Unlike your other organs that wear out as they get used more, the brain only grows stronger.
The more uncomfortable intellectual challenges you preset yourself with over the course of your life, the more you continue to sharpen and strengthen your mind.
There is a swinging effect that should be observed, from what I understand, of intense mental exercise and stress followed by a period of total rest from mental stressors.
Studies show that folks who dedicate themselves to more intellectually stimulating pursuits throughout their lives show far fewer signs of Alzheimer’s as well as a broad range of dementia conditions.
As we all get older, it’s more uncomfortable to work on learning new things (we’re losing that plasticity of the brain because we haven’t kept challenging our brains to grow) and nearly all of us, to avoid the discomfort of learning something new and uncomfortable, give up.
The result is that you are far more subject to a preventable loss of cognitive function.
Think, read, write, paint, learn a new language, challenge yourself today and you’ll be able to keep doing it tomorrow!
For a few interesting books that cover this see:
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz
The Rewiring Brain by Markus Butz-Ostendorf and Arjen van Ooyen