If you are of a certain age, it’s probably happened to you: You walk into a room and forget what you came for. You misplace your car keys. Again. And although you try and try to remember the name of that acquaintance in front of you, your mind goes blank.
Oh no, you think. Is this a sign of Alzheimer’s? Am I losing my brainpower?
If you have such concerns, you’re not alone. A recent survey by the Alzheimer’s Association showed that 60 percent of people worldwide believe—incorrectly—that Alzheimer’s is an inevitable part of aging, a worry second only to getting cancer. The good news is that there is more information than ever available these days about staving off mental decline and staying sharp into your twilight years.
There’s so much research out there, in fact, that it would be hard to wade through it all. That’s what makes the new book Ageless Brain: Think Faster, Remember More, and Stay Sharper by Lowering Your Brain Age so useful. Written by the editors of Prevention magazine and Julia VanTine, it offers an easy-to-read, practical, and solid guide to keeping your brain young, while distilling the latest findings from research on nutrition, physical and mental exercise, stress reduction, and more.
The format is reader-friendly, with boxes, outlines, lists, and self-assessment quizzes. Early on, for instance, there’s a section on “Memory Issues: What’s Normal, What’s Not.” “Not all memory lapses spell trouble,” the authors report—something readers may find especially reassuring. There are ways to distinguish normal, age-related memory glitches from dementia or Alzheimer’s: If you find yourself unable to recall the details of an event or conversation from a year ago, that’s normal; but if you find yourself unable to remember the details from an event or conversation from last week, that’s reason to check with your doctor.