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Exercises That May Help Prevent Dementia — 6 to Try
Here are some exercises that may help prevent dementia.
1. Walking
You can walk just about anywhere, including outside, inside your home, at the gym, or at a local mall, says Amal A. Wanigatunga, MPH, PhD, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine in Baltimore.
2. Dancing
You can find beginner-friendly dance classes at your local community center or nearby studios.
3. Other Aerobic Exercises
Experiment with a few different forms of cardio to find something you like, such as:
4. Strength Training
Most research on exercise and dementia risk focuses on cardio because aerobic workouts are easier to standardize in a study, says Stack, who is also president of the Physical Activity Alliance, an organization that advocates for policy and system changes that promote physical activity. But strength training may offer similar brain-health benefits.
For starters, strength training increases your heart and breathing rate like cardio — especially if you’re doing a circuit or other high-intensity strength routine.
But more research is needed to fully understand the effects of strength training on BDNF and other brain-protecting benefits, he adds.
Strength training also has so many other potentially life-altering benefits, especially as we age. “If you’re an older adult looking for the most bang for your buck from an exercise modality to improve your cognitive function, reduce your risk of dementia, and improve your overall functional capacity, it’s strength training,” Stack says.
5. Daily Activities
The benefits of performing daily activities become especially pronounced as time marches on. “When you get older, many everyday activities can count as exercise,” Dr. Wanigatunga says. If it has gotten harder for you to keep up with your chores as you age, you’ll actually be expending more energy to change your sheets or clean the kitchen, he explains, turning daily tasks into something closer to a workout.
Increasing your daily movement is a good place to start, especially if you’re not used to exercising regularly, Stack says. Look for opportunities to incorporate more types of activities you enjoy into your daily routine, he says.
6. Yoga
But existing studies tend to be small, making it challenging to understand how yoga might impact larger populations and specific groups (including those at risk of dementia). More research is needed to understand if and how yoga may help prevent cognitive decline.
But because the mindfulness aspect of yoga alone seems to slow cognitive decline, incorporating a meditative workout like yoga into your fitness routine while we wait for more research certainly can’t hurt, Stack says.
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