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We all know how to keep our hearts healthy, but what about our brains?
Eat oats for breakfast, get your five a day, vigorous exercise three times a week, blah blah blah.
Intensive and persistent media campaigns have firmly embedded what should and shouldn’t be done to maintain our cardiovascular system. Brain health is less publicised, and yet relative numbers of brain disorders are on the increase. This is, in part, due to improved longevity, but a longer life mired with dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease, is not one most of us would choose.
It’s not as though we can run the gauntlet and then put ourselves on a transplant list later on down the track. The brain is our most unique organ. It is what gives us our character. The health of this sensitive cluster of cells relies not just on physical requirements, but mental stimulation too.
Nurturing our minds is big business.
The growing trend of computer games and smart phone apps will have you believe that a couple of Sudoku puzzles every day will prevent cognitive decline, or in some mythological adverts, even dementia. Thankfully, most of the brain training apps have now been debunked. Yaakov Stern, a neuropsychologist at Colombia University, NY, states that ‘There’s no magic activity that will do that.” There are though, some activities that can boost mental capacity, or as some researchers call it, cognitive reserve. This reserve has been likened to a buffer, allowing the brain to sustain more damage before its effects…