Your brain is a lot more than the keeper of your brilliance: It controls your ability to breathe, enjoy music, and give someone a hug—all without your being aware that it’s involved. These things happen when chemical messengers are passed from cell to cell in a superfast chain reaction. If anything disrupts that communication, there goes your ability to engage with the world—and even potentially the oxygen you need to live. Read on to learn how to preserve your brainpower for as long as possible.
CHAPTER 1 Healthy Brain, Healthy Body
The Inner Workings of Your Mind • Every time you move or think, neural connections are made, reinforced, or lost. The average brain cell makes about 10,000 connections with other cells. But to keep them firing, you have to abide by a crucial neurological motto: Use it or lose it. Brain researchers know that just about everything you do—and don’t do—contributes to your brain’s long-term well-being. And they’ve discovered a number of ways you can help fire up mission control.
Are You Living a Brain-Healthy Lifestyle? • The small choices you make every day—what you eat, where you work, how much you move—have a significant impact on brain function. Brain changes that can lead to cognitive impairment and prevent the lightning-fast thinking you’re used to can start as early as your 30s or 40s. Yet whether you’re younger or older than that, making good choices in what you do, eat, and think make a big difference in how your gray matter works later on.
How to Remember Things Better • Here’s some great news for the future of your mental health: Mounting research suggests you can improve your brain no matter what your age, making it stronger and protecting it for the long term. Here are just a few key strategies that can help you stay sharp—especially if you start using them now.
CHAPTER 2 Build Your Mental Muscle • One of the most solidly researched ways to lower your risk of dementia is to challenge your brain, so it becomes more flexible. That means doing new things to continually work different parts of your brain in order to build connections between them. Challenge your brain to think in new ways with these fun puzzles and games.
Prevention Brain Games