Did you know that over 320,000 Australians are living with dementia. Unless there’s a medical breakthrough, that number’s expected to increase to 900,000 by 2050. About 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 have dementia, and another 1 in 5 have mild cognitive impairment and are at significantly increased risk of progressing to dementia.

Whilst there’s no cure for dementia, there are things you can do today, to reduce your risk. In fact about 50% of Alzheimer’s cases can be attributed to risk factors you can change.

About 13% of Alzheimer’s cases worldwide (that’s over 4 million people) can be attributed to lack of physical activity. In the USA that figure sits at 21% of cases – that’s over one fifth of Alzheimer’s cases in the US can be attributed to physical inactivity, and the figure for Australia is likely to be similar, given our modern lifestyle means we’re less active that we should be. So that means, by 2050, there will be 180,000 people with Alzheimer’s disease, who could have avoided developing it, simply by doing some regular exercise.

How does physical activity affect the brain?

This is an area which scientists are still learning about. What they do know is that:

•  The brain grows new cells and connections between those new cells throughout our life, referred to as brain plasticity.
• The brain needs a good blood supply to provide it with enough with oxygen and nutrients to function well.
• Physical activity supports both these important aspects of brain biology.

Brain imaging has shown that people doing regular exercise of moderate intensity, have increased brain volume in regions important for memory, learning, concentration and planning, over people who are inactive.

They also have increased connectivity between brain regions, and they have better cognitive function.

And listen to this– oldies who are physically active have brain volumes and connectivity typical of younger adults. It is normal for the brain to shrink a little as we grow older, but this age-related shrinkage is reduced in people who do regular physical activity.

For healthy brain function, the blood vessels in the brain need to be healthy. Conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity can damage blood vessels and lead to vascular disease in the brain, which is a big contributor to dementia. Physical activity helps to keep all blood vessels healthy, not just those in the brain, and it aids in the growth of new blood vessels.

The positive impact physical activity has on the brain can be seen both over the long term and the short term.

It seems that physical activity not only reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but it also plays a role in reducing the brain damage in those who are living with the disease. People with Alzheimer’s have deposits of a protein called Amyloid on their brain. In older adults who are physically active, there are less of the amyloid changes associated with Alzheimer’s.

Some studies have investigated what happens when inactive people start exercising, and show that after 6 to 12 months of exercising, brain volume increases and cognitive function improves.

These effects have been shown across the age spectrum, including in children, so no matter what your age, exercising has the potential to improve the health and therefore the functioning of your brain.

So that’s just one more reason to get physically active now, and stay physically active. Your “golden years” can be amazing or you can run the risk of them being agonising for you and your family. You owe it to yourself to act now.

Do you crave chocolate, french fries, “Maccas”, or maybe a good old Aussie meat pie? Do you roam the house in search of your kids’ lolly bags – you know, the one they got from that party 8 months ago which you’re sure has something left in it. In short, are you a junk food addict?

If so, you’re not alone, but a recent study has shown that you may not have to live the rest of your life struggling with food cravings and addictions.

It’s possible to train your brain to choose healthier food options, and you won’t feel like you’re depriving your body of the foods it craves. When you train your brain correctly, you automatically begin to choose healthier food options. You won’t feel like you’re forcing yourself to choose healthier options, just because you know they are good for you, or you want to lose weight. You can start to lose weight without really trying.

A study conducted by Dr Susan Roberts, at Tuffs University studied 13 people, 8 of whom were already part of another weight loss study, and the remaining 5 formed the control group.

The study participants underwent brain scans, which showed that areas of the brain used for learning and addiction of the 8 enrolled in the weight loss study, were changing. Researchers believe this was because of the reward programme associated with the weight loss study.

Using positive reinforcement and rewarding yourself for sticking to eating healthy foods over addictive, unhealthy ones is the simplest way to retrain your brain.

It’s important to keep exposing yourself to healthy foods, as well as designing a rewards program for yourself. Any parent will know that in order to get kids to eat new foods, you need to keep serving it on their plate, regardless of whether they are eating it or not. It’s suggested that you may need to expose kids to a new food up to 15 times, before they’ll get accustomed to it.

