I find birthdays depressing. Especially when they're mine. As such, it was after much grief and sniffling that I finally blew out the candles on my birthday cake a few weeks back.

Then the gifts arrived. My mother wisely gave me money for my impending old age (and for adult diapers). A colleague presented me with a book printed in extra large font. And a close friend, clearly assuming the worst, gave me a manual on how to have sex properly.

Ageing, if you haven't noticed, scares me. And as I hurtle inexorably towards my twilight years, the fears are mounting. I dread the day when I start to smell completely of ear wax. I dread the day when I start wheezing because my nostrils are clogged with hair. I dread the day when my prostate will be the only thing in my pants that's swollen.

But my greatest fear by a mile and a half is this: turning into a geezer. You know what I'm talking about - the kind of geriatric who calls you over to his rocking chair and then suddenly decides that he wants to watch Deal or No Deal. The old bat who can't wait to tell you his life story, only that he just did five minutes ago.

More than anything else, even the ability to get turned on by Keira Knightley, I fear losing my cognitive abilities. Which is why a recent study by Harvard University left me needing a fresh pair of pants. What the researchers found in a study of 93 people aged between 18 and 93 was that our mental abilities decline with age, even if we haven't got Alzheimer's. Clearly, this needs worrying about.

Short circuits ahead

It seems that the human brain is divided into various functional regions, each of which is responsible for different thought processes such as memory, sensory input and processing, attention span etc. This is all well and good but for the brain to work cohesively as a single cognitive unit, these regions need to be able to talk to each other e.g. you need to pay attention in order to process sensory input and then store the data in your memory bank. And they do so via a network of white matter conduits, a bit like long distance telephone lines connecting one town to the next.

The problem is that these channels of information tend to erode as we grow older, hindering communication between the different parts of the brain. That in turn causes geezerness e.g. memory lapses, dreaminess, slow information processing etc.

Like me, you're probably thinking now that knowing all might be great but it doesn't actually solve anything. In a few years' time, I will not know my wife from my Labrador so I might as well quit my job and do crosswords all day.

And that is exactly what could save your brain.

Work that noodle

Over the years, there has been mounting evidence that exercising your brain on a regular basis can help maintain cognitive function well into your golden years. The old "use it or lose it" philosophy applies here. As with our body's muscles, not using your brain often enough results simply in a wobbly mess that's good for nothing. As such, activities like crosswords, Su Doku, Boggle, doing jigsaws, playing strategy games like chess and even keeping a diary all help to keep your mind engaged and active regularly. What happens when you engage in these brain teasers is that new lines get erected which replace the old, damaged ones.

But what if you hate numbers, detest words and think that the only way to win at chess is to throw a rook into your opponent's eye? The good news is that there are many other ways to keep your brain healthy. Picking up a musical instrument or learning a new language can help stimulate previously unused parts of the brain, strengthening the connections between brain cells and brain regions.

Exercise also contributes to brain health by improving oxygen circulation in the brain. This, in turn, helps sustain the number of cells in the hippocampus, a part of the brain essential to memory and learning.

Sex, oddly enough, comes good as well. Engaging in a bit of loving apparently increases the amount of the hormones oxytocin and serotonin in the body which help improve logic and creativity.

The long and short of it is this - a little mental exercise here and there never hurt anyone. And besides, the next time your boss asks why you're playing Scrabble (or having a romp) at work, at least you'll have a damn good reason.

This story was first published in TheLivingRoom.sg in Jan 2008.