Interventions preventing cognitive decline in adults
Accurately perceiving the situation around us and solving the difficult mysteries of life is rare to find nowadays. Screen time has devastated all of us. Laughter is rare and people take pressure unnecessarily, mostly by poor relationships, abundant work, or poor coping mechanisms to everyday stressors. The solution cannot be searched for unless the problem is defined. Instead of intelligent thinking, we suffer from a reactive mind that fails to do the analysis and is not thought-conscious. We need to get out there to act, we have taken the step, and our leap has shown us the direction but an imbalanced mind is a hindrance that is not enabling us to go that far even with the goals and hard work intact. How many hats do you wear? Is this a mental fugue or a malignant cognitive decline, the kind most dreaded in young adults?
So let’s manage our intellect appropriately with the help of strategies I have been applying during the stressful moments of my life to prevent a cognitive decline or a nervous breakdown.
Practice self-talk and revise all events and people of the day- I can tell you what I said to whom in my 6th grade and what the first lecture in Physics was when I was only 10 years old. I can tell you what I explained to my friends 20 years ago when things were not good between us. The secret to our episodic memory is to ponder about the day’s errands for at least 15 minutes before bed. This small intervention can tell us about ourselves, whom and what to avoid, how to improve our work or relationship with a particular person who could be your daughter or work authority, and sometimes things as superficial as what to wear the next day or what to read. The most important thing this exercise improves is the presence of mind. It perpetuates motivated and planned days with mindful living where whatever we do isn’t a waste. We get to know where we are allocating our precious time, lessening the hours spent procrastinating. We measure quantitatively the quality of hours spent on fruitful work through revision and self-talk, exploring our shortcomings and means of improvement. Self-talk creates the vision and motivation to guide us toward the right path according to the current circumstances.
Enhance your networking skills- Unless we discuss and interview like-minded people, our efforts shall be like throwing stones at a wall and never getting by. We cannot become change-makers alone. No man can live as an island. We need to follow and teach at the same time and invest in human capital to assist our businesses. We need to learn from the experiences of others many times. If our social system is disrupted, we cannot get ahead and we shall be doomed despite great talent. Nowadays we can find millions of opportunities to grow our networks and discuss what other people are doing and whether we can participate in a joint venture. We need not be extraordinary, and learn from multiple interviews and augment our experience to achieve things that take short time with substantial results. It keeps us in the game. Networking stimulates our adventurous mind and improves the way we solve our problems and potentiate long-term memory. If we need to write a self-help book, we should know what is trending in the market and how our work can be edgy. Seeking guidance adds on to our anecdotes and the work we develop.
Build healthy relationships- Bitterness, anxiety, isolation, and depression are spoilers in life. We tend to think better when we are mentally sound. Spend quality time with people both at work and home. If talking to people, helping them, or inviting them to share time with us is difficult, we can become a victim of poor cognition. No one makes it alone. Allow them to creep in, to interfere to get to the other perspective. Try to contribute, try to listen, and seek an opinion. Try to be happy with the people around you. We become less angry and feel less humiliated by building healthy relationships. Sometimes women who are raising their children learn better as they are emotionally satisfied. They solve problems better than those who do not even call someone on phone or do not find time for people. Also, women in unhealthy relationships must break free to find the kind of people to uplift them and keep them going with the emotional health that begets a healthy mind that can make us move a straight line to solve complex problems. Sometimes we do everything right but people backstab us. By being open to a bunch of people we can correct our faults in relationships with others like people who are just around, those that are close, and those very close. Fine cohesiveness helps us build gratification and keep our minds alive. Make relationships a project. A close-knit family harbors individual success keeping the family system as support and collective achievement can trigger your yearning to do more for the family's sake. We develop cognitively through emotional security.
Read a little more than you can- Build up your reading capacity. Many people in their mid-20s and 30s want to earn and relax only. Books and articles become adrift. When I was young, there was a ritual all around to read newspapers in the morning hours. I used to read too. This has instigated my mind to look for what exactly I love to read and remember. The challenge is to become versatile and increase our knowledge. This requires building our language. We need to form words in our subject. This comes with reading. Cognition cannot be enhanced if we do not improve our practice. Structure your reading habit. If you are currently reading 10 pages in 2 hours, try increasing 1 page extra to read every day. We can either add a page or time. Those ten minutes extra can be a bonus for effective reading. Many people with long screen time develop ADHD. Therefore try reading long articles or books deliberately to prevent poor concentration. In the beginning, we may not be able to complete more than 3 paragraphs of effective reading but we can build up and read 10 paragraphs at a stretch without losing concentration. Keep reading. Give yourself enough time to spend on words.
