American Geriatrics Society (AGS) - Staying sharp for dummies

Staying Sharp For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934504

ISBN: 978-1-119-18779-0 (pbk); 978-1-119-18781-3 (ebk); 978-1-119-18780-6 (ebk)

1. Table of Contents

Welcome to Staying Sharp For Dummies!

Your brain plays a major role in almost everything you do, including thinking, feeling, communicating, breathing, remembering, working, playing, sleeping, and countless other activities. Maintaining and improving your brains health is vital to your quality of life a fact that becomes even truer as you get older. Staying Sharp For Dummies focuses on understanding how to maximize your brain power within the context of your overall health. The book aims to provide you with information, tools, resources, and tangible steps to keep a healthy, active mind. The good news is that you can do a lot to keep your brain sharp throughout your life.

This book weaves together up-to-date information from a range of For Dummies titles into a fresh take on helping keep your body and your brain working better and longer. Youll find a wealth of tips and ideas not only for improving your memory and reasoning but also for practicing mindfulness, relaxing, eating right, exercising, and heading off common health problems as you get older.

Because this is a For Dummies book, the chapters are written and arranged so you can pick and choose whichever topics interest you most and dive right in. You dont need to read the chapters in sequential order, although you certainly can if you like the topics are organized to provide a rich experience should you just plow through starting at .

This book makes some assumptions about you, the reader. Hopefully, one of the following descriptions fits you:

• Youre young, bright, and healthy and want to stay that way as much as possible your whole life.
• Youre entering middle age, and its dawning on you that your past choices in lifestyle, habits, diet, and so on may be starting to affect your life in not entirely positive ways and you want to turn things around.
• Youre already experiencing health issues that seem to be affecting your brain function and quality of life, and you want to explore remedies and options for reversing some decline and/or staying as sharp as possible as you get older.

This book doesnt assume any particularly advanced knowledge of medicine or physiology (or any other ology, for that matter). All you need is a desire to investigate how your brain and body can work together as beneficially as possible. When followed properly, much of the advice herein could add years to your life not to mention sparking interest, spurring action, strengthening, and even calming your soul. Not a bad deal.

Throughout the book, several icons designed to point out specific kinds of information. Keep an eye out for them:

A Tip points out especially helpful or practical information about a topic. It may be hard-won advice on the best way to do something or a useful insight that may not be obvious at first glance.

A Warning highlights potential problems or trouble you may encounter and mistaken assumptions that can lead to difficulties.

Technical Stuff points out nonessential stuff that may be interesting if youre really curious about something. You can safely skip these bits if youre in a hurry or just looking for the basics.

Remember indicates stuff that youll do well to stash somewhere in your memory for future benefit.

In addition to what youre reading right now, this product also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that provides tips on keeping your brain sharp through exercise, nutrition, reducing stress, and so on. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for Staying Sharp For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.

You can approach this book from several different angles. You can start with and read straight through to the end. But you may not have time for that, or maybe you feel like exploring, say, meditation or improving your diet or lowering your blood pressure. Try checking out the table of contents to see a map of whats covered in the book and then flip to any particular chapter that catches your eye. Or if youve got a specific issue or topic youre burning to know more about, try looking it up in the index.