Anti-Aging Mind and Memory Action Plan

Most people think that cognitive decline doesn’t hit until you’re well into the senior years. But the truth is that cognitive decline actually begins a lot younger. The decline can begin as early as in your 30s.

Fortunately, you can prevent this impairment in your thinking and memory skills by implementing strategies to keep your brain function healthy.

In Your 30s and Younger

You need to keep your mind sharp starting when you’re in your 30s and younger. Studies have shown that people who actively seek to prevent aging mind and memory function decline are able to keep their minds sharp longer.

The number one action step that you can take at this age focuses on what you put into your body. When you’re young, you might think that eating a healthy diet is what’s good for your brain and you would be correct.

However, even following a healthy diet isn’t enough to stop brain function decline as you get older. That’s because while most people do eat a variety of good foods and try to get all the recommended nutrients and vitamins, they don’t get enough of the foods that make a difference to their brain.

These foods are known as superfoods. They’re known to specifically give your body health boosts that fight aging. If you can make sure that you get plenty of these in your diet starting right now, you can avoid some age-related cognitive impairment.

You might have heard of superfoods but don’t know which ones you should specifically consume. You’ll want to start with fruit. Make sure that your eating plan is ripe with an abundance of berries.

Fruits like strawberries and blueberries are known to slow down the cognitive decline that aging can set in motion. Specifically, this food works to prevent problems with the brain’s ability to concentrate.

Berries also work to protect the memory function of your brain. You might have been warned to lay off chocolate since it’s high in sugar but that advice doesn’t tell the whole truth.

The truth is that certain types of chocolate are beneficial at preventing brain decline. Dark chocolate is packed with antioxidants that keep your brain healthy. It also has a side benefit in that it can bring down the numbers of your blood pressure levels, which also helps to protect your brain function.

Superfoods are known for their anti-inflammatory abilities that help brain function. Including plenty of walnuts in your diet will help promote memory retention as well as the way your brain handles signals that control your motor skills.

Another superfood you’ll want to have as part of your diet is spinach. This leafy green and delicious vegetable serves the purpose of preventing your brain from cognitive decline.

Adding olive oil to your recipes serves as an anti-aging protector for your brain. While you won’t be able to stop your brain’s actual age, you can prevent the decline of its power by eating foods such as this oil.

Surprisingly, one of superfoods to top the list at protecting your brain from the signs associated with age related decline is coffee. Though some people urge against the consumption of caffeine because it’s a stimulant, this natural derivative is known to boost mental clarity and focus.

Plus, it’s rich in antioxidants which can improve brain function as well. So start your day off right with a cup of hot coffee. In fact, more than one cup is even better. You don’t have to worry about the coffee – just watch how much cream and sugar you put into it.

Some superfoods, such as sardines, are packed with the brain protecting power of omega 3 acids. These acids can prevent mental decline, forgetfulness and improve your brain clarity.

In Your 40s

After high school, most people go on to attend college and then start their career. For some, this is the end of higher learning. But what you might not realize is that continuing to learn is vital to the health of your brain.

If you start now, when you’re in your 40s and seek to learn something new, it helps to boost brain function and works to strengthen your memory skills. The brain is just like any other organ in the body.

It needs to have exercise in order to maintain optimal operating ability and long-term health. Without the stimulation of learning, your brain doesn’t function as well. You need to take stock over the last month of your life and ask yourself what new thing you’ve learned.

If you can’t think of anything new, that’s a good sign that your brain isn’t getting enough mental exercise to prevent cognitive decline as you age. So, what you have to do is make it a point to continue learning.

What you learn matters almost as much as the fact that you continue learning. Whatever you seek to learn has to be challenging to your brain in order for it to be actively engaged.

What this does is to stimulate the brain cells and works to keep neurons working properly. You can learn a new hobby or pick up some more education-based learning activities.

What some people do at this stage of their life is they get involved in learning a new skill such as playing an instrument they’ve always wanted to learn how to play. There’s a reason that this choice is so popular.

Learning to play an instrument challenges the brain in the area of motor control but it also stimulates the area of memory function that goes along with learning new chords. And the good thing about learning how to play an instrument is that you can continue to grow in knowledge through learning new chords, new songs and more, so it offers you many years of protection against age related mental decline.

In Your 50s

When you reach your 50s, it’s important that you have an anti-aging mind and memory action plan in place and that you use it regularly. At this stage of your life, your brain is at risk for higher loss of brain function.

