Your every day habits and lifestyle—what you eat and drink, whether you exercise, how stressed you might be, and more—affect your mental health as much as your physical health. A growing body of research indicates that regular exercise and a healthy eating regimen will help protect your memory from age-related decline.
exercise
Physical fitness and mental fitness go hand in hand. People who exercise repeatedly live mentally into their 70s, 80s, and beyond. Although the precise “dose” of exercise is unknown, research suggests that exercise must be moderately vigorous and regular. Examples of moderate exercise include brisk walking, stationary cycling, water aerobics, and competitive table tennis. Vigorous activities include jogging, high-impact aerobic dance, square dancing, and tennis.
Exercise helps memory in some ways. It reduces the danger of developing several potentially memory-robbing conditions, comparable to hypertension, diabetes, and stroke. Exercise is sweet for the lungs, and other people with good lung function send more oxygen to their brain. There is a few evidence that exercise helps construct recent connections between brain cells and improve communication between them. Finally, exercise has been linked to increased production of neurotrophins, substances that nourish brain cells and help protect them from damage brought on by strokes and other injuries.
Here are some ways to include physical activity into your every day routine:
- Walk as a substitute of driving when possible.
- Set aside time every day for exercise. For extra motivation, ask your spouse or friend to affix you.
- Use the steps as a substitute of the elevator.
- Plant a garden and handle it.
- Take an exercise class or join a health club.
- Swim repeatedly, if you’ve got access to a pool or beach.
- Learn a sport that requires moderate physical exercise, comparable to tennis.
Go to the Mediterranean Sea.
A Mediterranean-type eating regimen highlights whole grains, fruit and veggies, and healthy fats from fish, nuts, and healthy oils. This way of eating helps promote heart health and may additionally reduce the danger of memory and pondering problems later in life. In a study that followed greater than 2,000 people over 4 years, those that most closely followed a Mediterranean-type eating regimen had a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. A later study suggested that following a Mediterranean-type eating regimen could reverse mild cognitive impairment into full-blown dementia.
The forms of fat within the eating regimen also affect memory. As a part of the National Women's Health Initiative, 482 women age 60 and older were followed for 3 years. They reported on their eating regimen, and researchers tested their memory and pondering skills in the beginning and end of the study. People who ate more unsaturated fat (which is abundant in vegetable oils and fatty fish) and fewer saturated fat (from beef and full-fat dairy foods) had significantly higher memory than those that didn’t. A significantly smaller reduction occurred in those that ate relatively less unsaturated fat.
Eating several servings of fruit and veggies also protects memory. Plant foods are full of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that may protect against age-related deterioration throughout the body.
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