5 habits that keep your brain young

To enjoy happiness, we need to keep healthy.

To enjoy happiness, we need to look after our bodies; AND our brains.

Brain health is a relatively new area of study but some of the findings are proving to be fascinating and potentially very important…

via Inc.com by Jessica Stillman

We all know our chronological age. That’s as simple as counting the candles on your birthday cake. But do you know your biological age?

This second number measures not how many years you’ve seen, but how much those years have impacted the functioning of your body and brain. Scientists calculate it a number of ways, but whatever methodology they employ, they agree chronological and biological age don’t always line up.

Some 80-year-olds function like people decades younger. They ace their memory and cognitive tests, and scientists peering at their cells can even spot significant differences. Experts have dubbed these role models of healthy aging “superagers.” Just about all of us would love to one day become one.

How do you achieve that? A long and fascinating article in the latest issue of UCSF Magazine delves into the work of the University of California, San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center to answer this question (hat tip to PsyBlog). Much of this research is still far too new to be of everyday use, but science has already determined a few simple interventions you can start using today to help keep your brain young.

1. Think positively about aging.

If you try to think of famous superagers, one name will almost certainly pop to mind–whip-smart, 85-year-old Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. How does she keep her brain working at such an incredible level? Part of the answer, experts say, is that she expects it to keep working well. Optimistic expectations about aging actually help us age happily and healthily.

“There are some suggestions that people who are more optimistic age better than people who aren’t,” Peter Kramer, director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, notes. Just believing that old age need not be a drag helps you ensure your brain will function at its best in your golden years…

…keep reading the full & original article HERE