Does travel keep the brain young?
 

As someone with a strong family history of dementia, I was fascinated by this very good BBC TV programme which some of you may be able to catch up with. It made me reflect on the impact of travel on the health of the brain. In summary the programme suggests keeping physically active especially walking; continuing to learn new skills, and eating certain foods ie blackcurrants, blueberries and aubergines.

I am sure travel ticks many of the boxes as it encourages active exploration and the learning of new languages as a skill. Any other insights?

Now the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgxq6fr

Only if you play table tennis while travelling :).

Nothing is better than exercise. So if you stay home and walk or walk somewhere else it hardly matters, IMO.

You mean, there is hope for us?

We live in Austria and frequently visit the neighbors, and so we often move into and out of the respective cultures. Though we have learned a good amount of necessary phrases in Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian, shifting between them and our native English is challenging.

I think about, and mentally plan, our next holiday when walking the dog, walking to the market, and so forth, even if it is just the next weekend day trip. "What to see?," "What to do?," "Do we have enough local currency?"

I do not know if this travel keeps my brain young, but sometimes a weekend outing to the neighbors is more mentally stimulating than a staff meeting in my former working life! :)

Famously, London taxi drivers who've done "The Knowledge" and learnt all the officially-approved routes as well as their own favourite short cuts and back ways have some areas of their brain much more developed than is usual for others. So getting used to other people's languages, on however elementary a level, and currencies, and transport systems, and maps, and taps and toilet flushes.... it must all have some effect.

I'd say coping with unfamiliar circumstances keeps the brain active. A cruise won't help...

"Nothing is better than exercise."

That's absolutely NOT what the science shows. Diet, mental activity, and social interaction matter at least as much. And certain kinds of exercise (essentially: what keeps you nimble, rather than what makes you tough) contribute a great deal more to longevity than others

A couple of seconds reading questions on this forum demonstrates quite clearly that for some, travel can help in all these. And for others, it manifestly hasn't.

It's perfectly possible to spend your entire life travelling and going to gyms but still be a muscle-bound, socially inept, closed-minded, excessively sedentary self-poisoner.

I'd say that well over half the professional globetrotters I've worked with in megacorps owed their appalling health to the diet, constant sitting, isolated existence and limited mental hinterland that make for career success. While all the healthy nonagenarians of my acquaintance have scarcely left their village in the past 20 years.

I think it's the reverse: having a "young" brain keeps one traveling, learning, exercising, trying to eat a healthy diet.

It's only since I retired that I have really developed this desire to travel to Europe yearly. It's only since I retired that began seriously pursuing my attempt to become fluent in German. It's only since I retired that I began to study Spanish (and Italian, though I soon dropped that idea).

What has happened to me since I began regular travel is that I've become more willing to expand, to try new things, to go places that I've never gone before.

Well for me I hope to travel less when I retire.
But maybe I won't. I will stay longer in one place though.
This week I was in Bruxelles, then Shanghai than Paris now going to Bruxelles, next week Paris Venice. And I must plan a trip to Istanbul.
All that wasted... since I've got no brain...

I think that being out of your routine is excellent for your brain - not traveling. Or we should say traveling to places that are out of our confort zone.

Maybe my husband will learn to like aubergines now...I have found it's really good if you slice it very thinly and hide it under the cheese topping on a pizza...although that might not be good for the brain :(

I think learning most anything must be good exercise for the brain, although after 2 weeks in southern Italy, trying to communicate in my poor Italian, my head hurts..is that good or bad, I wonder...

Flanner, always an interesting point of view...

I will say, with nothing concrete to base it on, it depends.

Anything that uses the brain is good. My parents senior group had several presentations on this and they recommended playing scrabble and doing jigsaw and crossword puzzles as helping prevent memory issues. And obviously travel and learning - or relearning another language would be a big help.

Worked for my mom, she was completely lucid until the day she died at the age of 94.

I'm pretty sure it's mostly genetic. Everything else has, I suspect, very little impact. A little maybe, but not much, barring overt abuse of our systems.

Science gives us the proof-of-the-moment, published as unequivocal fact, then replaced down the line with the new "proven" facts. My personal belief is if we're having a good time, doing whatever we like to do, it's good for us.

The programme in question took groups of older people and gave them a baseline test. This week one group learned to play table tennis and the other group took brisk walks. In one test afterwards the walkers had improved the most but the table tennisers improved the most generally. Learning something new, involving exercise and social contract made a huge difference.

