Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease ~ 4 Brain Exercises, Games, and Activities

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Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

4 Brain Exercises, Games, and Activities to Tease Your Wits
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As doctors and researchers discover more about Alzheimer’s disease, we learn there are a few things we can do to reduce our risk of developing it, including other forms of dementia.
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The benefits of physical exercise have been touted in recent years by researchers who found that the brain can grow instead of atrophy even well into our later years.
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However, physical exercise is not the only way to ward off developing Alzheimer’s; mental exercise also reduces your risk of the brain health deterioration that leads to dementia.
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The key is to get the right kind of mental exercise, and we share four types of games below that fit the bill.
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Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: Tip #1
Play Memory Relationship Games
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There are various memory strategies that strengthen the brain.
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One such strategy is to associate new information with familiar concepts to help you remember something. For example, if you have to learn a new PIN number, you could associate the four digits with something in your life.
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You can expand this relationship game to any string of numbers that you create by writing random sequences of numbers in a notebook and testing yourself to see which you can remember by associating them with something familiar to you.
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Work through four or five random number combinations a day to keep your mind sharp.
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Playing memory games with mnemonics is another way to exercise the brain. You may recall learning the treble clef with the mnemonic “every good boy does fine.” Mnemonics are most successful when you make humorous or silly phrases to help you remember important pieces of information.

Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: Tip #2
Challenges with Brain Teasers and Puzzles
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Other types of game that keep the mind sharp are brain teasers and puzzles.
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Challenging brain activities and puzzles stimulate the brain to minimize the deterioration that characterizes dementia.
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Any brain teaser that boosts reasoning skills and requires memory and mental processing speed can stave off mental decline.
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Brain teasers may be riddles, puzzles that require mental math and deductive reasoning, or word problems that require you to think outside the box and avoid obvious answers.
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Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: Tip #3
Play Card Games
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Chances are, you love to play cards and know others who do as well. That’s good news because playing cards is one of the best ways to exercise your brain.
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First, playing cards relieves stress and allows your body to rest while you exercise the mind so your brain is focusing on playing rather than other activities.
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Card games also stimulate nerve growth in the parts of the brain that direct emotion and executive function.
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Playing cards also helps people improve their short-term memory. In fact, one study found that playing Bridge uses several areas of the brain and requires visualization, memory, and sequencing.
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However, nearly any card game gives players some brain exercise via problem solving. Playing card games with others provides even more mental stimulation because you have to communicate with others, watch and learn how they play various hands, and share memories from the past.
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Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease: Tip #4
Do Word Puzzles
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Word puzzles, such as crossword puzzles and word searches, benefit our brain health by improving overall brain and memory function and staving off brain deterioration.
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Specifically, crossword puzzles increase vocabulary and improve our problem-solving skills.
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Researchers have determined that people who engage in word puzzles like crossword puzzles have less buildup of the toxic protein beta-amyloid, which is the main component of the brain plaque that characterizes Alzheimer’s disease.
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When we solve word puzzles, we have to use logic and approach the problem in a particular way.
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We also recognize patterns until we reach a solution. All of this activity stimulates the brain and exercises it in a way that can minimize the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Word games, crossword puzzles, and letter games are good places to start.
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Article by George Mears. George is a brain fitness expert, educator, and counselor. One of his primary areas of study is neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and improve over one’s lifetime. He shares his thoughts and favorite brain fitness exercises at BrainWellness.info
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