Housework makes you smart

I’ve used this space a number of times in the past to lament the fact that I am afflicted by a disorder that, unfortunately, seems to be a fairly common one. Doctors call this disorder “aging”, and if you are suffering from it too you know what a challenge it is to live with it.

Unless you are a vampire, though, it is just something you have to learn to deal with. So I also like to use this column to share tips I come across that help those of us who are on the wrong side of 40 to keep decrepitude at bay for as long as possible.

Today I bring you some good news on that front. New medical research has shown that one of the best ways you can keep your mind functioning (fairly) well as you get older is to keep up with your daily chores.

So mow the lawn. Wash the car. Take the dog for a walk. Vacuum, dust, and do the laundry. It may not sound like a glamorous life, but by keeping yourself in motion as opposed to sitting back and taking it easy you might stave off senility.

According to a study published in a recent edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine, the level of physical activity an older person engages in seems to have a direct impact on how much decline they experience in their mental abilities.

The study followed 200 adults whose average age was 75 and kept track of how many calories they burned each day. The test subjects who were most active and burned off at least 1000 calories daily were 91 percent less likely to see declines in memory, concentration, and language skills than the most sedentary subjects. 91 percent! That’s what the bean counters call a “statistically significant” number.

And those active seniors were not a bunch of gym rats. Whether or not they burned calories running on a treadmill or pushing a lawnmower did not make a difference. The one thing they all had in common is that they kept moving throughout the day. Most of the calories got burned off doing all those mundane chores for themselves that we all wish someone else would do for us.

I have noticed that people tend to approach getting older in one of two ways. Some decide that by the time they reach their golden years they’ve done quite enough work and feel that it’s time to put their feet up and let someone else take care of them. As they accrue the aches and pains that inevitably come with age it tends to encourage them to move around even less, until at last they pretty much become one with their easy chair.

And then there are those seniors who don’t want anyone doing anything for them that they can still do for themselves and are always out and about and being as active as their bodies allow them to be. It is intuitively obvious that the ones who keep moving around are going to keep their bodies healthier, but now it appears that all that getting up and going will help keep their minds working well also.

I know, it’s easy to say “stay active” when I’m not the one whose back or knees or ankles ache every time I try to pull myself up off the couch, and most of us aren’t going to be doing gymnastics when we’re in our 80’s. But unless you are totally immobilized, you need to keep doing for yourself as much as you possibly can.

The fact is laziness overtakes all of us at times, and it can become a really bad habit when your body starts to wear down. But we need fight it off if we want our body to be able to continue to get us where we want to go and our mind to remember how to get back home again once we get there.