Do some crafts, paint, and write- We need peace. We need an oxytocin release. Achievements write-ups and creativity are lasting gratifiers. When that painting is done and framed in our living room, we feel good. Every time you pass by, pat your shoulders for the good work done. Creativity, art, and design help build the frontal gyri. We also develop happy hormones and satiety. This satisfaction creates room for sustained daily practices to maintain the status quo and we do nothing half-heartedly. The creativity satisfies us. We learn deep thinking when we create. The skill becomes better with time, and so does our brain.
Sleep off the stress- Challenges are thrown at us in life. Many in fact. To prevent mental fatigue, we need a rejuvenation. Good sleep is the ultimate healer. If you learn after a good sleep, it is always productive. Those working 12 hours a day with very few hours to sleep will do many errors and cannot think soundly. Such conditions make us agitated and reactive. We may have many hats to wear. But attend to one task at a time with adequate rest. We need not deal with all the challenges at once. If we do, we become stressed with poor quality of work. Therefore to think better, sleep more.
Exercise and go for walks- Remaining always placid and calm may not always be productive. We need the right kind of aggression that prepares us to fulfill what we set ourselves to achieve. So exercise increases your brain’s blood circulation to thrive. Lack of physical activity is known to trigger cognitive decline. Try yoga, to begin with, followed by aerobics or dancing. We get our most fabulous ideas amidst nature. So walk as much as you can in the green. It provides sensory respite to our over-worked brain which is ready to solve problems and learn through mesmerization while walking. Listening to music, and podcasts during walks is a good input for working out our minds.
Eat less food but frequently- High cholesterol levels are associated with cognitive decline. Eating a lot of food is never good. Keep room for more. Also starvation prevents the brain to work. Therefore eat small and frequent meals for better cognition. We can have curd and apple, followed by a pulse mix, then chicken, then a salad, in a gap of 2–3 hours each. We need not have elaborate meals and neither binge on snacks and fast food in between meals. A healthy diet makes a healthy mind.
Improve your gut health- The gut-brain axis is linked by the immune system, neural and endocrine systems. The gut microbiota enhances the functioning of this axis. So indirectly good microbes help develop better brains. Have curd daily. Take a course of pro-biotic at least once a month. Also, have a lot of fiber which is a pre-biotic. Gut health keeps our brain healthy so never ignore it. Eating mindfully will not adversely affect our hormones and shall prevent cognitive decline.
Offer to help people around- To motivate you to be of use to people around you. It helps build good relationships, helps in networking, helps feel happy, and triggers one to think big and become a resource or brand that the people want to invest in. If somehow we help, we can continue to do so by upgrading our skills and giving our best. Both psychological and cognitive benefits can be attributed to helping others achieve their goals.
Take responsibility for your life- Do not let some distractions encroach upon your goals and well-being. You have to create what you like and not what others want. They can teach us, but the decision is ours to learn. Any experience is filtered by our senses according to what suits us. A road accident will instigate a doctor to help the victims survive, a psychologist would want to counsel the victim’s family, a journalist shall only report the incident and the police would want to know how it happened. So take responsibility for your life, and equip your mind in your direction, learn what suits us, work on what suits us. Do not aimlessly copy people. Bring out the best in you which may not be like others. It is better to be original and ordinary that to copy the extraordinary.
Love your possessions, don’t obsess but attach emotions to your things around- Another hack for improving cognition is to create positive affirmations for the things you possess. We need to be possessive about our sunglasses, the new bed sheet, books, bags, technology, and so on. If we feel happy about “my material possessions”, arranged, organized and used for visual sensory-motor inputs, we can develop proprioceptive sense. You can indulge in your surroundings with the right things in hand. You tend to increase satiety, maintain and organize materials, spend less, and lead simple lives. What we do with our things and the place of dwelling everyday, creates a balance of bodily movements.
We also do not binge shop and be proud of what we already have. There are aristocrats who do not change their wardrobes for years, they feel productive that way. We need to be bored at times to learn. Do not distract or obsess about your possessions. For living with positive affirmations, be happy about what you possess and pray for your things to be with you. It manifests and leads to authentic living.
Be spiritual- Pray for the energy and gravity around you. Do good, eat modestly, rest adequately and follow your religion if you feel like it. Find a spiritual love in the form of animals, man, parents, God, or creativity. Pray to manifest, have my time to meditate, and talk to your spirit that helps us synchronize with the environment. For as long as you live align yourself to spirituality.
Get married or make friends or join a book club- Marriage is a beautiful way to share your life, find someone to think about, be concerned about each other, love, fight and improve each other. Marriage scales up cognition. We learn to adjust and understand at least just one other viewpoint. It plans our old age, where we twosome is left for each other compensating for our weaknesses. Similarly, friends and a book club instigate discussion. Those who cannot marry or commit can still develop through formal discussions with the people at work, neighbors, professionals, and helpers around them. The idea is to end loneliness and its vagrancies in all stages of life.
A life well lived requires us to become mindful, sharp, helpful, and able to solve problems. Try these hacks; work upon 2–3 points every week and finally all to prevent the cognitive decline erupting in our adult life.
