With Baseball Opening Day Approaching, Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Provides Tips to Help Fans Maximize Their Brain Health While Enjoying the Game

 

Baseball season officially begins this week, and there’s an added benefit to enjoying our national pastime this season: it can be good for your brain. The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA) is encouraging fans to follow the “B.A.S.E-path for Good Brain Health” while watching baseball games this season to help maximize the benefits to their brain health.

“Baseball can bring more than just fun and enjoyment; it can exercise your brain and improve your cognitive health,” said Jennifer Reeder, LCSW, AFA’s Senior Director of Educational & Social Services. “Whether you’re in the stands at the stadium or a seat in your home, taking a few steps while watching the game can maximize the benefits to your brain, which is always a home run.”

Follow the B.A.S.E-path for Good Brain Health throughout the baseball season:

  1. Buddy up while watching the game: Watching and discussing the game with others provides social engagement and connection, both of which are extremely beneficial for brain health. These two activities improve cognition, enhance mood, and also reduce depression and stress. Conversely, loneliness and social isolation are associated with higher rates of cognitive decline and dementia.
  1. Analyze the action: Actively thinking, reasoning, and examining information all keep the brain sharp. Analyzing in-game situations, like predicting what pitch may be thrown or whether a baserunner will try to steal, exercises your brain by making it process new information. Challenging your brain can help preserve memory and reasoning skills.
  1. Savor the past: Positive memories, such as your favorite team’s memorable victories, a favorite player’s accomplishments, or a trip to the ballpark, help exercise your brain and reduce stress which can harm memory and cognitive function.
  1. Engage younger generations: One of baseball’s most treasured aspects is the bond created among people of different ages, especially fathers and grandfathers with younger generations. Engaging with younger people can involve teaching, explaining concepts, or sharing memories. Those actions exercise the brain, as it retrieves past experiences and memories and connects them to present conversations. Positive intergenerational interactions generate joy, a sense of purpose, and a feeling of contributing. All of this can reduce stress and anxiety and elevate spirits.

Additional information about brain healthy lifestyle tips can be found by visiting AFA’s website at www.alzfdn.org or by calling AFA’s Helpline at 866-232-8484. The Helpline is available seven days a week.

About Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA):

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide support, services and education to individuals, families and caregivers affected by Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias nationwide and to fund research for better treatment and a cure. Its services include a National Toll-Free Helpline (866-232-8484) staffed by licensed social workers, the National Memory Screening Program, educational conferences and materials, and dementia care training for healthcare professionals. For more information about AFA, call 866-232-8484, visit www.alzfdn.org, follow us on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. AFA holds Charity Navigator’s top 4-star rating.

ALZHEIMER’S FOUNDATION OF AMERICA