Exercises To Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of short-term memory and various cognitive capacities such as speech or concentration. In fact, it is the most common form of dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is most common in people who are 65 years or older. Life expectancy is only up to 10 years after being diagnosed. It is estimated that around 25 million people suffer from this disease.

In this article, we will look at some exercises to help you get your brain in action. Exercises like this can help you delay or completely avoid the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Prevent Alzheimer’s disease

There have been many advances since the disease was first discovered by Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer in 1906. However, there are still aspects of the disease that we do not understand.

For example, we still do not know what causes it to occur. However, we know that we can fight to prevent this condition until we get older. Doing certain exercises and eating certain foods can not guarantee that we will not suffer from Alzheimer’s disease when we grow old, but it can help, and we can at least say that we tried.

There are many factors that affect the occurrence of this mental erosion caused by cerebral oxidation. Among them we find stress, atherosclerosis and diabetes. All of these increase the aging of the brain.

Also there  to be a woman and have gone through menopause may put you at risk. This is because your body has stopped producing estrogen, a hormone that increases brain health.

Let’s take a look at some excellent exercises to train your brain that can be helpful in delaying or preventing Alzheimer’s.

Exercises to train your brain

Your mind is like a muscle, and like any muscle, it must be trained. If you do not do this often, it will be weakened.

Here are some habits that you can add to your daily routine to help increase your cerebral capacity:

1. Bathe with your eyes closed

Try to take a bath once a week with your eyes closed. Find out where your faucet, soap and shampoo are, without even taking a look. In this way, you will develop your other senses, such as your sense of touch. This will make your brain work harder than usual.

2. Use your non-dominant hand

If you are right-handed, use your left hand, or vice versa, to do common tasks. This can be brushing your teeth or brushing your hair, writing, opening cupboards, using the computer mouse, cutting food, grabbing a glass, etc.

3. Change where you put things

Your brain gets used to having certain objects in certain places. It knows, for example, that underwear is in the top of the dresser, or that you have milk in the fridge. By doing this, we become a little “lazy” and do everything we remember.

Challenge yourself to put things in new places. What if you put your underwear in a new drawer? You can change how your furniture looks in the house. You can even change where your desk is in the office.

4. Take a different route each day

The same thing that happens with things in the house, also happens with the routes you take to get to you to work, school, fitness center, grocery store, etc. If you usually use the same means of transportation, change it. If you use a car or bicycle, take a different route. Our brain needs to be surprised from time to time. By doing this, you will also keep your life from becoming boring by routines.

5. Memorize phone numbers and dates

We do not use our brains to store certain information as much as we used to, thanks to smartphones and computers. Because of this, it is common for us not to know the telephone number of our partner or our parents. Maybe we do not even know our own phone number! Try not to use these devices or even paper for support. Remember important dates without having them written down anywhere. 

The same thing happens with GPS maps and calculators. These things, which seem to make life easier, have made our brains very lazy. For example, we do not know how to get to our best friend’s house or what 2 x 5 is. Think about which route you want to take before leaving the house. And do these calculations in your head!

6. Read more

Books help us to stimulate our imagination and strengthen our brain. As you read, your brain makes an effort to “think” about what is happening. It must link information and dates that the author leaves flowing from the pages.

Do not read things just because you have to, such as for school and work. Try to find novels or science fiction you like. Another idea is to read aloud to stimulate hearing.

Other exercises to improve brain functions

In addition to the previous exercises, there are many other activities you can put into practice. These train your brain and can prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease:

• Go backwards without turning your head.
• Do word search, sudoku, and puzzles.
• Use your watch on the other wrist.
• Dress with your eyes closed.
• Read magazines upside down.
• Exercise regularly.
• Be curious, look for interesting information about something.
• Be positive.
• Eat a healthy diet.
• Drink plenty of water.
• Sleep between 7 and 8 hours per night.
• Mediter.
• Learn new words, use synonyms and antonyms to say the same thing.