17/08/09 Keep Your brain sharp for life At one point in your life, your mind was a steel trap. Now It's probably starting to resemble a colander. Life keeps pouring in, but you retain less and less of it. Fear not: We've created a cheat sheet that will give you the mental edge you need to survive in this cutthroat job market, plus the brain strength necessary to keep your wits about you when you finally retire. The key to all this is simple: Stop taking your gray matter for granted, says P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., chief of biological psychiatry at Duke University's medical school. "You can add 10 or more years to your brain's useful life just by paying some attention to it." If that doesn't sound like a fantastic return on an investment, then, well, you may have already lost your mind.

Break a Mental Sweat
Just as exercise builds endurance, bolstering your neurological connections creates a reservoir of stamina that you can tap later in life. Here's how to bulk up your neurons.

Study another language - Parlez-vous francais? Non?
Then you may find yourself less able to stave off dementia when you're older. In a 2007 study at York University in Toronto, bilingual seniors kept the worst effects of the condition at bay 4 years longer than those who'd never ventured beyond their native tongue. Learning a second language appears to increase the density of gray matter in the areas of your brain that govern attention and memory, says researcher Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D.

Do this:
During your commute, play some language-instruction CDs, such as one from Macmillan's Behind the Wheel series (macmillanaudio.com, or download the MP3 version from audible.com.) Then reinforce your lessons by signing onto social-networking sites that let you interact with native speakers. "They use functional language that you'd hear in conversation," says Marty Abbott, director of education for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Her favorite is hello-hello.com. Finally, rent a movie once a month in the language you're studying and watch it sans subtitles.

Push the Cardio
Vigorous workouts can boost your brain's error radar, say researchers from Illinois Wesleyan University. They discovered that men with high levels of cardio-respiratory fitness were significantly better than their less-fit counterparts at identifying mistakes on a test. "Fitter guys can absorb more oxygen into their blood," says study author Jason Themanson, Ph.D. "This appears to improve the functioning of the brain's cingulated cortex, which is the source of error-detection abilities."

Do this:
Interval training is the best way to improve your VO2 max, or the amount of oxygen your blood can carry and use. Trainer Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S., the author of Turbulence Training, recommends choosing a cardio workout -- like running or biking -- and alternating between 30-second sprints and 90 seconds at a relaxed pace. Repeat for a total of six cycles. Do this twice a week, along with two additional sessions of your regular cardio routine.