Alzheimer’s is a disease that damages the brain, resulting in impaired memory, thinking and behaviour. The biggest risk for having Alzheimer’s disease is increasing age, though it can affect anyone of any age. It causes brain cells to die, and hence a shrinking of the cortex of the brain.
Alzheimer’s leaves a type of plaque deposit outside the brain cells that inhibits messages from moving from one brain cell to another. It also leaves a deposit inside brain cells referred to as ‘neurofibrillary tangles’ that kill brain cells by preventing the transport of energy around the brain cell.
Why am I talking about Alzheimer’s in a leadership blog?
Because of the theory of Cognitive Reserve that aims to explain why some individuals with full Alzheimer’s pathology (the accumulation of plaques and tangles in their brains) can keep normal lives until they die, while others (with the same amount of plaques and tangles) display the severe symptoms associated with the disease.
Cognitive Reserve is your brains ability to tolerate the progressive brain cell death caused by Alzheimer’s – the brains resistance to damage of the brain. The brain can develop a ‘reserve’ of neurons and cognitive capacity to draw upon when things get tough.
It’s a similar concept to our physical reserves. Generally, people who exercise regularly and build muscle mass and who eat nutritionally sound food and build up immunity, can stave off the bugs and viruses that can bring others to a standstill. It makes sense, treat your body well, prepare it for the inevitable unforeseen challenges and age decline, and you have a very good chance of riding the wave of sickness and age quite well.
Cognitive Reserve can be useful at any time, whenever the functioning of the brain is under attack – like when you are tired and overwhelmed, fearful or stressed, or ready to give up!
So, as a leader, building up a Cognitive Reserve can be really useful, particularly if you intend to be working into your later years (which the Government has recently suggested might be the go!)
Building Cognitive Reserve is built up through intellectual stimulation, specifically to achieve a higher volume of connections between neurons and stronger rates of cerebral blood flow so that when the brain is under attack, this stronger system continues to operate. It’s deliberate and targetted and isn’t as simple as doing the crossword every Sunday. None of us uses all parts of the brain to the same degree and the challenge of building Cognitive Reserve is to find ways to give attention to the bits that aren’t stimulated in our particular life and work circumstances.
Enter Brain Training and Brain Education…
Most of us know we need to exercise regularly, and in a way that works all the muscles in our body, but we tend to stay in our comfort zone (ie, just lifting weights, just running, just playing tennis, or just staying in bed). And that’s not good enough. So we enlist a personal trainer to develop our Physical Reserve.
Most of us know we should exercise our brain, and that learning about our brain is a good thing to do, but we don’t. So it’s time to enlist a personal brain trainer.
At this risk of this being a sell, I really encourage you to join me and those who have already signed on for our free webinar about our brainFIT Boot Camp. I’m really passionate about this idea, as I have observed family members succumb to dementia as they age, and when I see some of my clients who are in busy and overwhelming workplaces struggling to have the Cognitive Reserve to keep going.
And if you decide not to join us, I really encourage you to investigate and develop some kind of brain stimulating or training activity – be prepared for the future!
I look forward to seeing you online if you do decide to join us.
Webinar Details More information about brainFIT Boot Camp
Have a cognitively powerful day!
Michelle