Ten Tips For For Keeping Your Brain Sharp

Daily Practices for Brain Maintenance

Scientists claim that people who are the mental equivalent of couch potatoes tend to be more likely to experience Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Here are five simple daily practices for brain maintenance.
 

1. Do crossword puzzles

You don't have to go back to college to get your PhD in nuclear physics at the age of 95 to keep your brain active. Just doing a crossword puzzle can be enough. Doing a crossword puzzle requires using skills of word association, lexical memory search, list generation, and feeling the distinction between knowing and not knowing. Crossword puzzles keep the brain primed to recognize cues from words and from the ways words are printed, useful skills for nearly everyone.

2. Keep learning

Many people find that physical disabilities require mental agility. Simply learning new ways to continue to be able to do old tasks can keep the brain active. It can also help to learn a new skill or a new language or a new hobby—the emphasis being on "new"—to avoid age-related mental decline.

3. Exercise your body to exercise your brain

The exercises that benefit the brain the most are those that require a combination of movement, strategy, and memory. It's better to play tennis or to go rock climbing than it is to spend an hour on an elliptical trainer. It is especially helpful to learn yoga or tai chi, since the ability to stretch and move the body in different directions can be very useful in preventing falls that can lead to debilitating injury.

If you just aren't into sports or complicated exercise, you can at least increase circulation to your brain or practice essential motor skills. Here are some examples:

• Sit down on a clean, non-slip floor. Lift your right leg to your chest while raising your left hand over your head. Complete 10 repetitions of the exercise, and repeat with your other leg and your other hand.
• With a sturdy chair or table nearby should you need help maintaining balance, stand on one foot with your eyes closed for 10 seconds. Then return your foot to the floor and stand on the your other foot with your eyes closed for another 10 seconds. This exercise helps your brain develop skills of proprioception, judging your position in space, and also helps you keep up your sense of joint strength and muscle tone.
• If nothing else, take a brisk walk for 10 to 20 minutes every day.

4. Meditate daily

It is not necessary to learn an intricate system of Buddhist or Hindu meditation to derive benefits for your brain. Simply declaring a "time out" for stress gives your brain time to process stress hormones and to repair oxidative damage caused by free radicals. Many people find that the most important part of their breathing practice is breathe in deeply and to take long exhalations, slowing down the heart and calming the brain.

5. Stay connected

Social interaction not only requires brain activity, it also helps you establish yourself in a network of friends and acquaintances who may give you help you need when you encounter difficult circumstances. This is especially important for people who care for a spouse who has dementia at home—the isolation of taking care of someone who has dementia is itself a risk factor for dementia.

There are also changes in nutrition that can help keep your brain young.
 

The simple fact is that most people lead busy lives and do not take time for themselves to do exercise, meditation, or learning new skills. Fortunately, there are also nutritional interventions that help keep the brain young and prevent dementia.
 

6. Take the antioxidants alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin C, and vitamin E

Alpha-lipoic acid is a unique antioxidant that protects cells inside and out because it is soluble in both fat and water. Outside the cell, it protects the membrane from the action of free radicals that would destabilize the cell's ability to absorb oxygen and nutrients and that might cause parts of the cell simply to dissolve into the bloodstream. Inside the cell, it helps the mitochondria burn sugar without generating so many free radicals that DNA is damaged, and acting in concert with L-carnitine (which can be taken as a supplement or simply derived from diet) it helps cells burn fat.

Vitamins C and E complement the antioxidant action of alpha-lipoic acid, and also recharge each other. It's only necessary to take 200 mg of vitamin C a day, 600 mg of alpha-lipoic acid a day, and 900 IU of vitamin E every day to get a protective benefit without side effects. If you choose R-lipoic acid instead of alpha-lipoic acid, use half as much. It's always best to take either alpha-lipoic acid or R-lipoic acid with a biotin or "complete B" supplement, since both forms of lipoic acid require the B vitamin biotin as a cofactor.

7. Consider Chinese herbal medicine as an alternative to estrogen replacement therapy

Women taking estrogen replacement therapy are at slightly increased risk for Alzheimer's disease later in life. Women who control uncomfortable symptoms of menopause with the herbal formula known as Dong Quai and Peony Decoction (also marketed under the Chinese and Japanese formula names Dangguiii Shaoyao San or Tokishakuyaku-san) are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease—and may get better relief of symptoms at lower expense.

8. Eat the right kind of fat

There is some evidence that increasing consumption of omega-3 essential fatty acids, found in flaxseed oil and fish oil, as well as cold-water fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, and hokey), nuts, and seeds, reduces inflammation that may lead to Alzheimer's. The ratio of "good" fats to "bad" fats is key, so if you eat a lot of products made with vegetable oil or a lot of animal fat, you especially need your omega-3's.

9. Don't take iron supplements unless a blood test shows you have low iron levels

Iron can literally "rust" brain cells. Iron and copper consumption are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

10. Give your brain a break today

Dr. J. A. Luchsinger of Columbia University in New York City has found that simply eating less may be key to keeping the brain healthy, even in people who have the genes for Alzheimer's disease. Giving the brain an 18- to 24-hour break from excesses of the byproducts of burning glucose gives it time to rewire and repair oxidative damage that otherwise might accumulate and cause brain tissue damage.

Luchsinger's research team found that simply skipping dinner or breakfast occasionally greatly reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Even if people eat more at other meals, they tend to enjoy weight loss and lower cholesterol, because the body wastes nutrients when we eat too much. It's better, of course, to eat normally or sparingly and also skip some meals occasionally for the sake of brain health.