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Are you over 40 and feel like you're not as sharp as you used to be?
Turns out it's perfectly normal to forget something like items on a shopping list or react more slowly to a snippy remark as the years go on. But this slow decline isn't necessarily inevitable, as NPR's Jon Hamilton reports.
You can find out how your brain measures up with a free cognitive test called Mindcrowd. A small percentage of people who have taken the test had scores indicating that their brain was "exceptional," meaning they performed like a person 30 years younger.
What do these superperformers have in common? Genetics plays a role. Other factors probably won't surprise you either. These folks with “young-looking” brains are avoiding smoking, limiting alcohol and getting plenty of exercise. They're also keeping their cardiovascular systems healthy and getting quality sleep.
"The better you sleep, the better your brain health is going to be both structurally and functionally," says sleep neurologist Christian Agudelo. And he says quality sleep isn't just about the amount of hours you sleep – it's about getting through all the sleep stages.
You may be thinking “easier said than done!” Agudelo says these three behaviors are key to quality sleep.
🌄 Waking up at the same time every day and aligning your sleep rhythm with the rhythm of the sun.
🏃♂️ Staying physically active
👥 Staying active socially
Those behaviors increase "sleep pressure," the body's natural desire to sleep the longer we are awake, Agudelo says. When that pressure is high, he says, people tend to fall asleep more easily and sleep more deeply.
Learn more about what you can do to maintain your brain health as you age.
Plus: The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes |
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“Medicine is a profession for social service and it developed in response to social need,” said Charles Mayo, who cofounded the Mayo Clinic along with his father and brothers. According to some, this aphorism “helped the health care industry to think of its relationship and responsibility to the larger community.”
But activities most often associated with being a patient – like sitting in a paper gown waiting for your doctor, or counting out your pills in the morning – feel anything but social or communal.
A growing number of physicians are starting to recognize the positive effects that “lifestyle” activities like spending time with others and making art has on health. And they’re helping connect their patients to these experiences, as NPR’s Rhitu Chatterjee reports. The practice is known as social prescribing.
A social prescription is when health professionals "literally prescribe you a community activity or resource the same way they'd prescribe you pills or therapies," says Julia Hotz, author of the new book The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging.
For instance: Frank Frost, a former long-distance truck driver in the U.K., was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in his 50’s. His doctors prescribed insulin injections and told him to lose weight. When he didn’t lose the weight, Frost said his doctor made him feel like a failure.
Then Frost met a doctor with a different approach. This new physician asked Frost what mattered to him, and what activities he enjoyed in childhood. When he answered that he used to enjoy riding a bicycle, the doctor gave him a prescription for an adult cycling course. According to Frost, it turned out to be life-changing. He lost 100 pounds, went off insulin, and made friends who he continues to bike with.
And there are financial benefits for society, too. That’s because a social, active lifestyles are associated with reduced rates of chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. Health care systems are increasingly recognizing that "it's cheaper for them to cover 10 weeks of Zumba classes than it is to cover, for example, high blood pressure medication over the course of a lifetime, or GLP agonists over the course of a lifetime," says Hotz.
Learn more about social prescribing, and see if there are opportunities available near you.
Plus: Feeling alone? 5 tips to create connection and combat loneliness |
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Sam Panthaky/AFP/via Getty Images |
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On super hot days, this insurance plan pays out cash for lost wages
ACA health insurance will cost the average person 75% more next year, research shows
Her love life was in chaos. The solution? Giving up sex
Listen: Three years from its founding, who's using the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline? |
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We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism online.
All the best,
Andrea Muraskin and your NPR Health editors |
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