AARP survey finds most common barrier for adults to add more mentally-stimulating activities: Knowing where to start

2017 AARP Cog­ni­tive Activ­i­ty and Brain Health Sur­vey (AARP Research):

“AARP con­duct­ed a study of adults age 40+ to char­ac­ter­ize par­tic­i­pa­tion in cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties (CSAs)…Key find­ings include:

Adults who self-report their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing, health, and well-being higher:

• Engage in more cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties (CSAs) per week.
• Have high­er aver­age men­tal well-being scores.
• Have a desire to do even more to improve their brain health.

Over eight in 10 adults age 40+ said they are will­ing to par­tic­i­pate in cog­ni­tive train­ing and three-quar­ters are will­ing to spend 15-min­utes or more per day engaged in it. Those who are most will­ing to par­tic­i­pate rate their cur­rent cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties the highest.

The most-fre­quent­ly report­ed bar­ri­er to adding more men­tal­ly-stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties is being uncer­tain of which activ­i­ties ben­e­fit brain health. (Note: bold­ed by editor)

The top five activ­i­ties adults age 40+ are will­ing to give up in order to add more men­tal­ly-stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are: watch­ing TV/streaming movies, surf­ing the inter­net, play­ing online games not meant for brain train­ing, recre­ation­al shop­ping, and doing noth­ing in particular.”

To prioritize which activities may benefit your brain health the most:

• Arti­cle: Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• Book: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age