It’s easy to observe how your body ages over time. You develop wrinkles. Your hair turns gray (or falls out). Your joints start to get stiff. Some drooping of the skin starts to happen in certain places. Maybe your eyesight and your hearing both start to fade a little. It’s pretty difficult not to notice these changes.
But it’s harder to see how growing older affects your mind. You may find that you are needing to put important events on the calendar because you’re having difficulty with your memory. Perhaps you miss important events or lose your train of thought more frequently. But unfortunately, you might not even notice this slow onset. And that hearing decline can be worsened by the psychological effects.
Luckily, there are a few ways that you can exercise your brain to keep it sharp and healthy as you age. And you may even have some fun!
What is the connection between hearing and mental cognition
The majority of people will slowly lose their hearing as they age (for a number of reasons). The risk of cognitive decline will then increase. So, why does loss of hearing increase the risk of cognitive decline? Research points to a number of hidden risks of hearing loss.
- There can be atrophy of the part of the brain that processes sound when someone has neglected hearing loss. Occasionally, it’s put to other uses, but generally speaking, this isn’t very good for your cognitive health.
- Neglected hearing loss can easily produce a sense of social isolation. This isolation means you’re talking less, socializing less, and spending more time by yourself, and your cognition can suffer as a consequence.
- Untreated hearing loss can also trigger depression and other mental health issues. And having these mental health problems can boost the corresponding danger of cognitive decline.
So is dementia the outcome of hearing loss? Well, not directly. But untreated hearing loss can raise your risk of cognitive decline, up to and including dementia. Those risks, however, can be seriously decreased by getting hearing loss treated. And those risks can be decreased even more by increasing your general brain function or cognition. A little preventative treatment can go a long way.
Strengthening mental function
So how do you go about giving your brain the workout it needs to increase cognitive function? Well, the great news is that your brain is the same as any other body part: you can always accomplish improvement, it simply requires a little exercise. So boost your brain’s sharpness by engaging in some of these fun activities.
Gardening
Cultivating your own vegetables and fruit is a delicious and gratifying hobby. Your cognition can be improved with this unique combination of hard work and deep thinking. Here are a number of reasons why:
- Gardening releases serotonin which can relieve the symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- As you’re working, you will need to think about what you’re doing. You have to analyze the situation using planning and problem solving skills.
- You get a little moderate physical activity. Improved blood flow is good for your brain and blood flow will be improved by moving buckets around and digging in the soil.
As an added bonus, you get healthy fruits and vegetables from your hobby. Of course, not all gardens need to be focused on food. You can grow flowers, wild grasses, cacti, or anything your green thumb wishes!
Arts and crafts
You don’t have to be artistically inclined to take pleasure in arts and crafts. You can make a simple sculpture using popsicle sticks. Or perhaps you can make a really cool clay mug on a pottery wheel. When it comes to exercising your brain, the medium matters much less than the process. That’s because arts and crafts (drawing, sculpting, building) cultivate your imagination, your critical thinking skills, and your sense of aesthetics.
Here are a number of reasons why getting involved in arts and crafts will strengthen cognition:
- You have to make use of numerous fine motor skills. And while that might feel automatic, your brain and nervous system are really doing lots of work. Over the long haul, your mental function will be healthier.
- You have to use your imagination and process sensory inputs in real time. A lot of brain power is required to achieve that. There are a few activities that stimulate your imagination in exactly this way, so it offers a unique type of brain exercise.
- You have to think about what you’re doing while you do it. You can help your mental process stay clear and flexible by engaging in this type of real time thinking.
Whether you pick up a paint-by-numbers kit or draft your own original fine art piece, your level of talent doesn’t really matter. The most relevant thing is keeping your brain sharp by engaging your imagination.
Swimming
There are a number of ways that swimming can keep you healthy. Plus, it’s always enjoyable to jump into the pool (particularly when it’s so sweltering hot outside). But swimming isn’t just good for your physical health, it also has mental health advantages.
Any time you’re in the pool, you need to do a lot of thinking about spatial relations when you’re swimming. Obviously, colliding with someone else in the pool wouldn’t be safe.
Your mind also has to be aware of rhythms. When will you need to come up to breathe when you’re under water? That kind of thing. Even if this kind of thinking is going on in the background of your brain, it’s still excellent cognitive exercise. Plus, physical exercise of any sort can really help get blood to the brain going, and that can be good at helping to slow down cognitive decline.
Meditation
Spending some silent solo time with your mind. As your thoughts become calm, your sympathetic nervous system also gets calm. These “mindfulness” meditation methods are made to help you focus on your thinking. As a result, meditation can:
- Help you learn better
- Improve your attention span
- Improve your memory
You can become even more mindful of your mental faculties by practicing meditation.
Reading
It’s great for you to read! And even more than that, it’s fun. There’s that old adage: a book can take you anywhere. The floor of the ocean, the ancient past, outer space, you can travel anywhere in a book. When you’re following along with a story, manifesting landscapes in your imagination, and mentally creating characters, you’re using lots of brain power. In this way, reading engages a huge part of your brain. You’re forced to think a great deal and utilize your imagination when you read.
Consequently, one of the best ways to sharpen the mind is reading. Imagination is required to visualize what’s going on, your memory to keep up with the plot, and when you finish the book, you get a rewarding dose of serotonin.
What you read doesn’t really matter, fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, so long as you allocate time each day reading and strengthening your brainpower! And, for the record, audiobooks are essentially as good as reading with your eyes.
Manage your hearing loss to lessen cognitive risks
Even if you do every single thing right, neglected hearing loss can continue to increase your risks of cognitive decline. Which means, even if you garden, swim, and read, you’ll still be fighting an uphill battle, unless you get your hearing loss treated.
Your social skills, your thinking, and your memory and cognition will improve once you have your hearing loss dealt with (normally with hearing aids).
Is hearing loss a problem for you? Reconnect your life by contacting us today for a hearing exam.