Keeping fit as we age: Exercise for mental fitness

Last updated Mar 13, 2007 12:0pm0

Much has been written about the benefits of physical exercise for improving quality of life and staving off some of the physical ravages of aging.

Considerably less has appeared in print about the benefits of exercising the mind.

It has long been the assumption that it's all downhill, even for those who succeed in avoiding dementia, Alzheimer's and other brain diseases. However, this premise has been demonstrated to be false. The jury is no longer out regarding the benefits of mental exercise. It has become clear that aging brains can be revitalized. Even those unfortunate enough to have the symptoms of age-based brain diseases can show significant improvement in mental function.

Research indicates that keeping the mind agile is just as important as keeping physically fit in the battle to stay young. By exercising the brain with regular crossword and Sudoku puzzles, the average adult can increase mental agility to the level that the brain's age will appear to be up to 14 years younger.

The medical community is even starting to change its perceptions about mental aging. Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, a highly respected neuroscientist at New York University's School of Medicine, has recently published a book titled "The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger as Your Brain Grows Older." The subtitle tells the whole story.

Physical exercise is also a factor in mental fitness. It has been clinically demonstrated that a regular cardiovascular workout just three times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes can also significantly boost brain power. This improvement in mental function is a result of pumping more blood to the brain.

Exercise also generates a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which acts as a stimulant for new brain connections and cells. It also releases serotonin, which is a key chemical for enhancing mood and prolonging the survival of brain cells which might otherwise wither through age.

Another factor that leads to mental decline is the lack of mental challenges. Most adults get comfortable in a lifestyle that provides as few mental demands as possible. When younger, new challenges were faced daily. In school mental obstacles were a common occurrence from mastering a mathematics problem to writing an essay.

Any demand that is made on the brain is a form of benign, moderate stress that increases levels of the chemical messenger noradrenalin. This chemical messenger boosts the rate at which connections form between brain cells and makes the brain more agile. This was never more evident than when a scientific study in Chicago discovered that the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease was 50 percent lower amongst a group of nuns and monks aged over 65 who were very mentally active. To maintain and enhance intellectual function in later life, it is necessary to challenge the brain.

The evidence is clear that the brain needs to be stimulated. This can be through solving problems, juggling a number of tasks or learning a new skill. If your job isn't mentally challenging or you are retired, it is important to use your spare time to find new challenges. Joining a community action group or volunteering for community service projects are two excellent ways to increase the challenges in life.

Crossword and Sudoku puzzles have recently been cited as well-rounded aids to archive a vigorous mental workout. Sudoku puzzles in particular have been used with great success in a number of clinical trials and with mental aging research groups demonstrating quantitative improvements in mental agility in short periods of time (see related story, page 13).

Exercising the memory is a different exercise that can make a significant difference. A common technique is to train the mind to use pictures and mental imagery to retrieve information. The ancient Greeks called this the "method of loci." The technique involves visualizing a familiar journey and putting the things you want to remember (names of people you met at a party or items on a shopping list) at familiar staging posts along the route.

Learning a second language forces your brain to switch tracks continuously, which is one of the most mentally demanding things you can do. It's particularly effective for honing the frontal lobes, which generally shrink with age.

It is important not to be deterred by the challenges that these exercises pose to the out-of-shape mind. Science has documented that the greater our education - regardless of when it is achieved - the better the chance of living a long and full life.

The Sudoku mental workout

The use of Sudoku to provide mental exercise is a growing, worldwide phenomenon that is crossing cultural and language barriers. The puzzles can be simple or diabolically difficult. The objective is to fill the 9-by-9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3-by-3 boxes contains the digits 1 to 9. The puzzle comes with a partially completed grid, and there is only one solution.

Researchers from the University of South Florida conducted a study of 3,000 men and women aged 65 to 94 and found that after just 10 sessions of Sudoku the mental age of the test subjects had improved between seven and 14 years. Micheal Mariske, one of the authors of the study, said that the average time each person spent in the study was between 10 and 18 hours. He believes that if Sudoku were done on a daily basis, the positive effects could be exponentially greater.

Solving a Sudoku puzzle can be a real mental workout. It is important to begin with easier puzzles to avoid frustration. With experience, as puzzles seem to be getting easier to solve, move to more difficult puzzles. At first glance, all the puzzles seem easy to complete; however, some are fiendishly difficult.

The puzzles should come with a surgeon general's warning; they can become extremely addictive.

Although it generally believed that Sudoku is of recent Japanese origins, it actually has a long history beginning in Switzerland in the early 1700s. Leonhard Euler is credited with the original form which was called a Latin Square. Euler's image appears on the Swiss 10 franc note and on stamps from various European countries. He is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest of all time.

The modern puzzle was resurrected by an American named Howard Garns in 1979. It was published by Dell Magazines under the name Number Place and found a small but dedicated following. It languished until 1986 when it was published in Japan and given the name Sudoku. It became an international hit in 2005 and today is considered the most commonly played logic game in the world.

The name Sudoku is the abbreviation of a long Japanese phrase that is translated "the digits must occur only once." The name is trademarked by a Japanese publisher; however, the same puzzle is published under other names, including the original American title of Number Place.

The numerals in Sudoku puzzles are used for convenience as they are the same in all languages, although there are versions that use letters, symbols and even colors. Dell Magazines, the publisher of the modern version, has used numerals for Number Place in its magazines since the puzzle first appeared in print in 1979.

The real attraction of the puzzle is that the rules are simple yet the line of reasoning required to solve the puzzle may be complex. The level of difficulty can be selected to suit the audience. The puzzles are available free from various published sources and can be played for free online at various locations including http://www.websudoku.com.