Researchers at Wake Forest University studied whether just four days of training (at just 20 minutes a day) could make a difference in participants’ mood, energy, and cognition. Undergraduate students (average age 22 years) either participated in the meditation sessions or spent a similar amount of time sitting quietly and listening to an audio book.

Participants in the meditation condition showed decreases in anxiety and improvements in several mental processing tasks compared to those in the audio book group. The meditators’ performance on one aspect of a working memory task (how many answers they got correct in a row) suggested that they may have improved their attention.

This is a small and very preliminary study that extends others’ work on meditation and the brain.It shows that even brief meditation practice can make a difference. you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to learn to still your mind and pay better attention. Paying attention may be one of the most important things you can do to improve your brain’s functioning.

Reference:

Zeidan F et al.(in press) Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014

An interesting research study in this month’s Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences looks at what people think about their mental abilities and how old they feel. Researchers Schaefer and Schippee at Purdue University asked people how they felt about their thinking and memory as they got older with questions like “As I get older, my mental sharpness is bound to get worse.” They also asked people in their study how old they actually felt.

Then they looked at how well these persons’ actual ages and how old they actually feel predicted what they thought about how their minds would work as they get older. For women, both their actual and their perceived ages predicted what they thought about how their mental abilities would change over time. For men, neither perceived nor actual age made a difference, but their physical health did. Men who said their physical health was worse were also more pessimistic about their mental abilities.

For both groups, mood and self-efficacy were significantly related to what they thought about their mental abilities over time. This once again emphasizes how important mood and a feeling of being able to control things is for how you feel about your brain’s functioning.

The authors note that their results may have been affected by their sample size, but they raise the possibility that men and women may view their mental abilities differently as they get older. Women’s perceptions of their age seem more important for how they feel about their mental aging, while for men their physical health might be an index of how they view it. For both groups, self-efficacy and mood are important.

Reference:

Schafer MK, Shippee TP. (2010). Age identity, gender, and perceptions of decline: Does feeling older lead to pessimistic dispositions about cognitive aging? Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 65B(1), 91-96.

Stress can affect your memory and other abilities in a number of ways. Psychological stress increases levels of hormones in your body that are known to be toxic to your brain. Chronic stress may cause depression, and depression by itself can affect your memory and your ability to think rapidly and clearly.

How can you tell whether you’re under significant stress? There are a number of stress scales on the Internet. I think the best way is to ask yourself two questions: (1) How often do you feel your ability to cope with things is challenged? and (2) How successful are you at coping with these challenges? The answer to how stressed you are comes from your response to both of these questions. If you feel frequently stressed, but you feel as though you’re doing a pretty good job of coping, your stress level is likely moderate. If you are frequently stressed and feel as though you are just barely hanging on, your stress level is probably much higher.

Coping with stress requires you to recognize that you’re feeling stressed. What causes you stress?

• Can you do anything about it?
• Can you avoid it?
• Try to schedule stressors for the time of day you’re most energetic and able to cope.
• At some point in the day, stop for five minutes and pay attention to your breathing. Interrupt the daily plunge into activity by taking five minutes for yourself.

Take stress seriously, dead seriously. Have a management plan that includes scheduling, exercise, and some form of relaxation.

Top ways to manage anxiety without medications:

Find out what you’re anxious about, and do something about it. Many patients have vague anxiety and aren’t quite sure what it’s about. See if you can figure it out. Talk to a friend about how you feel. Sometimes just talking about a problem can help make it clear. Another person’s viewpoint may help you to see a problem in another light.

Exercise. Both aerobic (walking, running, bicycling, swimming) and nonaerobic (weight training) can help you manage anxiety. People usually feel less anxious after exercising. If you aren’t exercising now, check with your doctor to make sure it’s OK to start. Even 10-15 minutes a day of walking can make a difference.

Relax and breathe. Researchers long ago noticed that it’s almost impossible to breathe deeply and feel anxious at the same time. Take 10 minutes twice a day to sit quietly, relax the muscles in your neck and back, and breathe fully. If you do this for a week you’ll feel better.

Meditate. Researchers have shown that almost any kind of meditation improves anxiety. I believe that meditation that helps you develop attentional focus will not only relieve stress and anxiety but also improve your memory. Mindfulness meditation is one form of meditation that is very helpful.

Distract yourself. Sometimes you can’t solve a problem but just have to live with it. Even after you exercise and meditate, you may still have to confront a problem over which you have little control. Try to find things that you enjoy doing that can help give you a break from feelilng anxious. Hobbies can often help people distract themselves. Doing something that is intellectually challenging is also good for your brain health.

How we sleep changes as we get older. Many people over 50 feel as though that they don’t sleep as well as they used to. Their perception is supported by research evidence. Studies of sleep and aging show that how people sleep change as people get older. The normal cycles of light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep don’t occur in the same way. Deep sleep is often associated with feeling rested when you get up in the morning, and studies show that older people may not get as much deep sleep. It may take you longer to get asleep, and you may wake up more often during the night.

Older adults may get sleepy earlier and take more naps during the day. It’s not unusual for me to see people who complain about waking up too early in the morning. When I ask about their sleep, though, I find out that they go to bed at 9:00 PM and wake up at 3:00 AM. It’s true that’s a little early – but often these folks take a two-hour nap in the afternoon. They get eight hours of sleep, but it’s distributed in a different way. Although it’s sometimes hard to stop taking naps entirely, it’s often helpful to try to keep them to a minimum. If you sleep a lot during the day, you may not sleep very well at night.

So what about brain fitness and sleep? Study after study has shown that sleep deprivation affects your mental abilities and mood. So if you feel as though you can’t concentrate or work as well as you’d like after you don’t get enough sleep, it’s probably true. This may be especially true for tasks that require attention for a long time. Some of those kinds of tasks are harder for older adults to begin with, and may be even harder if you don’t sleep. Don’t think that you can’t function at all if you don’t sleep well – you’ll usually be able to function. But odds are you won’t function as well as you would like.