As we reach our forties and fifties, we start to notice a few changes with our brain. We forget things more easily, we experience more “tip of the tongue moments” and find it harder to stay focused or on task. We put it down to the fact that our speed of mental processing is slowing down. We may even have a couple of fleeting worrying thoughts that our brain might be showing the first signs of actual cognitive decline.

One of the biggest fears people express about ageing, is the loss of our mental faculties. That loss of that of course, has a significant impact on our ability to remain self-caring and independent.

Until now, the onset of actual cognitive decline has been thought to occur in our sixties. The clinical onset of Alzheimer’s disease typically occurs around age 65 or older, although it is well recognized that the actual condition slowly and silently develops over the preceding couple of decades. Brain scans can now show the pathological changes in younger brains, before the clinical signs of disease.
Those showing the greatest amount of pathological change in their brains are also known to be at greatest risk of developing clinical signs of dementia in later life.

Findings from a couple of studies (including a longitudinal study from Seattle, which has been following a group of 500 individuals since 1956) have suggested that cognitive decline did not start before the age of 60.
Those findings have now been challenged by a new study recently published in the British Medical Journal which has found that the age of onset of cognitive decline may be significantly earlier than previously thought: actually starting in our mid forties.

This study of 10308 men and women civil servants aged 45 to 70 years from London UK was set up to examine whether different age groups showed differing levels of cognitive decline over a ten-year period. The group underwent tests of memory, reasoning, vocabulary, phonemic and semantic fluency in three different assessments over the ten-year period.

The results of the study showed the following:

Between the age of 65 and 70, men on average showed a -9.6% decline in cognition,
women -7.4%. This was not unexpected.

However results of the younger age group age 45 to 49 also showed evidence of cognitive decline, albeit at a lower percentage; -3.5% cognitive decline for men and -3.6% for women.

The implications of this study suggest that we need to be taking a much closer note of how we are performing in midlife. Along with midlife obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, our midlife cognitive function appears to be very important in determining how we will fare as we age.

If cognitive decline is picked up in our midlife, then at least that provides some valuable time to be putting into place specific strategies to to minimize any further decline and attempt to build cognitive reserve. What we don’t know (and requires further study) is whether midlife cognitive decline will lead to actual dementia – however it would seem prudent to do whatever we can, to keep our brains intact.

So what is the best thing we need to be doing in our midlife?

It’s all about maintain and improving brain function by adopting brain healthy lifestyles:

Eat healthily with a wide variety of green vegetables, fruit, lean proteins, seeds and nuts and keeping away from pies, pasties, cakes and biscuits, hot chips and fried foods.

Maintain a positive attitude to life. Being social engaged and active helps to keep stress levels down and stave off anxiety and depression.

Use your brain to learn new skills. Aim to include mental activities every day that are outside our usual habits. Card games, Sudoku, brain games, and apps are all useful.

Move your body. One of the biggest things we can do for our brain is to ensure we spend a minimum of thirty minutes every day doing some form of physical exercise – enough to get the heart rate up.

So next time you have a memory lapse, forget an appointment or lose your keys while it might simply a slower speed of processing, it could be an indication of a more serious reduction in your cognitive ability. So rather than ignoring it, be proactive and take the time every day to help restore your mental sharpness. Your brain may depend on it.

Ref:

Singh-Manoux,A.et al Timing of onset of cognitive decline: results from Whitehall 11 prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal 2012; 344 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d7622

Goal Setting and the four biggest traps that’ll destroy your motivation (and the one key thing that’ll sustain it). http://t.co/FBOaZ4EN

The Mirror in Us: Mirror Neurons & Workplace Relationships http://t.co/odgt63Hz via @intentionalcomm

Not all gossip is bad Telling someone else when something really miffs us can have psychological benefits: http://t.co/RCazWlUB via @AddThis

During the last twelve months I have done a lot of writing – a book, my blog posts, some articles, presentations and workshops. They have all been completed with me being in a certain position i.e. sitting at a desk in front of my computer.

I’ve never had to spend so much time on my derriere before and I have to say I noticed a few things.

Firstly something which I can only describe as “writers bottom”, an intense desire to get up, jump up and down or move to do anything physically that would relieve me from the torment of having to sit a moment longer.

I have always endeavoured to ensure I exercise daily, with a 30 to 40 minute walk, some yoga plus a swim a couple of times a week, but this no longer felt adequate to help keep my brain cells firing.

Thirdly I started experiencing backache and various other aches and pains I had never had before. Was it my age I pondered? It was only when I took action to help my sore back by having some physio, doing some cycling and doing yoga that the penny finally dropped – I had advanced “sitting disease” which was impacting my physical and mental well being. Time to change!

But how many of us are not in the position to allow for that change? Luckily I won’t be as dormant next year, as my work will be involving a lot more movement with walking and standing. But if you are a sedentary worker having to sit every day in front of your desk how can you do things differently and overcome the sitting disease?

And it’s not just our bottom, which feels the impact; our tummy muscles lose tone and we tend to put on weight too. The spread of the derriere is accompanied by a spread around the middle. So if your clothes are getting a bit tight and your tummy is protruding more than it used to, perhaps it’s time to consider how much time you are sitting and find a way to sit less.

This week a colleague shared this video clip from Dr Mike, which is one of the best health promotion videos I have seen for a while. He explains exactly WHY exercise is the best prescription your doctor could ever prescribe because it is the remedy to assist so many of our modern day ailments: obesity, depression, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and dementia.

So do yourself a favour, no make that two…..

Firstly watch this video and then commit to filling in your daily prescription of “finding thirty” every day.
And why am I going on about sitting too much? Because of the negative effect it has on our brain function. We evolved to move because it stimulates the production of neurochemicals that support and nurture our existing brain cells as well as promoting the production of new neurons every day.
We need to “find thirty” every day as a minimum to keep our brain working at it’s very best.

So let’s make “sitting disease” and “writer’s bottom” a thing of the past and look to creating a more “brain fit” you.