“Game nights, cards, doing sudoku, continue reading - anything that is getting your mind active and engaged,” O’Reilly said. People need to work out their brains just like their bodies, O’Reilly added. A number of people want to continue to sharpen their reading skills.” “Maybe they’re not keeping up with the pace of the workplace when it comes to memory, processing and speed. “They want to continue to sharpen their memory,” said O’Reilly, who opened his center six years ago after his family struggled to find cognitive help for his mother. Clients range from children with learning disabilities to patients who have suffered strokes to older adults hoping to slow decline. Learning Rx, a brain-training center in Dublin, Ohio, provides one-on-one sessions for people wanting to improve their cognitive skills, said David O’Reilly, owner of the local franchise that has 167 facilities worldwide. People can get better at that, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to other areas, like remembering a grocery list, Hayes said.

However, he said some brain training can be an effective tool for working on certain tasks, such as remembering people’s faces and names. “I recommend a physical fitness activity over cognitive exercises.” “People ask, ‘I’ve got an hour, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, what can I do?’” Hayes said. “That adage of ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ is not true,” Shirer said.Īnd a good physical workout just might be the best brain exercise, said Hayes, whose research focuses on the variables that can slow age-related cognitive decline. Though enrolling in a Spanish class or picking up the guitar certainly fit that bill, Shirer explained that “stimulating” activities can be as easy as playing a new game with grandchildren or learning a new technology. However, that takes engaging in activities that are “novel, highly engaging, mentally challenging and enjoyable.” In fact, areas of the brain do grow, and people can influence those changes as they age. Shirer said that one major brain myth is that people are born with all their neurons. “All of us are aging and we want to be the best we can for as long as we can.”AARP has identified five pillars of brain health: physical activity, discovery (learning a new skill), relaxation (getting enough sleep included), nutrition and social interaction. “The entire country, it’s a global issue we are all concerned about,” said Shirer. Keeping the mind sharp is the top area of concern for AARP members, said spokeswoman Michelle Shirer, citing surveys the organization conducts. However, the research did not study whether these activities might prevent cognitive decline. Still, another study, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry last year, looked at 19,100 people and found that the more people engaged with word and number puzzles, the better they did on attention, memory and reasoning tests. The Global Council on Brain Health, in conjunction with AARP, found in 2017 that the evidence for long-term health benefits of brain games is weak.

Mind puzzle games