What to do when the limit is exceeded
by CINZIA LUCCHELLI
Anxiety is part of us. And we need it. Without anxiety we would have become extinct: as predators and prey, without an element of alarm to activate flight and attack behavior, we would not have survived. In the right measure it pushes us to stay alert and achieve goals. An interrogation, a work deadline, a speech in public. But when it is excessive it can become pervasive and have debilitating consequences. The good news, for those who are more vulnerable, is that as the brain learns to be anxious, it can also learn not to be. Change isn’t easy, but it’s possible: the brain is adaptable.
The word anxiety comes from the Latin angere which means to squeeze, suffocate, oppress. Restlessness, anguish, worry, apprehension, breathlessness, trepidation. If the Inuit have many words for snow, we have many to express this condition. More or less scientifically appropriate, they tell us how much anxiety is meaningful to us.
Because we forget
Forgetting the hotel room number is different from not remembering your home address. There is forgetfulness and forgetfulness. It depends on the context and can derive from very different causes.
When to worry: the clues
When forgetfulness becomes constant and significant and interferes with our quality of life and our efficiency, it is better to get to the bottom of it: we need an analysis of our state of health, a general assessment and then a targeted assessment of brain function to understand if it is resulting in impairment of cognitive functions. It is those close to them who notice the first signs of Alzheimer’s more than the person concerned. Among the first symptoms is difficulty memorizing recent events. Added is that of finding a term, a word, in an increasingly systematic way. Then there are disturbances in attention and orientation. Gradually all brain functions are affected.
Those whose parents or relatives have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s may fear developing the disease. But in most cases it is unjustified: the hereditary forms are the minority, between 1 and 2 percent, and are mostly juvenile onset.
In the case of familiarity with forms of advanced age, the increase in risk is very limited and can be counterbalanced by adopting a lifestyle that can counteract cerebral ageing. Pathological processes begin long before the disease manifests itself clearly. Early intervention, at the first signs, can significantly counteract the progression of the deficits.
What to do to strengthen memory
There are two types of strategies. The first concern the well-being of the body (sleep, nutrition, sport), the other more specific our brain in a direct way (attention, awareness, sociability)
Strategies for body and mind
Memory is our sleep. It’s what we eat, the physical activity we do, the books we’ve studied and the ones we’ve continued to read. It is connected to our lifestyle and we have to start from here if we want to strengthen it. Eliminating risk factors and cultivating healthy habits. The secret is to start quickly, move young
Sleep
Good sleep is essential for memory. Sleep deprivation has short-term but also long-term consequences. Sleeping less than 6 hours a night increases the risk of dementia, not just a transient memory deficit.
Do physical activity
Physical activity is good for the muscles but also for the brain thanks to the production of neurotrophins, proteins that determine the survival, development and function of neurons. Better if the activity is also a cognitive stimulus: learning to dance or the rules of a sport that we didn’t know before. And if it has a social implication. It should be done on a regular basis, at least three times a week
Eat healthily
Experts also promote the Mediterranean diet for its beneficial effects on memory. An increasing number of studies indicate a correlation between a certain type of diet and the progression of Alzheimer’s. Researchers have developed a diet called MIND which should slow down its onset: it is a reinterpretation of the Mediterranean diet which involves the consumption of large quantities of vegetables, whole grains, legumes, chicken, fish, vegetable oils and fruit
Keep your heart under control
Blood pressure must always be kept under control, not just from the moment the values go out of range. We need to do prevention: hypertension is a killer for our brain. We also check for any cardiac arrhythmias
Pay attention
Some forgetfulness is a problem with attention and not with memory. Not remembering a person’s name, for example, may be due to the fact that when it was presented to us we were immersed in a conversation with several people and were distracted when we heard it. One tip for memorizing new information such as a name is to visualize the word
Study and read
The risk of having Alzheimer’s is inversely proportional to the years of study. Keeping reading and studying helps memory. According to neurologist Richard Restak’s clinical experience, one of the first indicators of memory problems is giving up reading novels: his patients, observed for decades, tended to switch to non-fiction because fiction required more active involvement, the need to follow the plot thread and the evolution of the characters
Cultivate sociality
See friends, go out, meet, talk, share, interact, participate. Cultivating a social network and not isolating yourself is also good for memory
A production
Scientific supervision of Vincenzo Di Lazzaro, director of Neurology and dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital of Rome
Editorial coordination Annalisa D’Aprile, graphic designer Raffaele Aloia