This means that your cognitive skills could decline rapidly. You could also start to have noticeable memory loss problems. What you need to do is to pay attention to see if you’ve started noticing that it takes you longer than it used to for you to be able to grasp information.

You don’t seem to snap up information as easily or as fast as you once did. Instead of being able to easily pick up a new skill, you start to notice that you need to go over things more slowly.

You can’t quite grasp or understand learning new things the way that you used to. It can become harder to maintain your focus on a task at this point. You might find that when you're multi-tasking, you lose your train of thought and then struggle to get back your focus to what you were doing.

At this point, you don’t have the same sharp memory recall that you once had. Things that you used to be able to pick up easily on such as intricate points in a book, you’ll have trouble remembering after you finish reading it.

The ability to pinpoint precise detail can become problematic. You won’t remember things with as much rich recall as you once did. This gradual decline can hit at this age because of growing older.

However, what often occurs is that it hits some people during this state of life harder than others simply because they don’t have a brain function plan in place. You must keep your brain actively engaged in something that makes it use areas that can slow down with aging.

Studies on brain and the way aging affects it have shown that one of the best ways to fight against aging decline in the brain is by taking part in mental games. The types of games that are played do matter.

Board games that aren’t puzzle based don’t offer as much benefits as ones that are. Still, the most highly recommended games to fight against brain aging decline at this stage are games that involve numbers.

These games are sometimes based on mathematics. One such game is Sudoku. It’s a puzzle that’s based on figuring out what the missing numbers are. Each puzzle is made of a grid containing some filled in numbers and players must use those numbers to determine what unidentified numbers belongs in the blank squares.

To get the most benefits from playing numbers games such as Sudoku, you would need to set up a regular time to play the game. At least one day a week set aside to play some of these puzzles is recommended.

Once you learn how to play and get the hang of the game, there are more challenging levels you can use. By stimulating your brain function through the use of numbers puzzles, you can not only improve current brain function, but you can also stave off certain age-related brain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease.

In Your Senior Years

By the time most people reach their senior years, they’ve accomplished quite a lot in their lives. They’ve created families, obtained various educational decrees, built impressive careers and have reached most of the goals they’ve set for themselves.

At this point, retirement loom on the horizon and senior citizens look forward to relaxing without having the need to get up and be part of the workforce. While it sounds great in theory, there’s a downside to the golden idea of life after a career.

When you stop having a purpose like being present at work every day and having to interact with others, it can set in motion the start of further age-related brain function decline.

It’s true that at this point you will have experienced some differences in how your brain functions. But these changes will grow worse when you’re regularly and actively stimulating your brain function.

In this stage of life, most people simply don’t exercise their brains the way that they once did. Part of it is caused by slowing down in your activities. If you’ve retired, you might spend more time alone with activities that only involve yourself.

But one of the biggest reasons that people experience a decline in mental abilities at this age is because of the lessening social connections they have. You’re not out and about as much as you once were.

If you retire and move to a new state, you leave the connections that you made over your lifetime behind. This can cause some people to withdraw. You might not realize it, but in your senior years, your brain volume begins to diminish.

When this process starts, the areas of your brain that are important for cognitive function are at high risk. You can check yourself in this area by seeing if you’ve noticed certain signs of cognitive slow down.

These will show up in symptoms such as an inability to handle mental tasks that are complicated. You might also notice that you’re starting to struggle with the ability to concentrate.

Your memory at this point can become spotty. You don’t retain things as easily as you once did and you can’t pull up information you know that you have such as details about places or events or the names of people.

As long as you’re active socially, that brain function decline is staved off because you’re exercising the brain. In a study done, it was discovered that a lack of social connection when coupled with age can cause brain function to decline.

The key linking this together is due to the feelings associated with less social interaction. Psychological changes take place when you don’t get the healthy social connections that your brain needs.

You might see this manifested in certain physical signs such as the sudden development of insomnia. Or you might see it in a change in how your body normally functions such as higher than normal blood pressure readings.

When you experience a lack of social interaction, this can cause you to feel more stressed than normal. This feeling is a result of a higher release of cortisol in your body. This is the first step in a chain reaction that then leads to a weaker immune system and the experience of emotions such as anxiety and depression, both of which can impact brain function to cause a decline in your memory and ability to focus.

To stave off brain function decline at this age, you need to make sure you have regularly scheduled intervals of social interaction. At least once a week, but twice is better, arrange to meet with friends for a get together.

If you’ve relocated, then arrange to get involved with others by performing volunteer work. By being connected socially, you can eliminate the signs of mental decline and retain brain function.