Experts say that we need to take care of our brain to ward off or delay dementia. Our lifestyle is very important to our brain's health, and here are some helpful and useful tips:
1. Join clubs or organizations that need volunteers - you won't feel lost and unneeded. You have value.
2. Develop a hobby. It helps to train your brain to be robust as you try something new and complex.
3. Practice writing with your non-dominant hand every day for just a few minutes. This will exercise the opposite side of your brain and fire up those neurons.
4. Take dance lessons. You interact with people, you count steps, you remember your next move, you exercise etc. Dancing was the only regular physical activity associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of dementia, especially if you dance 3 - 4 times per week.
5. Start gardening. Not only does gardening reduce stress, but gardeners use their brains to plan, and visual and spatial reasoning to lay out a garden. And the joy you receive when you enjoy the fruits or your labour!
6. Buy a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day. Cardiovascular health is important to maintain blood flow to the brain. Even better, walk with someone or your pet dog.
7. Read and write daily as these activities stimulate a wide variety of brain areas.
8. Start knitting. Using both hands works both sides of your brain. And it's a stress reducer.....
9. Learn a new language - a foreign or even a sign language. You are working your brain by making it go back and forth between one language and the other.
10. Play board games like Scrabble and Monopoly. Not only are you taxing your brain, you are socializing too!
11. Take classes throughout your lifetime. Learning produces structure and chemical changes in the brain. Cooking classes, sewing classes, hairdressing or photography classes are not too heavy - something which you will enjoy too.
12. Listen to classical music. Worship and hymns and very powerful too!
13. Learn to play a musical instrument as you'll be developing a dormant part of your brain.
14. Travel. You train your brain to navigate a new and complex environment. Have fun too!
15. Pray. Daily prayer appears to help your immune system.
16. Learn to meditate. It's important for your brain that you learn to shut out the stresses of everyday life.
17. Get enough sleep. There is is link between interrupted sleep and dementia.
18. Eat more foods containing omega-3 fatty acids like salmon, sardines, tuna, herring, mackerel, flaxseed and walnuts etc.
19. Eat more fruits and vegetables as they contain antioxidants to mop up damage caused by free radicals.
20. Eat at least once a day with family and friends. You'll slow down and socialize.
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Wow quite a big list!
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