We live longer than ever before and age is a natural part of life and although not always smooth we should embrace it. Personally, I hate my frown line but I love the laugh lines around my eyes. I had to replace my High Intensity Interval Training by swimming and the menopause turned my body upside down but the WIM Hof Method is helping. Not every age-related change is easy to accept but I see it as a journey of becoming someone new and the most important change I experienced is that I am always longing for challenges. One stereotype of ageing is that young people are bold explorers but as we grow old we become timid couch potatoes who "know what we like.” Although it is comfortable and we are able to operate in an anxiety-neutral condition, it is easy to get in a rut.

Our brain is an amazing organ with an infinite capacity for learning. It converts what we see, smell, hear, taste, and feel into what we know which is called cognition. As we age, our ¨cognitive reserve¨, or the brain’s capacity to learn and maintain cognitive function, may decline.

Scientist have shown that brains of people with high cognitive reserve remain more malleable, more capable of learning new things throughout their lives and more likely to stave off degenerative brain changes.

Our cognitive reserve develops over time through education, learning, and curiosity. The more you discover in your lifetime, the more networks you create to help your brain better manage any potential failures or declines it faces.

Building and sustaining a cognitive reserve is my lifetime goal and learning how to dance on a Longboard is not only a big step outside of my comfort zone but also one example how I move my brain to keep it plastic.

Longboard dancing is a form of dancing done on a longboard but it is truly hard to describe it with just words which is why I recommend you to watch videos from the founder of the Longboardcamp Valeriya Gogunskaya. As you can see in the videos longboard dancing is beauty, grace, agility, coordination, deep connection and soul. It is incredible hard to learn but Valeriya and the Longboardcamp make the impossible possible.

To see the full story, watch the movie over on our BLC youtube channel.