Adopting These Habits To Stimulate Your Brain May Cut Alzheimer’s Risk by 38%

Alzheimer’s disease is projected to triple by 2050, affecting over 150 million people. While research into a cure is ongoing, separate studies have worked to identify ways in which an individual can protect their brain against degeneration. With that, a recent study discovered that regularly stimulating your brain may be an effective way to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and prevent cognitive decline.

Brain Stimulation and Alzheimer’s Disease

To better understand the benefits of lifelong learning, a group of researchers followed 1 939 adults, the majority women, who had participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, with an average age of 80, and did not have dementia at the start of the study. They then tracked them for about eight years.

During this time, the participants answered surveys to determine cognitive enrichment at three stages of life so that the researcher could calculate a total “enrichment score” for each person:

• Early enrichment: How often participants were read to, how often they read, the presence of newspapers and atlases at home, and if they studied a foreign language for more than five years.
• Middle-aged enrichment: Having an income level at 40, magazine subscriptions, dictionaries, and library cards, and how often they visited museums or libraries
• Late-life enrichment: Begins at around 80 and includes reading, writing, and playing board games, as well as income from Social Security, retirement, and other sources.

Over the course of the study, 551 participants developed Alzheimer’s disease, while 719 developed mild cognitive impairment.

Stimulate Your Brain to Prevent Alzheimer’s

“Our findings suggest that cognitive health in later life is strongly influenced by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments.” – Andrea Zammit, PhD, study author, Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Per the findings, published in Neurology, a higher lifetime enrichment was associated with a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and a 36% reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment. What’s more, among those with the highest enrichment, 21% developed Alzheimer’s, compared to 34% of those who had the lowest enrichment.

In fact, higher lifelong enrichment was linked to a seven-year delay in mild cognitive impairment and an up to five-year delay in dementia onset.

Additionally, the researchers also sought to examine whether these benefits would persist even when people experienced Alzheimer ’s-related changes in the brain, and they found that among a small group of people who had passed away, all of whom had higher lifetime enrichment, they still experienced better memory and thinking skills and slower decline before death.

Enriching Your Mind

While the study does have its limitations, including self-reported details and how the findings show association and not causation, it does highlight the importance of engaging in mentally stimulating activities.

“Our findings are encouraging, suggesting that consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition,” says Zammit, adding that public investments should work to create enriching environments, like libraries and early education programs, that will encourage a ‘lifelong love of learning’.

Whether it’s learning a foreign language through apps, reading, writing, playing board games, visiting the library or even doing puzzles, it’s never too late or too early to start challenging and stimulating your brain.

Alongside regular exercise, a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, and managing your stress levels, you can protect and improve your brain at any age.

References

Zammit, A.R., Yu, L., Poole, V.N., Kapasi, A., et al. (2026). Associations of Lifetime Cognitive Enrichment With Incident Alzheimer Disease Dementia, Cognitive Aging, and Cognitive Resilience. Neurology, 106(5). oi:https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.0000000000214677

MAIN IMAGE CREDIT:Photo by Ross Sneddon on Unsplash