What can I do to prevent memory loss as I age?

A healthy brain is the best defense against memory decline. Don’t smoke, eat well, and be active -- and exercise your brain just like your body through reading, crossword puzzles, games like Sudoku and whatever poses a challenge.

Research has pinpointed an unexpected reason many people experience memory problems as they age. Click on this video to hear Dr. Robin Miller explain the cause, and how to protect yourself.

If you find that your memory is failing you a bit, try these proven memory enhancing tricks, which work for people at any age:

• Be selective about what you want to remember. There are usually only a few major points in any discussion, so try to define what they are.
• Try saying the points out loud. Write them down. Read them. Say them out loud again.
• Work in a place where you can minimize distractions.
• Draw key facts out in a diagram or a story.This gives the brain a different way of storing and later retrieving the information.
• Ask yourself questions about the information you want to learn.
• Use flash cards to force yourself to recall the information. Your brain remembers things better when you ask it questions or require it to give answers.
• Make associations of things that are familiar to you with the things you are working to remember. For example, if you meet someone and her name is Betty, you can make some mental note about her that has to do with your favorite Aunt Betty.
• Keep all papers organized for easy retrieval. Maintain a filing system. Have a day planner where you record all your appointments. Have specific places where you keep things such as your keys or glasses.
• Purge all unnecessary papers and things. Avoid being a pack rat. It is easier to keep your brain uncluttered if the world around you is organized.
• Create rituals and mental cues to help you retrieve information. It is easier to remember to feed the dog or take out the trash if you tie these routines together rather than doing them haphazardly throughout the day.
• Finally, keep your brain active. It's just like a muscle in that it needs to be exercised or it atrophies. Use it or lose. Learn a foreign language, play bridge or chess, learn to play a musical instrument, take on new art projects such as water coloring or sculpturing. Take classes in something you've always been interested in. Force yourself to do new things even if they are a bit out of your comfort zone. In fact, try to push yourself out of your comfort zone on a regular basis. This is how you stimulate your brain to grow. If you are an accountant and your brain is used largely to process numbers, force yourself to take on a more artistic hobby to stretch your brain a little.

Age-related memory loss. Think it's inevitable? Here's why you might want to think again.

Buying into the stereotype that memory function automatically dwindles with age could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, research shows.

At least that's what happened in one study. When older adults (ages 60 to 70 years) were given cues that people their age tend to suffer from memory loss, they actually performed more poorly on memory tests than a control group not exposed to such cues. Likewise, older adults who felt looked down upon -- or stigmatized -- due to age also fared poorly on memory tests. Bottom line: Anxious thoughts about negative stereotypes may disrupt your working memory. So think positive!

Okay, positive thinking is no guarantee against memory problems -- but a positive attitude is always a healthier choice. For a full-court defense against age-related memory loss, here are some other ways to sharpen your noggin:

• Stay in touch. Staying connected to family and friends can nourish the connections in your brain.
• Eat right. 
• Sleep tight. Power naps can help recharge your brain.
• Step it up. Walking today means a better memory tomorrow.

Take the RealAge Test!

A certain increase in forgetfulness seems to be a normal byproduct of aging and is perhaps a result of changes in the brain that begin around age 50, such as a gradual loss of receptors on brain cells and a decline in certain neurotransmitters. Researchers disagree over how much deterioration is normal.

Memory loss isn't inevitable, though. There are many things you can do to preserve or sharpen your memory, including learning memory-enhancing techniques, reducing stress, and improving your organizational techniques (for example, always writing down appointments or having a designated spot for belongings such as keys and eyeglasses). It's also important to regularly challenge your mind with activities such as reading, doing crossword puzzles, playing chess, or taking classes. Experts believe that these kinds of activities help build and maintain synapses, the small gaps between neurons that enable them to communicate with one another.

Much age-related mental decline is due to poor vision or hearing, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep disturbances, alcohol abuse, depression, or medications. Addressing these conditions can also make a difference.

Most people have at least a passing concern about their memory as they get older. In this video, health expert and founder of the Chopra Foundation and the Chopra Center for Wellbeing Deepak Chopra, MD, talks about simple ways to tune up your memory.