All protocols

Volunteering is recommended as generative engagement that helps older adults feel connected and useful.

About five hours per week with grandchildren was associated with improved memory in correlational research, whereas more than 20 hours per week did not show the same benefit.

Do not rely on highlighting huge portions of material; instead focus selectively on what matters.

When learning, step back and look for overarching themes that connect things rather than trying to capture everything.

Use walking as a form of self-care and mental health support; it can also be combined with listening to a podcast.

Presented as a promising treatment in some bipolar cases, especially for treatment-resistant depression rather than manic symptoms; described as invasive, hospital-based, often requiring inpatient care and anesthesia, with risk of memory loss.

Support the nervous system and psyche with better sleep, adequate exercise, proper nutrition, quality healthy social interactions, regular daytime sunlight exposure, and avoiding bright light at night.

If you suspect you or someone else has bipolar disorder, speak to a qualified health professional.

Maintain cognitively engaging or demanding hobbies and activities to help preserve cognitive function with age; examples given included lectures, volunteering, reading, and crosswords, though familiar activities like crosswords may be less capacity-building than newer challenges.

Engage in novel cognitive activities in older adulthood to improve function, especially executive function; examples included language learning, complex coordinative movement, and musical training.

Memory-focused cognitive training; examples included mnemonics and memory palaces to help remember information.

Training based on looking for patterns in numbers and letters.

Visual processing speed training with progressively shorter stimulus durations; the task requires remembering what was seen and where it appeared. Booster sessions at 1 and 3 years were associated with lower dementia risk 20 years later.

Probably the number one evidence-based activity hitting multiple networks at once for cognitive function. Includes learning new dances; ballroom and line dancing had the strongest evidence in older adults, though dancing on your own was still encouraged as fun physical activity.

Recommended specifically for skateboarding to reduce head injury risk.

Suggested as having interesting data for supporting network stability and function in the brain, particularly frontoparietal networks involved in focus and attention.

Suggested as potentially beneficial because they require solving complex problems and reacting quickly to a changing environment.

Amount of practice was emphasized as a key predictor of maintaining task-specific skill, more than age in the pianist example.

For hard skill practice beyond current ability, a good rule was about two sessions per day of 60 to 90 minutes, with a couple of breaks; hard cognitive work within those sessions may only be sustainable in 20 to 30 minute chunks.

25 minutes of work followed by a 5 minute break, repeated a few times; noted to fit the rhythm of sustainable hard cognitive work.

Prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods rather than fixating on any single Mediterranean-diet component.

Aim to eat enough, but not too much; both chronically excessive and chronically insufficient energy intake were described as harmful, including associations with smaller brain volume.

Potentially important methylation-related B vitamin depending on the individual.

Consume antioxidant polyphenol sources such as berries, coffee, tea, and chocolate for potential brain-related benefits.

Named as a structural lipid-related nutrient with some evidence related to cognitive function.

Food sources of structural lipid components such as choline and ethanolamine.

Eating fish earlier in the week may reduce the need to supplement later in the week because omega-3s can be buffered in adipose tissue.

Recommended when homocysteine is elevated; supplementing to bring elevated homocysteine down was said to improve cognitive function or slow cognitive decline. Benefit depends on adequate omega-3 status.

Only appeared beneficial in those with poor diet quality to start with.

If you're already consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables, along with other polyphenol-rich foods, you may already be getting enough flavonoid/polyphenol compounds from diet.