Simple. daily life activity provides a multitude of opportunities to grow and to strengthen your brain in unexpected and useful ways.
Activities ranging from making meals to washing dishes, to folding clothes, to vacuuming, to mopping the floor, to gardening and mowing the lawn… all require physical engagement and a variety of movement patterns. These are not only good for your body, but also your brain too!
Since movement is the best and most powerful way to activate the majority of your brain at any given time, these types of daily life activities can be a great way to give your brain additional cognitive support and benefit – above and beyond your regular fitness or exercise routines.
Technology, on the other hand, has made us more sedentary. Many people are not only spending the majority of their waking hours on their ‘devices’, but they are also out-sourcing regular household activities over to cleaning services, pre-ordered meal plans, and garden maintenance companies.
In some instances, this makes sense and will provide us with greater life balance and the opportunity to free up and allocate our time and attention into other important areas. If, however, it’s because we are simply becoming lazy, and not as accustomed to being physically active or doing manual labour, then it is an issue.
When we look at our ancestors – even just a couple of generations before us, they were far more physically active. As inheritors of their genes, we are meant to practise habits that were similar to theirs. Sitting all day in front of a computer screen is certainly not one of them!
HOUSEWORK LINKS TO BETTER BRAIN FUNCTIONING
Global monitoring data indicates that physical activity is well below recommended weekly levels, with people in high income countries more than twice as likely to be sedentary as those in low-income countries.
Since the pandemic, with the shift to more online work and being stuck on the home front, this issue has only become worse.
Thankfully, there are easy and common-sense ways to get more activity and movement into our daily lives, and the options may be closer to home than you realize!
Because housework involves preparing, planning, organizing, and physical activity, it is not only a fantastic form of brain-body engagement but also an excellent indicator of the ability of someone to effectively self manage and live independently.
Over the years, many studies have been performed on brain-body activity; and the results are quite impressive when it comes to the value a person can derive, simply by tidying up their abode!
NOT ALL HOUSEWORK IS CREATED EQUAL:
Perhaps you’ve noticed that based on how much energy you have available on a particular day, you will have varying levels of motivation to tackle certain tasks.
This is the same when it comes to household chores, because they do not require the same amount of effort.
In fact, researchers have separated housework demands into light and heavy categories.
- Light housework includes washing up, dusting, making the bed, hanging out the washing, ironing, tidying up, and cooking.
- Heavy housework can be defined as window cleaning, changing the bed, vacuuming, washing the floor, and activities such as painting and decorating.
It’s well proven that regular physical activity is good for maintaining optimal physical and mental health at any age, and it is especially shown among older adults to reduce the risks of falls, memory loss, dementia, immobility, and dependency. So it makes sense to assess the correlation between household chores and brain-body benefits, as these types of activities are required daily.
A RECENT STUDY:
According to a study published in the journal, BMC Geriatrics, the benefits of doing chores provide major value for your brain health and cognition.
Sixty-six cognitively healthy, older adults underwent three medical assessments, including a health evaluation, structural brain imaging, and a cognitive assessment. They were also asked how often they spent tidying up their home, meal-prepping, doing housework, yard work, and other to-do list activities.
The results concluded that those who were doing more around the home displayed more brain volume in the hippocampus and frontal lobe, which are the brain areas that help with memory, learning, and cognition. So, when you are performing seemingly mindless chores like wiping down the table or doing a load of laundry, you are sharpening your brain, too!
HO-HUM HOUSEHOLD CHORES:
It makes sense if you’ve been conditioned to resist participating in any domestic upkeep. After all, since childhood most of us are programmed to see chores either at best as an opportunity to make money or at worst they were prescribed to us as a punishment for poor behaviour. As well, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t leave the house or go out with your friends until you make your bed, clean your room or finish putting away the dishes…”
However, now you know that there is a major reason to reframe your mindset towards chores. Aside from having a clean and organized living and work space, the benefits include significant boosts to your brain as well!
To Your Fit Brain & Fit Life,
Jill