New studies from McMaster University suggest that orienteering, a sport which tests physical strength, navigation skills, and recall, could be used as a way to help prevent or slow down decrease in mental abilities linked to dementia.
Scientists think that doing activities like orienteering, which involves both exercise and figuring out directions, activates certain areas of the brain that were used by our ancestors for their day-to-day living. It is believed that over many years, our brains adapted to challenging situations by constructing new neural networks.
We don’t need our brains to work as hard these days because of modern technology like GPS and having lots of food. It’s like this – if we don’t use our brains, we will lose their skills. Jennifer Heisz, a scientist from McMaster University, has said that “modern life doesn’t give us the kind of challenges our brain needs so it can work properly – if we don’t make our brains think in more complicated ways then they won’t be strong.”
According to Heisz, Alzheimer’s disease can first show itself by making it harder to figure out where you are. And this happens in half of the people who have even the mildest form of the disease.
A study was recently done and published in a journal called PLOS ONE. In this study, different groups of healthy adults (aged 18-87) with varying levels of navigation skills (either none, intermediate, advanced, or elite) were surveyed.
Orienteering is a sport that helps people increase their ability to remember and navigate different spaces. Doing it could be good for your brain over the long run!
Experts suggest that orienteering activities are more beneficial to our brain than just exercising alone. Emma Waddington, a Kinesiology graduate student and member of the national orienteering team, states this is because it requires both physical and mental effort.
Orienteering is a sport where you have to run as fast as you can while navigating through unfamiliar areas and trying to find checkpoints which are marked on a map. The best competitors in the sport are able to quickly make decisions, use a compass and switch their attention between different ideas at high speed!
Orienteering is a special sport because it combines running with orienting yourself in an unfamiliar environment. To do this, you need to use two different parts of your brain – one for reading maps and another for navigating in real time as you run the course. This means that while you’re running, you need to move back-and-forth between the map and where you actually are in the environment.
Researchers say that modern technology is making us worse at navigating. That could even hurt our skills with spatial memory, since those brain things need each other to work correctly.
If you want to do some orienteering in your life, two easy ways are: first, when going somewhere, put away the GPS and use a map instead. Secondly, change up your runs, walks or bike rides by trying new routes.
Orienteering is a sport enjoyed by people of all ages – from young children to even those in their 80s! It has been my long-time passion and this experience has given me the knowledge needed to understand how it helps develop navigational skills. I am truly amazed at just how special orienteering is and have become very interested in its potential benefits for older people.
