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Normal, cognitive changes as you age are completely normal. This may include mild cognitive impairment, which is quite common in humans after midlife.

Usually this "dulling of the mind" starts around middle age. Since the average person lives to about 80 years old, this means that if you’re 40, you are middle age. Even if you are nowhere near 40 right now, this age comes sooner than you think because time passes very fast while you’re living it.

Working on keeping your mind sharp as you age can and should start from a young age. The younger you start, the better. However, even if you’re over middle age right now, and even if you feel as if you have less mental dexterity than when you were younger, you can still implement what you will read in the pages that follow. If you do, you may avoid suffering too much decline, keeping your mind as sharp as possible and even improving where you can.

The Importance of Keeping Your Mind Sharp as You Age

It’s normal to experience changes in your brain throughout your life. As you go through middle age and beyond, your brain will slowly shrink. This is all completely normal and while it sounds frightening, you don’t have to be scared. With the right plan, you can - if you work on it - actually grow your brain even if it’s already started shrinking.

Keep Your Independence Longer

If you can take care of yourself and remember to pay your bills, turn off the stove, and that type of thing, you will be able to be independent a lot longer than if you can’t do those things. Working on improving your memory and brain function now, even if you have no mental or cognitive decline at all, will ensure that you will put it off even longer.

Ward off Dementia

Even though a large percentage of people over 70 have some form of dementia, you can certainly lessen the effects by working on your mental and physical health. Eating right, keeping your mind sharp by reading, doing new things, and living an active life is your best defense against any illness and costs less than medical intervention.

Improve Your Memory

Being able to remember to take your meds, or even remember what day it is, is an important factor in being able to live on your own. If you cannot remember what day it is, it’s hard to remember to pay your light bill or buy the right amount of food to eat. Don’t worry, though; even if you have a hard time remembering things now, you can learn methods to make it easier.

Experience Better Health in General

Taking care of your brain health will naturally rub off into creating a situation where your entire body is healthier. The main reason is that the same thing that keeps your brain healthy will maintain your general health. Eating right, drinking plenty of water, getting exercise, resting, and reducing stress are good for you all the way around.

Enjoy Your Retirement More

When you can be independent, remember your scheduled evening out with friends, and remember to pay your bills, you will obviously enjoy your retirement more. It's more pleasurable if you’re healthy and your mind is sharp. You’ll have a lot more fun because you will be free of other worries once you retire, and you’re likely to earn more money longer due to having a sharp mind.

Keeping your mind sharp pays off in more than one way. Being independent as long as humanly possible is also a massive benefit to the rest of your family. The less your family worries about you, the more independent you can be, for longer. It’s a lot less expensive for you to stay independent.

So, let's move on to look at things you can do to make your life better and to keep your mind sharp as you age.

Eat Right and Keep Moving

When it comes to your general health, there is not a much more effective plan than to eat right and to keep moving. The eating component is a lot more important than doing any type of planned exercise but adding in daily walking or other types of exercise will make it all that much more effective.

Eat Right and Mind Your Diet

It sounds simple to eat right, but with all the fad diets and questionable plans out there, the best thing you can do is just to eat right for your needs. No matter what type of diet you go on, eating fresh local produce is better for you than any other type of food. Try making half your plate veggies and a fourth of it fruit, and you will automatically feel healthier. Your mind will become sharper too. The reason is that your brain needs glucose to work best, and the easiest way to use glucose in a healthy way is from fresh produce like fruit and veggies.

Eat More Fruit – Some people are afraid of fruit but if you don’t have diabetes, you can and should eat fruit. Don’t drink fruit; eat it. Eating berries is especially very good for you. Fruit is fantastic for brain health. The more colorful the fruit, the more you should eat of it. Dementia is marked by plaque build-up in the brain, but fruit can help reduce that.

Eat More Veggies – Just like fruit, veggies help reduce oxidative stress which is thought to be one of the causes or contributors to different forms of cognitive decline (including various forms of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease). This makes veggies one of the most important things you should consume.

Drink Lots of Fresh Filtered Water – Most of us are walking around slightly dehydrated because we have learned to ignore our thirst cues. In fact, your body wants water so much that sometimes it tells you that you are hungry in hopes you’ll eat something with moisture. Your brain cells require a certain balance of compounds, including water, to work properly. If you are fully hydrated, you’ll be less likely to suffer cloudy thinking.

Avoid Processed Food and Sugar – Every diet that exists asks that you stop eating processed food and sugar. No one is ever going to say that it’s a good thing to eat this stuff. Therefore, regardless of the type of diet that you choose to follow, stop eating processed food and sugar as much as you can other than the occasional treat.