And what do we do when our kids finally eat spinach for the first time? Why…we reward them with a lovely smile and words of encouragement don’t we? They see that eating that food is rewarding, so they keep eating it – well, at least for the most part.

So do the same for yourself. Start rewarding yourself with a holiday, new clothes, a new book, a walk in the park, a bike ride, twenty minutes to yourself, phoning a friend, buy yourself a bunch of flowers, send yourself a card of congratulations in the mail! Anything to train your brain to realise that choosing healthy foods over unhealthy ones is the right thing to do!

Are you sacrificing your opportunity to live independently in your old age?

We are all familiar with the concept of superannuation. You put money away now, invest it, and whacko the diddle-o, you have enough money to live on in your retirement (at least that’s the theory). Not many of us would disagree with this as a general strategy – investing some money now, for your future financial well-being. Instead of spending money now on handbags, shoes and every latest gizmo, you spend your money on something else – you buy an investment, whatever that may be, nurture it, and reap the benefits.

So what about when it comes to spending time? How do you spend your time? Do you spend it wisely (for the most part), or do you fritter it away on TV watching, internet surfing and social media stalking?

Do you spend your time getting that presentation for work absolutely 100% perfect, when 90% perfect would be just fine? Do you spend your time being the perfect mum, the perfect housewife, the perfect house cleaner? Or maybe you spend your time worrying so much about being perfect that you never actually get started on stuff that you really want to do, because you don’t think you’ll have the time to do it “perfectly”?

The fact of the matter is, whatever you do spend your time on, there is a cost. Not necessarily a financial cost, but the opportunity cost of what you could have been doing with that time. If you’re spending time staying up late at night watching the TV, it could cost you a good night’s sleep. If you spend your time crossing “ï”s  and dotting “t”s excessively at work, it might cost you time with your family.

If you spend time exercising, it costs you something. If you’re exercising, you’re not doing something else you could be doing. I guess that’s why people say they “don’t have time to exercise”.

It’s easy to see the opportunity cost of spending time exercising. It’s pretty immediate. Your thoughts might go something like this “I could give up my opportunity to exercise and stay here in my nice warm bed, or I could give up the opportunity to stay in my nice warm bed and spend some time exercising”. Sound a bit familiar?

We tend not to think about the opportunity cost of NOT exercising though.

If you’re not spending time on a regular basis looking after yourself, and that includes exercising, you are missing out on so many opportunities. Some of the opportunities you could be missing out on include maintaining strong bones, maintaining a good sense of balance (both important for independent mobility as you get older), feeling the joy of being able to run- just because you can, having a spring in your step most days, having your body in great working order and feeling like you could conquer the world (or at least your little part of it). You could be missing out on the opportunity of adventure travel, resigning yourself to travelling in tour buses when you’re older, rather than being able to explore foreign cities on foot for hours and hours, trekking in Nepal, kayaking down the Nile –not sure if anyone actually does that, but it might be cool, bike riding in Vietnam…

By not looking after yourself now, you are also putting at risk your ability to live independently as you get older.

By sitting on the couch now, you could be passing up the opportunity to be able to get on and off the toilet by yourself when you’re 80, to determine what you eat and when you eat it. If you’re not able to look after yourself, you’ll most likely be living in a nursing home, with pretty much all of your independence gone. My beautiful aunt, who at 82 lives in a local nursing home, can’t even determine what time she has her pre-dinner brandy. It comes with her dinner, in spite of her asking for it to arrive about 20 minutes before hand.

It’s the really simple stuff that we take for granted, that you could be giving up, by not spending your time wisely now. Exercising on a regular and frequent basis, and eating sensibly, is like making a little payment into your physical wellbeing superannuation fund.  A bit of weight bearing exercise to strengthen muscles and maintain bone strength, something to get you huffing and puffing a bit, and some gentle stretching and flexibility movements will help you to get the most out of EVERY year of your life, not just the first 60.

So, are you going to take the opportunity to spend a whole lot of time sitting around on your backside today, or are you going to take the opportunity to contribute to your physical superannuation fund, to strengthen your body to help you lead a happy, energetic and fulfilling life now and when you’re older?

It’s your choice.

Image courtesy of debspoon: freedigitalphotos.net