Is there anything worse than going into a room and forgetting why you’re there? Forgetting seems to be quite the trend for the middle aged and a thing that I am very familiar with myself. We have a mutual remind me to do… whatever, here at DecoScience which sometimes works but often leads to all of us forgetting. Misery and memory loss loves company.

When you read an article like, “The brain starts going downhill at 45, scientists find mental decline sets in much earlier than they had thought” (The Daily Mail, 6 January 2012) ; it scares a forty-something to death to know that their mental capacities have nowhere to go but down. Or do they?

There are many papers and articles written about this inevitability of deterioration but there is probably even more things written about trying to solve the whole aging problem. There is a long list of anti-aging supplements and vitamins you can ingest, games to play and puzzles such as Sudoku to solve that make your brain active, meditation skills to be learned and honed, and magical incantations and rituals to be practiced (I am not so sure about the latter one but no doubt that magic practitioners also age so would benefit by at least trying some hocus pocus). Do any of these actually work?

The greatest challenge of any aging person (in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that everyone?) is to decrease the rate of decline. A likely cause of mental decline in many people is diminished blood flow to the small vessels in the brain caused by cholesterol and fats or ruptured by high blood pressure. A lifestyle including healthy eating, physical activity, stress management, and enough rest are the starting points for all brains (and the bodies attached to said brains) not just the aging ones. This is easy enough to say and should be easy enough to execute but many of us still find them difficult to actually achieve all of them, all of the time. I am personally good at two of them, the two others I have a love/hate relationship with. I will let you decide which are which.

So, that being said, is there any other ways that help? Basically, any activity that keeps your brain working and doing what brains are meant to do is good for memory and function. Mental stimulation is needed to keep things functioning well. It has been said here before but still holds true. KEEP LEARNING! Travel, go to museums, read, dance, take up the hula hoop, play music, volunteer, start a new hobby, or learn a new language, anything where you have to think a bit. Thinking is good.

You can try doing different things during your day to day too. Do things with your less dominant hand, get dressed with your eyes closed, smell flowers and listen to music at the same time, take a different route to work. These activities will activate areas of your brain that you do not normally use. Keep that brain of yours on its proverbial toes.

All of these things will help but you are not limited to these alone. Be creative, be engaged. The old saying, if you don’t use it, you lose it is so true so USE your brain! Now, that that is finished, can anyone tell me where I left my phone? I’m sure I just had it.

–Janice Willson

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