There are a great many fears among people that their brains may literally waste away as they age. Good advice to help maintain a healthy brain generally focuses on good nutrition, frequent exercise, time outdoors in the fresh air, meditation, and avoidance of too much alcohol and toxic drugs. It’s also a good idea to remain active in a meaningful way socially. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reported, civic engagement may actually stave off brain atrophy and improve memory as you get older.
The normal brain shrinkage associated with the aging process may actually be reversed if you take part in meaningful social activities with others. Researchers say that instead of shrinking as anticipated, as part of the normal aging process, the memory center in the brains of older people maintained their size, and in men memory actually grew somewhat after two years taking part in a program that engaged them in meaningful and social activities.
It was also observed that those people with greater increases in the brain’s volume over two years also experienced the most significant improvements on memory tests. This manifests a direct association between brain volume and the reversal of a type of cognitive decline which is linked to increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease. In this study retired people served as mentors to young kids, and helped them learn to read. Participants found that by helping others they were also helping their own brains.
This study has been published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. The idea for the study arose from interest in identifying interventions which can protect and buffer older people from brain atrophy. It was concluded that purposeful activity which took place within a social health promotion program actually stopped and, in men, reversed declines in brain volume in regions of the brain which are vulnerable to dementia. So remember to stay meaningfully socially active with family, friends and coworkers as you age in order to help nurture a healthy brain.
This helps to highlight why it’s a good idea to try to stay away from psychiatrists. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights points out how destructive psychiatry is for every realm of human existence while exposing human rights violations by psychiatrists. The social stigmatization which psychiatrists intentionally create with their myriad of mythical diagnoses and kangaroo civil court actions creates a cycle of dangerous personal, career and financial ruination for people who see psychiatrists. The resulting social isolation, or what could even be seen as social death, is very dangerous.
It becomes absolutely ludicrous for the psychiatrists and their judges to take the position they are providing you with helpful social interactions with their forced treatment programs. Forced interactions with psychiatrists, whom the victims of psychiatry learn to hate, are not at all meaningful and helpful interactions. So try to maintain meaningful social interactions with people you genuinely like and who genuinely like you.
