powers in their sixties and seventies. Nor would it surprise business leaders such as Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffett, and Sumner Redstone. These icons and others like them have intuitively understood that the brain’s alertness is the result of what we call cognitive fitness — a state of optimized ability to reason, remember, learn, plan, and adapt that is enhanced by certain attitudes, lifestyle choices, and exercises.”

Many researchers say that new tricks or variations on old habits are the prescription for maintaining and improving cognitive function.

“Exercising, keeping your brain active, and maintaining creativity can actually help to prevent cognitive decline and memory problems.” Melinda Smith, M.A., Jeanne Segal, PhD., and Monika White, Ph.D. wrote in the nonprofit publication Getting Help. “The more active and social you are and the more you use and sharpen your brain, the more benefits you will get.”

Smith, Segal, and White recommend three actions for maintaining and improving mental acuity.