Mind games

Staying Young: Develop a Memorable Memory
By Michael Roizen & Mehmet Oz.
Oprah.com

Our brains sure do have a way of messing with our minds. One moment, you can be spitting out the names of your entire third-grade class, the batting statistics from the 1974 St. Louis Cardinals, the color dress you wore to the eighth-grade Sadie Hawkins dance, or the entire script from your favorite Seinfeld episode. The next minute, you space on the name of your cat.

Call them what you want—senior moments, doomsday, dementia—but the truth is that we all experience these neurological hiccups as we age, and we all wonder exactly what they mean. Some of us write them off to stress, fatigue, or some kind of neurological overload that’s caused by the ogre who signs our paychecks, while others worry about whether a spat of forgetfulness means we have a first-class ticket on the express train to Alzheimer’s.

No matter what we may think causes our decline in mental acuity, most people share a pretty big assumption about our gray matter: Either our brains are genetically determined to be Ginsu sharp for the duration, or that we’re eventually going to live life putting on our underwear last. That is, we believe that our genes completely control our neurological destiny. That simply isn’t true.

Like babies and brats, all your brain wants is this: attention. Feed it, challenge it, care for it, and you’ll smack a bad genetic destiny square in the face with five knuckles of good information and smart action. One of the key things to do is constantly stretch your mind—be it through crosswords, Scrabble, chess, or learning how to speak Chinese (if you don’t already). Thankfully, there are many ways to keep your brain operating at maximum efficiency, maximum power, and maximum quality.

As a reminder, always consult your doctor for medical advice and treatment before starting any program.