By Vicki Doolan from Darkness Bright. Vicki is a AGE-u-cate Trainer, Ageless Grace® Educator & Trainer, Certified Dementia Communication Specialist and Natural Juice Therapist.

If you’re concerned about losing brain function as you age you’re not alone. In actual fact this is one of the major health concerns in the world today. Until recently, neuroscientists believed that declining cognition was an inevitable part of ageing. But here’s the good news. They now know that we can not only slow cognitive decline but can in fact continue to create new pathways in the brain right up until we die. And even better news – it’s as easy as child’s play.

Revive Your Brain

The brain has 5 primary functions:

• Strategic planning
• Memory and recall
• Analytical thinking
• Creativity and imagination
• Kinesthetic learning

Activating these primary functions leads to better brain health. Work your memory muscle and then challenge it. For example, you might have played cricket as a child. So picture yourself doing that, pretend to hold the bat, hit the ball for six, hear the crowd cheering you on. Now, try doing that again but this time with the imaginary bat in the other hand. It’s not so easy, you’ll need to concentrate harder but you still hit it for six and the crowd cheers even louder. Just imagining this has stimulated all of those 5 brain functions. It’s that easy.

Revive Your Body

Exercise is also vitally important for healthy ageing and you will be amazed what a vigorous workout you can do in a chair. Sitting in a chair causes us to engage our core muscles, vital organs and systems of the body, and also challenges our brain to work out how to perform the exercises from a chair rather than standing.

Improve Your Balance

All of our body has balance points but the three main areas we need to focus on in ageing are:

1. The Feet: Our balance point is located on the base of our feet between our second and third toes. To improve our balance we need to strengthen the muscles and ankles and make the toes more flexible.
2. The Centrepoint of the Body: About 2 fingers below the belly button but right inside the centre of you. All of the parts of our bodies have to centre themselves around that point right there in the middle.
3. The Ears: There are three little spiral canals in the ear that contain fluid. The liquid in these canals is meant to be loose but as we grow older it becomes more like gel if we don’t move it around.

Remember all this requires is just 10 minutes a day. By combining your memories, your imagination, some great music and your sense of humour (because laughter is also good medicine), staying healthy as we age just becomes child’s play.

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