BRAIN BUILDERS
THE MEMORY PRESCRIPTION

(Reprinted from AARP Magazine, August 2004

Be a Well-Balanced Potato Instead of watching TV while lounging in your Barcalounger, try sitting on an exercise ball. As you strengthen your sense of balance, you'll also be challeng- ing two very different parts of your brain and strengthening the connections that help you store and retrieve information.

Change Sides Use your non-dominant hand in activities such as tooth-brushing or dialing the phone to strengthen little-used neural pathways. Four-time U.S. memory champion Scott Hagwood, who can memorize a deck of cards in two minutes flat, does this at least four times a week.

Keep a Few Balls in the Air Learning to juggle increases gray matter in areas of the brain that process and store visual information, according to a recent German study.

Do-Si-Do Square dancing is known to protect against dementia, presumably because it le- quires multiple mental and physical skills. For the same benefit with a twist, try the video game Dance Dance Revolution, which has made fools out of countless addicts. Using an elec- tronic foot-pad that records your steps (or missteps), the game plays music and shows you where to put your feet. "The pattern and the music are constantly altered - which makes it fun and challenging for the mind," says learning specialist Donalee Markus, Ph D.

Sample the Unknown Card games sharpen brain connections. For an even better cognitive workout, play with people you don't know. The randomness of the cards and the newness of communication patterns will give your brain a vigorous workout. Says Markus: "Novelty is like vitamins for the brain." Mary Dixon Lebeau

MENTAL TUNE-UP

To turn a heart-healthy workout into an IQ lift, just add music, suggests a recent study. A team at Ohio State University found that cardiac patients who exercised to music did twice as well on a test of cognitive ability as they had done after exercising in silence. Exercise alone causes positive changes in the nervous system, and adding music may stimulate different - pathways in the brain. Melissa Gotthardt