As your body ages, it’s not hard to detect the changes. Your skin begins to get some wrinkles. Your hair turns gray (or falls out). Your joints start to get stiff. Your skin becomes a little saggy in places. Perhaps your eyesight and your hearing both start to diminish a bit. These signs are hard to miss.
But it’s harder to see how aging impacts your mind. You might observe that your memory isn’t as good as it once was and that you need to start writing significant dates on your calendar. Perhaps you miss important events or lose your train of thought more often. The trouble is that this sort of mental decline takes place so slowly and gradually that you may never realize it. And that hearing decline can be exacerbated by the psychological effects.
As you age, there are, fortunately, some exercises you can do to help your brain remain sharp. And you may even have a little bit of fun!
What is the link between hearing and mental cognition
Most individuals will gradually lose their hearing as they get older (for a number of reasons). This can lead to a higher risk of cognitive decline. So, why does hearing loss increase the risk of cognitive decline? Research reveals a number of invisible risks of hearing loss.
- When you’re dealing with neglected hearing loss, the portion of your brain responsible for sound processing begins to atrophy. Sometimes, it’s put to other uses, but in general, this isn’t very good for your mental health.
- A feeling of social separation is often the consequence of neglected hearing loss. Because of this lack of social interaction, you can begin to detect cognitive lapses as you disengage from the outside world.
- Untreated hearing loss can also contribute to depression and other mental health issues. And having these mental health concerns can increase the corresponding danger of mental decline.
So, can hearing loss turn into dementia? Well, not directly. But cognitive decline, including dementia, will be more likely for someone who has neglected hearing loss. Treating your hearing loss can significantly lessen those risks. And those risks can be lowered even more by improving your overall brain function or cognition. Think of it as a little bit of preventative medicine.
How to improve cognitive function
So, how can you be certain to boost your cognitive function and give your brain the workout it needs? Well, the good news is that your brain is like any other body part: you can always accomplish improvement, it simply calls for a little exercise. So boost your brain’s sharpness by engaging in some of these fun activities.
Gardening
Growing your own fruits and vegetables can be incredibly rewarding all by itself (it’s also a delicious hobby). Your cognition can be improved with this unique combination of hard work and deep thinking. This happens for a number of reasons:
- Anxiety relief and a little bit of serotonin. This can help keep mental health problems including depression and anxiety in check.
- 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.
- Gardening requires moderate physical exercise. Increased blood flow is good for your brain and blood flow will be increased by moving buckets around and digging in the ground.
The reality that you get healthy vegetables and fruits out of your garden is an additional bonus. Of course, not all gardens have to be food-focused. You can grow flowers, wild grasses, cacti, or anything your green thumb desires!
Arts and crafts
You don’t need to be artistically inclined to take pleasure in arts and crafts. You can make a simple sculpture using popsicle sticks. Or maybe you can make a really cool clay mug on a pottery wheel. It’s the process that counts with regard to exercising the brain, not so much the particular medium. Because your critical thinking abilities, imagination, and sense of aesthetics are cultivated by doing arts and crafts (sculpting, painting, building).
Here are several reasons why doing arts and crafts will improve cognition:
- You need to make use of numerous fine motor skills. And while that might feel automatic, your brain and nervous system are truly doing lots of work. Over the long haul, your cognitive function will be healthier.
- You have to utilize your imagination and process sensory inputs in real time. This requires a great deal of brain power! You can activate your imagination by participating in these unique brain exercises.
- You have to think about what you’re doing while you do it. You can help your cognitive process stay clear and flexible by participating in this type of real time thinking.
Whether you pick up a paint-by-numbers kit or create your own original fine art piece, your talent level isn’t really relevant. The most relevant thing is keeping your mind sharp by stimulating your imagination.
Swimming
There are a lot of ways that swimming can help you stay healthy. Plus, a hot afternoon in the pool is always a great time. And while it’s obviously good for your physical health, there are some ways that swimming can also be good for your cognitive health.
Your brain has to be engaged in things like spatial awareness when you’re in the pool swimming. Obviously, colliding with someone else in the pool wouldn’t be safe.
You also have to think about your rhythms. How long can you be underwater before you need to breathe? That sort of thing. This is still a good mental exercise even if it’s happening in the back of your mind. And cognitive decline will progress more slowly when you get involved in physical activity because it helps get more blood to the brain.
Meditation
Just some time for you and your mind. Meditation can help calm your thoughts (and calm your sympathetic nervous system at the same time). These “mindfulness” meditation techniques are designed to help you concentrate on your thinking. Meditation can help:
- Improve your memory
- Improve your attention span
- Help you learn better
You can become even more mindful of your mental faculties by doing meditation.
Reading
It’s good for you to read! And even more than that, it’s really enjoyable. There’s that old adage: a book can take you anywhere. In a book, you can go everywhere, such as outer space, the ancient world, or the bottom of the ocean. Think of all the brain power that is involved in generating these imaginary landscapes, following a story, or conjuring characters. This is how reading activates a huge part of your brain. Reading isn’t possible without employing your imagination and thinking a lot.
Hence, one of the very best ways to sharpen the mind is reading. You have to use your memory to keep track of the story, your imagination to visualize what’s going on, and you get a pleasant dose of serotonin when you finish your book!
What you read doesn’t really matter, fiction, non-fiction, science fiction, as long as you allocate time every day reading and strengthening your brainpower! Audiobooks, for the record, work just as well!
Manage your hearing loss to lessen cognitive risks
Disregarded hearing loss can increase your risk of cognitive decline, even if you do everything correctly. Which means, even if you garden, swim, and read, you’ll still be struggling uphill, unless you get your hearing loss treated.
Your social skills, your thinking, and your memory and cognition will get better once you have your hearing loss treated (usually with hearing aids).
Are you suffering from hearing loss? Reconnect your life by calling us today for a hearing exam.