Healthline: How Mental, Physical Activities Can Improve Cognitive Function

““The first step is all about getting active and staying active. A body in motion stays in motion,” explained Kaiser. “Having clear goals, an action plan, and developing a routine — including activities that you enjoy and that make you feel good — can go a long way toward creating a beneficial and lasting change.”

Gee told Healthline that older adults can engage in a variety of different activities, such as:

• Walking five to six miles per week

• Engaging in various types of computer programs

• Socializing

• Playing board games

• Putting together puzzles

• Reading

• Sharing information

• Participating in art activities, such as coloring books

“Overall, this study highlights some important notions about cognitive-related diseases and prevention,” said Kara. “Rather than be reactive when it comes to treatment, which is the ‘typical norm,’ people should focus on prevention and education, which are key to reducing instances of disease.”

“Imagine a world where more people are informed about how their decisions and lifestyle habits early on in life impact their health,” Kara added. “For example, suppose more people were aware that physical and mental activities might improve cognitive skills and even reduce the risk for cognitive decline, as the study suggests. In that case, it may significantly reduce the instances of disease.””

Some Insights From This Article

• It’s been well known that physical activity and mental activity can help us stay healthy. One aspect of this is maintaining and even helping increase our cognitive function.

• A common myth is that older people tend to cognitively decline given their age and time. However, there may be possible research that shows that older people retain and even increase some parts of their cognitive abilities as they age, and the myth mostly being a product of older people being victims of a greater range of diseases.

• Our bodies are very efficient, often aspects that we don’t use will decline overtime and parts we use become better attuned. Hence multiple conditions that arise from this such as frozen shoulder, a condition that arises when we don’t keep range of motion around our shoulder joint. The same applies to our cognitive function as well!

How do you stay cognitively sharp?

Full article is here!

#Cognitive #Activities #Age