In six months, I’ll be entering a new decade of life (the ’60s!), and I find myself focusing more and more on my brain health and my body’s fitness.

You know the adage: Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, blah blah.

But I’m thinking a lot more about my brain health these days as I’ve seen my parents and other elderly relatives and friends slip into that dark and confusing world of dementia.

I’ve finally found a book that seems to offer sound, scientifically-based advice. It’s called Brain Rules for Aging Well: 10 Principles for Staying Vital, Happy, and Sharp. 

John J. Medina wrote the book. He works as a developmental molecular biologist and he’s an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Medina writes the book in a very engaging manner, with lots of examples of what works, easy to understand citations to studies, and references to real people and how they are living their lives.

Here are three things I’ve learned that I’m applying or plan to apply to my life, to age well:

Learn partner dancing. 

I can hear my husband laughing already. When it comes to dancing, I have two left feet and a tiny sense of rhythm. All the more reason to challenge myself. If I can play a decent game of golf, then surely I can learn to dance with a partner.

Here’s what Medina writes: “You can cover the dance floor with peer-reviewed papers showing the benefits of this regular, ritualized movement that forces social interaction. The scientific benefits are almost too good to be true.”

One study looked at healthy adults ages 60 to 94 who took a one-hour dance class every week for six months. It showed that hand-motor coordination improved, as did short-term memory, impulse control, posture and balance. And it didn’t seem to matter what type of dance, whether it was ballroom, jazz, tango, etc.

Participants also benefit from the human touch, as studies have shown touch gives cognitive and emotional boosts — in other words it boosts brain health. Also, dance provides social, face-to-face interaction, and Medina points out that social isolation as we get older affects us physically, in negative ways. I certainly don’t consider myself to be a senior citizen, but it’s good to know now that lonely seniors have poorer immune function and higher levels of stress hormones (which leads to health problems), and loneliness affects cognition negatively, Medina notes.

Find something to be grateful about every day.

I’m already a pretty optimistic person. I’m not sure why — probably a host of reasons, including my Catholic faith.  Now I’ve learned that having a positive attitude toward my own aging can help me live longer than people who don’t. According to Medina, the seniors who take their health issues in stride (hearing loss, arthritis, etc.) and keep an attitude of “the glass is half full,” live 7.5 years longer than seniors who don’t.

More than a year ago, I started a daily “prayer process” that I was introduced to by reading the book Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly. The first point of the process is “Gratitude: Begin by thanking God in a personal dialogue for whatever you are most grateful for today.” All kinds of things quickly come to mind. Perhaps a phone call I had the day before with my best friend from childhood who lives in the Midwest. Perhaps it’s the gorgeous summer weather that’s finally arrived. Perhaps it’s that I’m visiting my elderly mother in Iowa and able to take her to a doctor’s appointment. No matter what it is, it starts my day in a positive way.

Medina writes about a psychotherapist named Martin Seligman who developed and then scientifically tested exercises on the ideas of thankfulness and appreciation. One of those exercises involves recalling and writing down three positive things that happened to you on a given day; then writing why they happened. Seligman found that doing this not only boosted happiness scores but also successfully treated depression.

In a world where it’s easy to find a lot to gripe about, stopping for a few minutes to be grateful for things in the here and now leads to happiness, and that in turn leads to better brain health.

Related post: Time management technique brings inner peace.

Learn a demanding skill. 

My husband and I are going to buy a piano. (Let me know if you have one for sale!)

I learned to play the piano as a kid, but I haven’t played regularly since I quit piano lessons as a teenager when I lost interest. For years, I’ve wanted to get a piano but until recently, I knew I wouldn’t make the time to play it. Now, after reading this book, I’m even more interested in playing again and taking lessons.

My husband has never played the piano, and now he wants to learn.

Medina writes: “Learning a demanding skill is the most scientifically proven way to reduce age-related memory decline.” Medina does a great job explaining various memory systems such as working memory (what used to be called short-term memory); episodic memory (recalling life events); procedural memory (for motor skills).  During aging, working memory and episodic memory tend to decline; procedural memory remains stable. And perhaps surprisingly, vocabulary increases with age.

You’ve probably read that learning a foreign language is also good for your brain health. Medina confirms that, stating that “bilingual people perform significantly better on cognitive tests than monolingual controls.” And it doesn’t matter how old you were when you learned that second language. There are long-term benefits to being bilingual or multi-lingual — normal cognitive decline is less steep and the risk for general dementia is less, too.

I love this quote from Medina:

“The more you lift weights in the mental gym, the more you postpone your otherwise natural memory decline. We even know the rate. Every day you exercise your brain above what you do typically delays that deterioration by 0.18 years.”

How about you?

The book has many more tips. Watch for an upcoming post on the MIND diet.

Having read Brain Rules for Aging Well, I’m now excited to try new things. What are you doing to keep your brain healthy?