In the first blog on this topic last week I mentioned a study carried out on Harvard Alumni.
That study took several thousand alumni in their 70s and identified those who were still cognitively active and those who were not. In other words, those whose brains were still working well and those who spent most of their time sat staring at a TV screen.
The researchers looked at the past lives of the group to see what differences there were that could account for the on-going brain activity. There were five key differences. These outweighed genetic factors.
That means that if you have parents or grandparents who have declined almost to the state of vegetables, you do not have to follow them. (It also means that if you have parents who are still very mentally active you will not automatically be the same.)
We have already looked at three other factors: aerobic exercise (the most effective of all), non-aerobic exercise and learning new things.
Improve your brain now
Social activity and your brain
In a study at Kaiser-Permanente published in the American Journal of Public Health women who interacted frequently with friends and others in their social network were half as likely to suffer from dementia as those who did not often see friends, or had few.
This is backed up by other studies. In fact, one shortcut to an early grave is to live in poverty on your own as a hermit.
Keep in touch with your friends
It can be so easy to let contacts slip, so make sure you have a system for keeping in touch with people. And get in touch with those you haven’t seen or heard from in a while.
Make new friends
This can be a daunting prospect if you are not used to it. But here is a true story of what happened to my grandfather. When my grandmother died he was devastated and sank into a depression.
At her funeral, instead of flowers, we all donated money to a local school for blind children, so my grandfather was invited to see the oven that had been bought with the money.
While he was there he noticed that many of the children’s toys were broken. As a cabinet-maker he had all the skills required to mend them, so offered to take a few home with him and fix them.
When he brought them back they were delighted and he took more home. He ended up visiting several days a week and working with the children. It completely changed his life.
I called in to see him one time, but he didn’t have time for a long visit because he was dashing off to the school. Instead of the morose, dismal individual he had been he was back to his old self; lively, interested in life, happily chatting with me.
At his funeral I met the Head Teacher of the school. She told me how grateful they were for all the work and help he had given. He had clearly been very popular and contributed a lot.
Just joining in with a new group of people had brought benefits to all of them.
Have a plan
It’s easy to end up in a situation where your friends have moved away or died, as you get older. So make sure you join organisations, keep in touch with friends and don’t end up as Jonny-no-mates. It just requires a small amount of effort, but the benefits are tremendous.
