Why Retirement May Not Be Good For Your Brain

I have a good friend who is getting ready to retire. I told him that even though he is retiring from work, it doesn’t mean he should retire his brain and that he needs to find other ways to keep his brain active.

As I always say, when it comes to the brain, use it or lose it. New learning is essential to maintaining optimum brain function and is an important part of delaying or preventing cognitive impairment as you age.

Some great ways for retirees to keep their brains sharp include taking classes at a community college, traveling, or volunteering. In fact, a recent study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that seniors who volunteered as tutors in an elementary school improved their cognitive function.

The research team used a brain imaging technique called functional MRI to analyze the brains of 17 older female volunteers who were at high risk for age-related cognitive impairment. Nine of the women spent six months tutoring elementary school children while the other volunteers were placed on a waiting list to begin tutoring the following year.

At the end of the trial, the nine women who tutored showed improved cognitive function and their brain scans showed gains in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex compared to the women who did not participate as tutors.

This study shows that by learning new things and keeping your brain active, you can improve cognitive function at any age.

As a society, we need to stop thinking of retirement as a time to retire our brains. If you are nearing retirement or are already retired, I urge you to find ways to keep your brain sharp. I offer a number of suggestions on how to improve brain function as you age in my book Preventing Alzheimer’s.

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