Many of us ignore the need for mental exercise. With age, people often suffer from memory weakness and degenerating cognitive behavior. However, seniors can easily overcome these problems with the help of a few tips.
It is not necessary that your cognitive power should decrease with age. You can maintain it as well. We will today highlight 8 tips to increase brain fitness for seniors. These are simple and very easy to follow tips which can help a senior not only retain their memory but also improve cognitive power with age.
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Following are the tips which help seniors to retain their memory and improve cognitive power!
1. Take care of nutrition
The first and foremost step which seniors need to follow is to look after the nourishment. There are certain foodstuffs which can help the cognitive function of the brain. Some of these include:
- Berries
- Eggs
- Salmon
- Nuts
When you ignore these foodstuffs in your diet, you can be sure that your cognitive power will be appropriately maintained. Also, you have to ensure that you opt for a balanced diet. It means that there is no vitamin and mineral deficiency in your body, which can help you increase brain fitness.
The project coordinator at FirstCare, Jane Byrne, points out that there are many causes of dementia. The most common is Alzheimer’s, though the symptoms of dementia can also be caused by a series of strokes, known as vascular dementia.
2. Adopt stress management techniques
During the old age, seniors often suffer from a lot of stress. It might be due to family-related issues, or finances. However, stress can have a direct impact on brain fitness. That is why it is essential for seniors to know how to manage stress in a much better way. When that is the case, it does not harm their brain fitness. It is essential to learn proper stress management techniques to avoid the impact of stress. At the same time, the mental pressure which they are subjected to will be pretty limited. Doing so can help them increase brain fitness and avoid any shocks.
Among seniors, social interaction reduces with age. The problem is that the lack of social interaction can breed negativity. As a senior, you have to find opportunities to increase social interaction consistently. When you do so, it will be easy for you to induce a positive feeling. You have to speak to your family and friends. You have to make a circle of people who are similar to your age. Once you do that, it becomes effortless for you to increase social interactions as well. Social interactions can induce positivity, which can increase your brain fitness by a significant amount.
4. Longer sleeping hours
Sleep patterns often change with age. Seniors usually sleep less than 8 hours. However, if you want to ensure that your brain fitness increases with age, it is vital to get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep. You can create a proper schedule. During the initial days, it might be difficult to sleep for that much amount of time, but you can easily make your body accustomed to sleep for at least 8 hours per day. Doing so will help you relax and also improve your brain health. It will make you sharper and also reduce the stress significantly, which is another advantage. All in all, you should try to sleep for at least 8 hours per day to increase your brain fitness.
5. Stimulate the mind
The more the mind works, the sharper it becomes. That is why; you have to undertake activities like brain teasers to stimulate the mind. When you do so regularly, it is easy for you to increase your brain fitness. Similarly, you have to take up a hobby that will continuously stimulate your brain. It will build new connections between the neurons. When you do so, it becomes easy for you to stay sharp and gain new knowledge. Over a while, your brain fitness can increase exponentially. Irrespective of your age, when stimulating your brain on a repeated basis, it becomes effortless for you to improve brain fitness.
6. Recall testing
Recall testing is one of the best ways to stimulate your brain. You can either play a recall testing game or try to memorize a few words and try to recall them at a later stage. It will improve your memory power by a significant amount. You can do so with a wide variety of day to day activities like:
- To-do list
- Grocery list
- Recalling the happenings in the past hour
Initially, you have to try and recall these things at a short duration. Doing so will consistently improve your memory power. When you get a grip over the game, you can even remember at a later stage. It will further help you enhance your memory power. Recall testing is a simple habit which you can form to increase your brain fitness and memory power as well.
7. Learn new skills
Undertaking a hobby is one of the best ways to improve your brain fitness. You can easily take a hobby which you like. Some of the options include:
- Photography
- Knitting
- Woodworking
You have to make sure that the hobby is immersive. When it is immersive, you can use your cognitive power to indulge in that hobby. It should be something which you enjoy. When it is something which you enjoy, you will strive daily to get better at it. It will mean that over a while, you will invest more and more of your cognitive ability to improve that skill. It will mean that you can improve not only your memory but also problem-solving skills. With the skills improving consistently, you can enhance other cognitive abilities as well. When there is an overall development of cognitive skills, your brain fitness will undoubtedly become better.
8. Play word games
Improving vocabulary can undoubtedly help you improve your cognitive power. There are plenty of games like crosswords, scrabble, puzzles which can help you recall the words. These games are available in digital format as well. You can search for the suitable came on the search engine and play it online. When you improve your vocabulary, you learn new words and therefore, enhance your memory power as well. It can not only improve your vocabulary but also ensure that your cognitive functions increase significantly.
So, if you’re looking for brain fitness tips for seniors, these are the eight tips which you have to follow consistently. These steps will ensure that rather than reducing cognitive power, you experience increasing one which will, in turn, help you avoid most of the problems which come with old age. Since your cognitive strength will be improved, you can easily interact better and also manage your situation in a much better way.
Featured image source: Freepik
