2023-07-22 06:47:43
It’s never too late to boost your neurons: writing your diary, sending more emails, taking more classes, are the activities that reduce the risk of dementia the most. This is the result of the 10-year follow-up of more than 10,000 people who had no identified disorder at the start of the study.
Writing your diary, but also playing cards, really strengthens the brain against the effects of aging. Géraldine Zamansky, journalist for the Magazine de la Santé on France 5, returns today to this Australian study which once again proves the importance of brain stimulation at all ages.
franceinfo: Does this study demonstrate that these activities, after a certain age, reduce the risk of dementia?
Géraldine Zamansky : Making your brain “work” well after retirement effectively reduces the risk of losing your abilities by 11%. This is the protection observed, following for 10 years more than 10,000 Australians, who had all passed the milestone of 70 years, at the beginning of the study. Among the most effective activities is, unsurprisingly, continuing to learn. It’s quite intuitive, the brain is then stimulated since it must record new information, and sometimes even new skills.
But keeping a diary is also very beneficial, as Le Prof Joanne Ryan, epidemiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, which published these results. This ritual helps not to forget facts by “immortalizing” them, black on white. And more precisely, it mobilizes different parts of the brain: memory, to remember what we have done, the construction of a story using language, the control of movements, to write on a computer keyboard or an old notebook.
It is the fact of working several “functions” of the brain at the same time, which would be protective?
Exactly. Professor Joane Ryan finds this common point between all the activities associated with preserved neurological capacities. Writing a letter is also part of it, as is using a computer. And I have great news for all lovers of card games, crosswords or puzzles. It’s almost as effective. Professor Ryan reminded me that it is then necessary to develop a strategy, sometimes with a small spirit of competition, to calculate, to stimulate one’s immediate memory.
And besides, the brain works better when it’s happy. It can even still create neurons, and above all optimize the connections, the exchanges between its different areas. This would be the secret of a better resistance to aging. Professor Ryan has seen elderly people whose brains seemed “physically” affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Although they had no symptoms. Preserved, well-connected neurons would succeed in compensating for the rest. So it’s impossible to resist mentioning another activity that came just behind the games: listening to the radio! On a par, let’s be honest, with television and reading. All you have to do is choose your favorite activity(ies)!
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