If you want to live long and strong, you’ve got to do more than work out your body; you’ve got to exercise your brain, insists Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University School of Medicine. While we’ve heard for years that mental stimulation can stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s, Dr. Goldberg says scientists now know exactly how to keep our brains from turning to mush – by stimulating the growth of new neurons and interconnections between them that boost brain efficiency. If you don’t use your brain in new and novel ways, your brain won’t be fit to use.
As the chief scientific adviser for SharpBrains.com, Dr. Goldberg’s site offers an array of brain teasers and exercises that improve brain function. But online tests are not all you can do. Just do something different and challenging. Getting out of your middle-aged comfort zone is the difference in a high quality of life when you’re older than none at all.
Keep reading more of the Florida Today interview with Dr. Goldberg at Next Up, A Gym for the Mind.
You can also read our more detailed (and probably more precise) interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg on Brain Fitness and Cognitive Training.
