Cognitively Stimulating Activities That Benefit Brain Health

The Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) experts met last spring to define cognitively stimulating activities as exercises that challenge a person’s ability to think. The GCBH came to consensus that stimulating your brain through various intellectual activities (e.g. practicing yoga, taking a photography class, gardening, learning a new language, volunteering, etc.) provides benefits for adults’ brain health and can impact how well your brain functions.  A new report outlined 9 recommendations to incorporate these activities which maintain brain health and help with daily living.  These recommendations offer a variety of ways for people to challenge their brains at any age.

The report recommends that people begin incorporating cognitively stimulating activities into their lifestyle as soon as possible.  If you are already participating in them, try adding a few new ones to your schedule, increasing the level of difficulty, or participating in active or group activities; physical activity and social engagement provide added benefits to brain health.  The report discusses numerous aspects of cognitively stimulating activities, including cognitive training, education, computer based training, commercial “brain games”, and non-invasive brain stimulation. It also identifies knowledge gaps of what science knows and what we don’t know. For example, the evidence today regarding the benefits of what most people consider “brain games” is weak to non-existent.

To complement the GCBH’s report, AARP surveyed close to 3,000 adults age 40 and older to understand the factors that influence how people engage in cognitive activities and how these issues relate to people’s brain health and mental well-being as they age. Survey results can be found in the section below.

As a result of these deliberations, the GCBH Governance Committee approved the following recommendations on cognitively stimulating activities for people as they age.