Brain Fitness

In the battle against aging, many people spend their time and energy on health clubs, the latest diet, hair color, and assorted nips, tucks, and cosmetic treatments. But what are they doing for their brains? That three-pound control center requires certain kinds of stimulation to stay in tip-top condition, and there are things you can do to sharpen a sluggish brain and avoid memory loss.

Exercise Your Brain

According to the Society for Neuroscience, research from the 1990s and onward indicates that the brain can grow new cells throughout its lifespan; it was previously believed that the brain did not produce new neurons after birth. If the adult brain can grow and change, the argument goes, it can develop a renewed state of fitness, much like the body can. Brain fitness is characterized by “quick, efficient, and flexible cognitive processing” according to SharpBrains, a San Francisco–based company that promotes brain fitness. In other words, you can learn new tricks—and remember them, too.

Most people notice the first signs of fading memory in their 40s. That could include forgetfulness or taking longer to complete normal mental tasks. Mild forgetfulness, such as misplacing your keys or forgetting a person’s name, is a normal part of aging, but not knowing how to use the keys or not recognizing a close friend or family member may be a sign of Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. Or it could signal something else. According to the National Institute on Aging, serious memory problems can result from certain medications, dehydration, vascular disease in the brain, low vitamin B12 levels, or thyroid disease.

For people whose problems amount to mere middle-aged forgetfulness, the best time to “sharpen the saw” and get started on brain fitness is the present.

“The fact that things take longer as we get older is not abnormal—that’s part of aging,” says Dr. Ronald Tarrel, director of Abbott Northwestern’s stroke program in the Neurocritical Care Unit. “We did find that the brain has more plasticity than we gave it credit for. It is able to regenerate. It is able to remodel itself in ways we didn’t know were possible before,” he says.

Remodeling and regeneration—or neurogenesis as  the latter also is called—occur in the hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in learning and memory, according to the Society for Neuroscience. The brain changes or grows by creating neurons (the cells of the brain), and increasing and improving neural connections, which draws more blood and oxygen to the brain.