10 Methods to Prevent Mental Decline

This highly useful article by Danil Dekhanov explains how to prevent your mind from stagnating and declining. After all, when you stop moving forward, you start moving backward!

Have you noticed that the older you get, the less willing you are to take on unfamiliar tasks or those that require intense concentration and learning new skills?

Here’s a little secret: reading your favorite newspapers (or authors), working in a well-known field, using your native language, chatting with friends who understand you perfectly, visiting your favorite restaurant, watching your favorite TV series—all these beloved activities actually lead to brain degradation.

Your brain is lazy (just like you), and it tries to reduce energy expenditure by creating “macros”—programs you perform by habit. In the early 19th century, biologist Richard Semon called these programs “engrams”—physical habits or memory traces left by repeated exposure to a stimulus. You can imagine engrams as paths that neurons “tread” in your brain by repeating the same action. The longer we do something, the less energy our brain spends on it.

Sometimes these paths become roads, and eventually even highways—like the Chinese man who can shuffle a deck of cards faster than a robot. On one hand, this is a great superpower—why waste extra energy on repetitive actions? But the downside is a decrease in our brain’s plasticity.

The longer we use engrams, the less active our basal ganglia become. Their main function is to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which helps neurons “cut new paths” through the informational noise in our brains (which is happening to you right now as you read this sentence).

Think about your commute to work or school. If you’ve been taking the same route for more than six months, your actions become so automatic that you can do other things at the same time—read, listen to music, answer emails. At your favorite restaurant, you don’t have to think about what to order—you know the menu by heart. You can spot a friend’s fake smile instantly, without having to decode their signals.

So why change anything? Because life is a constant source of change, most of which is beyond our control. We have to adapt, and in this “chameleon race,” those who can change fastest survive and thrive.

You could be laid off (as happened recently to thousands of doctors); your department’s tasks might change, requiring you to learn new skills (and if you can’t, you’ll be let go); you might fall in love with someone from another culture and want to learn their language, and so on.

That’s why you need to constantly maintain and train your brain’s plasticity. Imagine your brain as concrete that will eventually harden if left alone.

The image of “hardened” brains becomes clear when you look at most 70-year-olds who can’t figure out a microwave timer, resist anything new, and have been doing the same things (or thinking the same way) for years. The “paths” in their heads have become tunnels in solid rock, and digging a new passage is nearly impossible.

Your job is to keep mixing this “mental mixture” so it doesn’t harden. As soon as we relax and start using engrams, part of our brain hardens—and we don’t even notice it.

What to Do to Stop Brain Degradation

Here are ten simple but effective techniques:

1. Pay attention to yourself.
   If you suddenly feel discomfort because something has changed (for example, your favorite website updated its design or your favorite yogurt disappeared from the store), grab onto that feeling and explore it. Why not try all the yogurts or even start making your own?
2. Don’t reread books you’ve already read.
   Don’t rewatch movies you’ve already seen. Yes, it’s comforting to dive into a familiar world with known characters and no surprises, but you’re depriving new books and movies of the chance to show you something fundamentally new and your brain of the opportunity to form new neural connections.
3. Find new routes.
   Try to find new ways to get home and back, discover alternative stores, movie theaters, and other places in your life. It might take extra time, but you could find pleasant surprises—like lower prices or less crowded theaters.
4. Seek out new music.
   Even if you’re a music lover with thousands of tracks, you probably listen to the same 50–100 songs for comfort. There are hundreds of thousands of internet radio stations—try a new one every day!
5. Meet new friends and acquaintances.
   It’s great to have friends you see every Friday, but why limit your circle to 4–5 people, often chosen by circumstance? Social influences shape our thinking, and sometimes friends can change your perspective, interests, or even your career.
6. Have children.
   Kids are a constant source of chaos and unpredictability. They’re like living “cement mixers” in your head, breaking old patterns and forcing you to adapt. If you can’t have kids yet, get a dog—it’ll get you outside, introduce you to other dog owners, and add some chaos to your life.
7. Stop criticizing.
   Complaints like “What a terrible design!” or “These new chairs are so uncomfortable!” are signs of resistance to change. It’s more productive to accept changes and motivate your brain to adapt to new realities. Try saying, “New menu? Great, I was bored with the old dishes!” or “New operating system? Awesome! Now I have a new quest—find the control panel!”
8. Stop labeling people.
   It’s easy to judge people instead of understanding them. But everyone is under pressure from life’s circumstances. Try to see beyond the labels and understand the reasons behind people’s actions.
9. Experiment with scents.
   Even though our sense of smell isn’t as important as it once was, scents still affect us. If you’ve been using the same perfume for years, it’s time to change it—and do so regularly.
10. Learn foreign languages.
    You don’t have to fall in love with someone from another country to find motivation—professional interests or hobbies work too. Foreign words and their meanings often differ from your native language, making language learning one of the best ways to train your brain’s plasticity (especially if you go beyond tourist vocabulary and explore cultural nuances).

Remember, our brains are much more complex than we think. Engrams formed by listening to the same music affect how we interact with friends. New smells in a restaurant can inspire you to reevaluate your relationships. A walk down an unfamiliar street after work might help you find a solution to a problem. That’s why it’s best to combine these life hacks.

And maybe, one day, thirty years from now, when your grandchild brings you a new gadget—a cloud of nanorobots—you won’t say, “Oh my God, get that buzzing thing away from me!” Instead, you’ll reach in and say, “Wow! How does it work, and where can I get one?”