In fact the learning something new and social contact were probably the most important things.

From the link: "Social activity stimulates your brain in a similar way to activities like reading and doing crosswords."

As an introvert, while I occasionally wish I had the capacity for more social activity, since I don't, I choose reading.

And "people who are lonely are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and dementia."

Alone doesn't necessarily mean lonely. I hope even the extroverts realize that is true.

And "When it comes to the brain, a rich and varied life is the key to long-term health."

I would suggest again that, whatever having a good time is for each of us, translates into the researchers' "rich & varied".

Introvert or not plays no role
Not using your brain is not good. Introvert can use their brains in a variety of ways.
It takes when you sit do nothing and interact with nothing that it becomes pathological.
You stay in your bed 24/24 your muscles disappear. You do nothing with your brain... It atrophies.

Like life : you do nothing. You don't really live.
Have fun have wine have sex !
Hips.

I don't know if travel keeps my brain young, or if that is even one of my goals (a young brain?), but it certainly keeps me on my toes intellectually. Having to speak and read and understand foreign languages and navigate one's way through the laws and regulations and expecations of another culture, plus how to behave and interact - that all takes intellectual effort, which I can only imagine is good for neurological health.

Yes, traveling is good for the brain and better for the soul. My goal is to keep on traveling until I keel over and die at the Buza Bar with some wine and a beautiful sunset. That's what travel insurance is all about...plus I'll have great legroom on the return flight.

((H))

"...plus I'll have great legroom on the return flight."

Although headroom may be another matter.

Whathello, I think we agree. My point was only that the general does not necessarily wholly apply to the individual. One person's thrill is another's stress, and I think we agree that negative stress isn't good for us. Or maybe I should say, for me. This I know from experience.

The programme did emphasise (I had forgotten) that the social interaction was as important as the actual exercise - and certainly regarding maintaining a positive mood.

What the programme didn't plug was the recent appetite for mindfulness training. There is fairly good evidence that older people who practice this enhance/retain their cognitive function. And why I mention this is that whilst we are constantly planning trips we are hardly living in the moment which is contrary to the mindfulness philosophy ... but of course it's much more complicated than this.

To me, "mindfulness" is one of those newfangled words for age-old, obvious concepts, a word that I can't even really grasp or can't even care about - if it means being aware of what you're doing, where you are, what you're saying, well fine...just say so. It doesn't have to be couched in some new terminology that is vague and precious.. I find it silly. As for living in the moment, to me that is what travel is ALL about, because you're forced to live in the moment and DEAL with it.

I have absolutely no freaking idea if I'm practicing mindfulness or not, and don't care a whit. I get up in the morning, take care of my property and grow things, plan menus and cook things, go to market, interact with lots of people, have a vibrant social life, travel often, am always engaged in projects around the house, read as much as I can when I have the time, find a bit of time for pure relaxation, walk a lot and swim, deal constantly with administrative hassles here in France....is that mindfulness? If so, sorry, it's just Life In General. Not some "concept" invented by psychologists.

What an interesting discussion.

It would be reassuring to think we can control our genetic lottery, but there are children and young adults with dementia

http://www.aww.com.au/relationships/...dementia-25634

and physically challenged, but mentally alert elderly (parked in a nursing home with little stimulation or activity).

But there's no doubt travel makes most of us happy, and that's good in itself.

Regarding travel, I have certainly found that mindfulness helps me manage my anger travelling up and down the M62 most days - instead of putting two fingers up to rude drivers I now only use one, so that's progress.

On road rage, Steve, I have re routed my drive to work to now follow the delightful esplanade along one of our lovely beaches, seeing the dog walkers, the elderly shuffling along, the focussed runners, all choosing to enjoy life, puts a smile on my face; rather than the more direct, but frustrating main road with endless traffic jams.
Makes a huge difference to the start of my day, don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.

Is the M62 the bloody one always jammed pack to/from Manchester ?

The M62 is quite an attractive motorway, it's the traffic that's a problem. It claims to be the highest motorway in England and the sunrises cab be stunning. The sky can be blood red and lights up lovely scenery between Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Adelaidean, sounds like we need to arrange a job swap. Actually, there are alternative routes through wonderful countryside passing quaint Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd where Ted Hughes grew up and wrote the anthology Remains of Elmet based on the area. The same route goes through Luddendenfoot where the drunken Bramwell Bronte lost his job. I rarely get angry on this route.

I am just sending my brain on my next trip.