Cognition is a terminology that often come across in our everyday discussions& readings related to thinking and brain functions. What is cognition? How cognitive impairment do occur and what are the ways to prevent cognitive impairment?
Cognition simply refers to any process related to perceiving, thinking, understanding, reasoning and comprehending. According to American psychological association cognition is defined as all forms of knowing and awareness, such as perceiving, conceiving, remembering, reasoning, judging, imagining, and problem solving. Along with affect and conation, it is one of the three traditionally identified components of mind. An individual percept, idea, memory, or the like.
Cognitive impairment is a condition related to reduced brain functions related to memory, understanding and comprehension. It is a term used for indicating problems with thinking, memory, and judgment, ranging from mild to severe.
It may eventually affect the quality of life if left untreated. Mild cognitive impairment can often be managed with lifestyle changes and a few simple medications. However, more severe cognitive impairment may impact a person’s ability to perform daily activities. It may present as:
- Difficulty with thinking and memory &in concentrating, learning new things, or remembering past events.
- Language and communication also affected. Difficulty in finding the right words or following conversations.
Therefore, it is crucial to prevent risk factors leading to cognitive impairment. It is not possible to prevent totally, some dementia or severe cognitive impairment causing factors. However, the risk can be considerably reduced by paying some attention to our daily routine and habits.
Some modifiable risk factors & solutions to prevent cognitive impairment
Cognitive functioning of brain is dependent on several factors related to our daily lives.
A few factors leading to cognitive impairment are listed here:
1] Sleep
Sleeping for 6-8 hours is crucial for proper functioning and repair of nervous system. Sleep deprivation has detrimental impact on nervous system functioning. How does sleep benefits us in improving the health of nervous system?
- Sleep plays a crucial role in reducing mental fatigue and helping memory and recall. Studies have proven that lack of sleep affects long-term memory, working memory, attention, higher order executive function, and various decision-making processes. Sleep deprivation can impair memory, recall functions of the brain. Furthermore, it may elevate your stress levels.
- Sleep is essential for regenerating certain areas of brain
It is important for brain to continue the regenerative processes within neurons for ensuring proper functioning of brain and nervous system. It happens during sleep hours. Sleep deprivation hampers the regenerative processes.
- During sleep beta amyloid fibrils are removed by CSF.
According to research studies during sleep, the cerebrospinal fluid removes the beta-amyloid metabolite in the brain which are harmful to brain functions as they have been implicated in the disease pathology of Alzheimer’s disease. Beta amyloid metabolite is notorious for causing Alzheimer’s disease. That means, sleep deprivation may enhance the risk of Alzheimer’s disease increasing beta amyloid fibril deposition.
- Brain cell damage is repaired during sleep
It is during sleep that certain enzymes repair brain cell damage caused by free radicals. Sleep deprivation prevents this repairing process. It is a fact that the brain functions normally because of the neurotransmitters, and neurons that are unable to rest or regenerate.
Studies have shown that sleep [particularly NREM sleep]is important for turning off the norepinephrine, serotonin and histamine neurotransmitters, which is the time available for receptors to “rest” and regain sensitivity to be more effective at naturally produced levels again.
Each phase of the sleep cycle has critical role in restoring restores and rejuvenating the brain for optimal function. Normally the glymphatic system of brain eliminate toxins building up with in the nervous system and brain during sleep. It cannot eliminate these toxins that can build up, and negatively affects cognitive abilities, behaviour, and judgment if there is lack of sleep.
- Lack of sleep also affects your linguistic capacity.
Temporal lobe of brain is linked with language processing. Sleep deprivation affects it very adversely. Lack of sleep may cause slurred speech due to the brain’s incapacity to process the neuronal signal at optimum levels during waking hours.
2] Physical activity & exercise to strengthen neuroplasticity potential of brain
Have you heard about the unique potential of human brain neuroplasticity? Neuroplasticity is the term referring to the brain’s ability to change, reorganize, or grow neuronal networks. This can involve functional changes due to brain damage or structural changes due to learning. Exercise and physical activity may help to boost it.
Regular moderate aerobic exercise is an effective solution for improving neuronal health and functional abilities. It is assumed that exercise-induced memory improvement is probably mediated through neurotrophic factors, and exerkines.
Exerkines are defined as signalling molecules released in response to acute and/or chronic exercise, which exert their effects through various pathways.
Many organs, cells and tissues release these factors, including skeletal muscle (myokines), the heart (cardiokines), liver (hepatokines), white adipose [fat]tissue (adipokines), brown adipose tissue (baptokines) and neurons (neurokines). Exerkines have potential roles in improving cardiovascular, metabolic, immune and neurological health. Thus, exercising helps your brain power.
Some brain exercises to improve cognition & memory
Brain exercises modify neuronal activity in such a way that they may help improvement in memory, cognitive functions or mental abilities.
Practise the following things to improve cognition:
- Learning new and complex skills
Eg: playing instruments, games
- Solving problems in mathematics
- Learning a new language
- Recall what you have read
- Cooking
- Visualization of words, things etc.
- Eye- hand coordination activities such as playing tennis, chess etc.
- Sports games
- yoga
- Meditation
- Completing a jigsaw puzzle
- Socializing
- Increasing vocabulary or word power
- Listening to music
conclusion
Mild cognitive impairment may affect quality of life overtime or it may progress to more serious forms if not addressed on time with adequate lifestyle changes and some simple medications for a short period of time in cases requiring them.
In order to prevent this mental catastrophe, make a change or modification in your habits from the very early age.
Never forget to do physical exercise in your routine; practice brain exercise and ensure that you get adequate sleep.
It is crucial to understand that erratic sleep may disrupt your memory and other brain functions even if you exercise every day. Therefore, ensure that you sleep for at least 6-8 hours a day.
Furthermore, yoga & meditation may help to improve health of brain and nervous system.
Nutrition has pivotal role in maintaining the health of nervous system. Eat healthy follow balanced diet preferably, Mediterranean diet.
Just include some micro habits to your routine for a big positive change. Enjoy this beautiful world with your senses and maintain your cognitive powers intact!
References
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4651462/
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16251949/
3. image courtesy : https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/sleeping-young-woman-lies-bed-with-eyes-closed_7728966.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=7&uuid=b12c4cae-4833-432d-91a0-9d6f652d3a6e&query=sleeping+woman