Simple Tricks to Improve Your Cognitive Function
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More than 10 million new cases of dementia are diagnosed each year worldwide. While issues with cognitive function may be common, experiencing memory loss and related symptoms as you age doesn’t need to be inevitable.
Some factors influencing the likelihood of developing dementia are believed to be genetic. However, there are many additional factors that can influence cognitive decline. Understanding how you can improve your cognitive function can help you to reduce the likelihood of experiencing memory loss in older age. The good news is that reducing the likelihood of serious cognitive decline doesn’t need to be extremely complicated, or even all-consuming. Instead, it’s possible to fit them into your usual routine. With this in mind, here are some simple tricks that may help to improve your cognitive function:
Keep Learning
Learning shouldn’t stop the moment you leave school or college. Continuing to learn and grow is essential not only for your personal development, but it’s also considered important for your memory.
There are lots of ways to introduce opportunities to learn into your life way after leaving school. You can give your brain a workout by practising new skills, or learning more about topics that interest you. For example, if you’ve always had a keen interest in philosophy, pursuing extra knowledge on the topic is a great way to keep your mind active. This could involve searching online for websites such as Dan Herbatschek’s blog which covers the history of philosophy, reading widely on the subject, and seeking out others with a similar interest to discuss the topic in more detail.
It doesn’t matter too much what you choose to learn, the most important thing is that the subject interests you. This could mean taking up a new musical instrument, learning crochet, or mastering a foreign language. The choice of what you learn and how you do it is completely up to you. The main point is that your learning activities give your brain a workout and challenge your thinking skills.
When you learn something new it helps to develop new connections in your brain, which in turn may help to guard against future loss of cells, that could potentially impact your memory, keeping cognitive decline at bay.
Stay Sociable
One often overlooked way to improve your cognitive function is to stay sociable. Maintaining friendships, meeting new people, and getting out and about spending time with others is a surprisingly effective way that may help you to guard against future memory loss.
Staying social and engaging with others may help to reduce cognitive decline. Research shows that older adults who have high levels of social interaction scored better on cognition tests than seniors who experienced less social interaction. So, making an effort to stay in touch with friends and relative, and even putting yourself out there to meet new people and form new connections can be an excellent way to improve your cognitive function. Plus, it’s a great way to bring more fun and joy to your daily life.
Be Physically Active
Everyone knows that being active is essential to maintain their physical health. Exercising regularly offers a wide range of benefits such as boosting your energy levels, reducing your stress levels, and making your physique more toned. One benefit of physical exercise that’s often forgotten about is it’s ability to improve cognitive function. By lowering your stress levels, improving your mood, increasing oxygen-rich blood flow to the brain, and reducing your cholesterol levels, exercising regularly improves your physical health while also being good for your brain.
The CDC advises that adults need 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week, along with two sessions of activity that strengthens the muscles every week.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many steps you can take to improve your cognitive function and reduce the chances of cognitive decline in later life. These small changes that may improve your memory can make a really huge improvement to your quality of life as you age. The great news is that all of the changes can easily fit into your daily routine, and they can deliver improvements to your life from the get-go. So while you may have to wait a while to see if they improve your cognitive function in older age, you should start seeing some benefits from these positive changes very quickly.