Preventing Cognitive Decline And Dementia: What You Can Do
As you reach middle age and adulthood in general, one of your primary concerns in life may be keeping your cognitive function in the best possible shape. This is especially true if you have elderly relatives or friends who suffer from various forms of cognitive decline or dementia and you can see the ways in which these issues can affect the afflicted person as well as their loved ones. No matter what age you are now, there are ways that you can go about dementia prevention that will help you keep your mind as sharp as possible for as long as possible. Get to know some of these prevention techniques so that you can get started as soon as possible.
Mind Games and Exercises
Your brain is a lot like the muscles in your body. It needs to be worked out in order to stay in top shape. This means that you will need to keep your mind active in order to keep it functioning properly. While this is not a way to completely cure dementia, nor is it a guarantee that it will prevent dementia completely, keeping the neural pathways active through learning and activities can help to delay dementia and prevent it from taking hold earlier in life.
Mind games and exercises can be as simple as daily crossword or number puzzles, but can also include more challenging brain teasers, word puzzles, riddles, and the like. Taking classes in new areas or subjects can also help to keep the mind active. And, if you are really ambitious, learning a new language and becoming bilingual can help to prevent dementia. In fact, studies have shown that bilingualism can delay the effects of dementia by years.
Yoga and Meditation
Yoga and meditation are also techniques that can be used to help prevent cognitive decline and dementia. There are yoga practices that are designed specifically to stimulate the mind and keep it healthy and active.
Kirtan Kriya is a specific yoga meditative practice that many people with cognitive issues have been encouraged to try when they are trying to slow the progression of their disorders. This meditative yoga practice combines sounds and physical movements together to stimulate multiple areas of the brain simultaneously, keeping the neural pathways active and working.
To do this exercise, you need to sing four different "sounds" (saa, taa, naa, maa) in different tones and touch your fingers to your thumb as you sing those notes (and concentrate on your posture and breathing). The saa sound is accompanied by touching the index finger to the thumb and each subsequent sound uses a then next finger to the thumb combination. Other meditative and yoga practices may also be helpful to prevent dementia as the practice of yoga primarily focuses on the connection between the mind and the movements of the body.
Now that you know a few of the methods that you may wish to use to prevent cognitive decline and dementia, you can get started as soon as possible and keep your mind as sharp as possible.
For dementia prevention, try a company such as BrainFlex Wellness Club.