Today, there are more than 50 million diagnosed cases of dementia worldwide. And by 2030, this number is expected to increase to 80 million.
A fun way of keeping your brain sharp and lowering your risk of dementia is to play with a Rubik’s cube. If you’ve never given it much thought, you might be surprised to discover how much fun it is to work at solving one. To encourage anyone who has interest in working with a Rubik’s cube, below is a step-by-step tutorial below.
Please consider sharing this tutorial with children and elderly in your life, as working with a Rubik’s cube is excellent for sharpening and maintaining cognitive function and overall nervous system health, including fine motor control and registration of sensory input.
Other games that can help keep your mind sharp include chess, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, and even simple matching games with cards – we often play one called Concentration where all the cards in a deck are spread out face down, and each player takes a turn flipping over two cards, scooping up any pairs that he or she matches. If a pair is matched, the player continues, if not, the two cards are flipped over face down again and the next player takes a shot at any two cards, looking to match a pair. The person with the most collected pairs by the end of the game wins.
Learning and using a second or third language is also an effective way of warding off dementia, as is putting ourselves in a wide variety of social situations where we interact with new people and have conversations on matters that require we stretch our minds to some degree to absorb and contribute thoughts.