Health in Aging Foundation

Hatice Yardım @ UnsplashReading retention is a big issue in educational circles. Having the ability to read a sentence, pronounce all the words fluently, and have a vocabulary wide enough that doesn't necessitate referring to a dictionary is one thing. But having the ability to remember what you read is something else entirely.

The great news about the steps you can take to improve your chances of long-term cognitive health is that many of them are the same steps you take to keep your body healthy. You need to add just a couple of items to a list that's probably already familiar. And the new items are fun. © Shutterstock.comHere's the familiar stuff: Reduce stress.

Getting older and being sexually active aren't mutually exclusive. Sexual satisfaction is still possible at any age. Although age-related changes may necessitate some adjustments, where there's a will there's a way. For both men and women, physiological changes to the body make having sex a different experience as you age, but different doesn't mean worse; it just means adapting.

To improve your memory, you need to know what memory is and isn't. You need to understand the facts about your memory and discard the myths.Some of the following facts may surprise you: Your memories are constantly reshaping throughout your life. They aren't snapshots of information, frozen in time. Throughout your life, you go through all sorts of changes: You mature, learn from previous mistakes, and even get tainted by unfortunate experiences.

The American Psychology Association has summarized the consistent memory change patterns that researchers identify in normal older adults compared to younger counterparts in the following categories: Episodic (what did I eat for supper last night?) Source (who told me that I should see that new movie?) Flashbulb (where were you when President Kennedy was shot?

Your ability to remember depends on a number of factors, the first of which is maintaining a healthy brain through adequate nourishment, exercise, and rest. To ensure that your brain works at an optimum level, follow these guidelines: Eat a balanced diet. What you eat affects your brain's chemistry. Eating the right foods gives your body the building blocks to manufacture brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.

Rote learning is the regurgitation of unattached and meaningless facts. These facts are prone to be forgotten because you haven't incorporated them into a body of knowledge. You have no context in which to remember them.Unfortunately, too much of what's taught in school is still based on rote learning. Your job is to deepen the meaning of what you learn and put it in context so that you can remember it later.

As you age, you need to exercise your brain to prevent some of the natural shrinkage. Starting at age 50, your 3-pound brain gradually loses its volume in weight, so that, by age 75, it weighs roughly 2.6 pounds. A lot of the shrinkage in your brain is from a loss of water. Different parts of your brain lose their volume at different rates.

You don't know less in your old age; you know more due to your years of life experience. However, during your advanced years, your information-processing speed slows down a bit. But don't worry; your long-term memory remains intact, and your understanding of what you already know is broader, more thoughtful, and wiser than during your early adulthood.