Your Brain on Aging and Health
The statistics are alarming. 10,000 boomers turn 65 every day and that will continue until 2030. Needless to say the projections of incidence of Alzheimer’s disease are also quickly climbing. It is predicted that by 2050 there will over 15 million people in the United States diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. These numbers alone make everyone in the medical, healthcare, financial, and government fields gasp for air. Solutions to such a vast and complex problem as Alzheimer’s have been very slow in coming. Is there anything that can be done to offset this epidemic and the catastrophic effects it will have on everyone?
Here are some facts about the aging brain. We all start to experience aging changes to our brains as we get older. Cognitive decline actually starts around age 25! The brain is so resilient though that we don’t notice any changes until our forties and fifties. These changes include: slower speed of processing (the amount of time it takes to filter information and offer a response – or the ability to think quickly); memory slips, lack of focus or said another way, the inability to filter distraction. These changes happen to everyone but they don’t happen to everyone at the same time.
Our brain doesn’t know how old we are. Aging changes occur through lifestyle habits and chronic diseases. In fact, lifestyle and chronic disease account for a 70% risk of developing dementia. Genetics play approximately a 30% risk of developing the disease. The way we live our life determines how fast our brain will age and decline. What are these lifestyle issues that can affect our brain? Smoking and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol can have a profound affect on our brain. A sedentary lifestyle has been tagged the newest hazard to a healthy brain. Obesity confounds so many body systems chronic disease issues come into play. Coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes all reek havoc on our brains. Finally, stress can be so destructive to our brains that it can actually kill brain cells and shrink brain volume.
Are you sitting there terrified that you might have really messed up and now you are going to get dementia? Well relax! We are never too young or too old to start living a brain healthy lifestyle. There have been some research findings over the past twenty years that have shifted the paradigm on what our brain is capable of doing. The discovery of neuroplasticity has changed the way we look at our brain. Previous to this discovery everyone thought that the brain stopped developing after the mid twenties. Neuroplasticity is the ability of our brain to grow new neural pathways. We can change our brain! Neurogenesis came along and revealed that certain parts of the brain regenerate and grow new brain cells. The hippocampus, the center of new learning and memory, generates many new cells if we know how to do it.
So how do we get the hippocampus to grow new cells? There are certain criteria that stimulates the growth of new cells and new neural pathways. Our brain loves a challenge. Put your brain in a new and complex environment and you will almost be able to hear those new cells growing. Of course you brain needs the right nutritional sources to help energy increase and cell growth occur. The Mediterranean diet is a classic brain health diet: lots of green vegetables, dark colored fruit, fish, and olive oil are the basics. These nutrients need to get to the brain. Physical exercise increases the amount of blood, oxygen and carbohydrates getting to the brain. That 3-pound organ between our ears actually demands 25% of blood, oxygen and carbohydrates from each and every heartbeat. Cell growth is occurring in the hippocampus when you exercise, and eat right. Now you have to use those cells once you grow them. The brain is very good at pruning cells and pathways that are never used. Challenge your brain in all of your activities. Chess, bridge, board games are among the challenges that our brain enjoys. Travel, read, mentor and volunteer to build up your brain resilience. Socialization has been shown to improve cognitive performance even more than intellectual activities. We need other people. Conversations stimulate our brain. Friends and family buffer the outside world. Our brain changes to our environment – good or bad. Finally, stress takes such a toll on our brain that we need to have practices to derail stress effects. Prayer, meditation, tai chi, yoga are all effective practices to get your brain out of the stress response.
We have control to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by the way we live our life. Physical exercise, mental stimulation, nutrition, socialization, and spiritual practices all promote brain health. We just need to make the decision to follow this healthy lifestyle to give our brain a chance to stay high functioning until we die.
Patricia Faust, MGS
Gerontologist/Brain Health Specialist
513-382-3947
patricia@myboomerbrain.com
www.myboomerbrain.com