Brain Fitness for Seniors

Ongoing stress is bad for your brain, your overall health, and your quality of life.  And sometimes, there’s just no way to avoid it…   So how do you cope minimize it’s effects?

1. Get Physical: Even a small amount of exercise helps your body cope with the effects of stress, as well as improving your brain functions both long and short term.
2. A Dose Of Nature: It’s not just your imagination: being around greenery and natural environments really can make you feel better, and provide an antidote to the stress of artificial, urban living.
3. Sunlight: along with allowing our bodies to produce Vitamin D, exposure to sunlight increases production of serotonin, which regulates both mood and sleep, and helping us to deal better with stress in general.
4. Take A Power Nap: Stress often interferes with sleep, and poor sleep keeps our bodies from coping with stress.  Power naps of less than 30 minutes can help, improving cognitive function in tests.
5. Breathe: When we’re anxious and stressed, our breathing tends to be shallow and quick. Try intentionally slowing it down, and breathing deeply from the diaphragm for an instant (but lasting) calming effect.  The increased O2 will help your brain find ways to solve the stressful problems, too.
6. Journalling: Keeping a daily journal of thought and joys can help train you to focus on the positive, release the negative, and put vague worries into managable form.
7. Meditation: traditional forms of meditation help stress levels in any number of ways, including teaching you to breathe deeply, to create an oasis of calm around you, a positive, compassionate approach towards yourself and others, and to embrace the philosophy that all troubles are temporary.
8. Brainwave Entrainment: Too stressed to sit still for meditation? Listening to brainwave entrainment tracks won’t teach you  to calm your breathing or compassion, but it can put your brain into a deep, resting state equivalent to that of meditation.  Look for CD’s with Alpha, Delta or Theta waves… or create your own with software available online
9. Reduce Clutter: All of that visual clutter in your world? It translates to  mental clutter and stress.  Clear it out. Give your eyes clear surfaces and open spaces to rest on, and your mind will thank you.
10. Smile: When we smile, our facial muscles and nerves send signals to our brains to tell us that we’re  happy.  Our brain adjusts our chemistry accordingly, helping to reduce the feeling of being stressed, and actually making us happier.

So there you go…  10 simple ways to reduce the impact of stress.

Are you smiling? I’m smiling!