Beyond Sudoku: 5 Brain-Boosting Activities for a Thriving Healthspan
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Moving Beyond Passive Consumption
Social media makes food and workout plans hard to ignore. I focus on my diet and exercise pretty easily from week to week. And by “focus,” I do not mean to imply that I’m great at it. Most days I’d rather curl up with the cats instead of doing planks, and I put olive oil and lemon juice on my kale just to make it easier to slide off my plate and into the trash. But I try.
I “focus” on it.
However, I have realized that more often than not, I often ignore my most important asset: my brain.
So I got to work figuring out how to strengthen my cognitive health in ways that are actually fun to do so that I’ll actually DO it. My weekly brain training activities have to be quick, super budget-friendly, and, most importantly, backed by science.
I'm sharing five simple yet effective activities that I've tried out. They’re meant to be fun ideas to help you meet your cognitive health goals. And if you don’t have “cognitive health goals,” well, join the club. Let’s just keep trying. We can set small goals together a bit at a time.
Research continues to pile in that keeping our brains active may stave off the onset of dementia. That would be at the top of my “cognitive health goals,” for sure!
Don't feel like you have to try them all. Just pick one that sounds fun! Then try out something else next week. Explore a brain boosting activity each day that stimulates your mind.
No, watching YouTube videos and doom-scrolling your newsfeed don’t count. Passive consumption is just, well, passive. You can spend your precious free time better than that, and so can I.
Let’s see what we can try out this week:
Learn a New Skill for Lasting Brain Health
You don’t need to become fluent in a foreign language to positively impact your brain health. As Harvard Health notes: “It’s the constant repetition of working to improve, and not the quest for mastery, that can have the greatest impact” on brain health. Learn more ➪
I practice my college French on occasion, but I’ve started learning Japanese and Spanish, too. I’m focusing on Spanish for six months to prepare for an upcoming trip to Guatemala. After that, I’ll start back up with my Japanese so I can speak at least a few sentences with my friends in Japan.
I’ll probably never be fluent, but remember, that’s not the goal. Keep studying and trying to improve for your brain. And then perfect how to order coffee for your friends!
Learning Japanese has helped me form deeper bonds with my friend. She’s taught me that because the active verb comes at the very end of the sentence in Japanese, we have to listen intently until the very end of our thought as we speak. Just that simple structural placement creates an beautiful emphasis on patience in the Japanese culture.
Next up is Guatemala, so we’re both trying to learn Spanish for six months for free using Duolingo. We share some good laughs over the owl’s aggressive attempts to get us to practice. Turns out, practicing a new language isn’t just good for boosting your brain, it can be a great way to connect and thrive as well!
Play Mind Games to Grow Your Cognitive Reserve
Did you know that you can play Wordle, Sudoku, and other New York Times top-rated, brain-boosting games for free without a subscription? I know millions of people worldwide love Sudoku, but I admit that I prefer to tackle the Mini Crossword and Connections (my all-time favorite) every morning. Play now ➪
If you have a group you’re eating dinner with, try a board game that requires some thought (not just chance). My family really enjoys Poetry for Neanderthals and Ransom Notes.
We really laugh (and think) after dinner. Dirty dishes can wait. Pull out the games! Use your brain and laugh a little! And if you’re playing Connections, try not to throw your phone across the room. Ask me how I know. There’s always another chance to not get all four connections tomorrow, I promise.
Write Haikus to Spark Your Creativity and Boost Your Brain
This short lesson on how to write haiku reminded me of when I wrote one haiku every day during a two-week quarantine in 2020. I called the sequence my Q-Haiku.
Try writing a few for yourself this week. Three rules:
Follow the traditional 5-7-5 syllable pattern.
Write on paper with a pen or pencil.
Use your non-dominant hand to write.
Too hard? Too far out of your comfort zone? Too annoying to find a piece of paper? Too silly? Too time-consuming to learn something new?
Well, too bad. That’s exactly what your brain needs to gain cognitive reserve. Go ahead and try it this week for the health of your future brain.
Besides, being creative switches off anxiety. We can chat more about that later in another post.
Send me your best haiku, and I’ll publish a few in a future post or newsletter! You can contact me below.
Filter Negative Thoughts to Improve Your Vibrant Aging
As this article reports, we don’t have the “exact recipe” for what behaviors will be best for us to prevent dementia, but researchers are pretty dang sure about most of them.
It’s certain that learning something new is quite beneficial. Make it a point this week to take a deep dive into any topic you’re interested in. Bonus points if you take a live class or attend a lecture with other people. I’m old enough now to take free classes at our nearby university! Maybe you are, too!
It’s no secret that I love Mel Robbins. Her podcast inspires, motivates, and engages me more than any other.
Improving our overall attitude about aging is one of the main goals of The Pounce Pot, but how we each see the world is certainly a tough subject to tackle.
I think she does a fabulous job of giving us a simple way to reign in our negative thoughts in this recent episode.
Look, it’s 65 minutes long, but seriously, your brain health is worth it. Too busy with other tasks? When you’re ready to learn, I know you’ll find the time. Dishes can wait. Mindless scrolling can wait.
Put yourself first this week and learn to filter your day right when you wake up.
Expand Your Vocabulary for a Sharper Mind
My daughter graduated from university this past spring! Her curiosity inspires me to think about all the ways we can keep learning after our formal education ends.
No, you don’t need to sign up for a community college night class (although that would be fun); even small activities like improving your vocabulary help boost your brain.
This week, make a list of a few words, as you come across them, that you don’t really know. Look them up (I love the Merriam Webster Dictionary app), and then challenge yourself to sprinkle them into your conversations this week.
Your future self will thank you.
Ready to begin?
Let’s start with one of these brain boosting tips this week, and then get ready to discover the other four essential actions to help you on your journey toward vibrant longevity. Read more about it here.
This journey led me to create The Pounce Pot Protocol, a five-part action plan of essential actions based on current research for living a longer, more vibrant life. The "Boost Your Brain" action is just one part of how to focus on your well-being and thrive.
We’re about growing in many fabulous ways as we age, as author and poet Lucinda Shirley suggests, not growing old. We’re actively taking on the challenge to improve our healthspan. To not just add years, but to add healthy and vibrant years.
And when life throws us challenges, if we’re strong and ready for them, we can overcome what we can with all we’ve got!
I keep a sense of humor about it all. I hope you’ll join me at laughing at ourselves as we face our one wild and and precious life! Let’s do it together!
The Five Essential Actions are:
In a Nutshell:
The research is urgent: use your brain or potentially lose it. If you can fill some of your days each week with activities that combine both manual dexterity and mental effort, that’s even better!
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Explore the Pounce Pot Protocol: five essential actions for proactive aging based on global, established longevity research:
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Let’s pounce on life’s possibilities together! — Laura Lee
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