Alzheimer's disease has been a serious illness affecting our population throughout the globe for a long, long time. Many professionals just cannot put their finger on precisely what causes this illness. However, recently there has been some impressive research done on personality types and how they affect the likelihood of acquiring the disease. When researching Alzheimer's and how to prevent and/or slow down the onset of the illness as we age we usually hear things such as controlling your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Also, maintaining a healthy weight and diet rich in omega-3s has shown effective. Most of all we hear to maintain healthy mental exercise doing such things as puzzles and even socializing with others. All of these preventative measures have been shown effective towards slowing Alzheimer's, but what about those people who never even have a bout with it at all? How do they do it?



Research has shown that more 'driven' personality types, or more conscientious and goal-oriented individuals, appear to have reduced their risk of Alzheimer's. Now this is all based on tests done on around 997 priests and nuns at the age of 75. Out of all these individuals, 176 developed Alzheimer's over 12 years. It seems that the individuals who are the 'go-getters' and the ones who really have a need to get things accomplished throughout each day are less prone to the disease through constant stimulation in their brains. Just like a crossword puzzle you can't put down, so is life to many of us human beings. So, an individual's level of motivation seems to be directly linked to their health. But, there are different kinds of stimulation which can be considered.

One form of stimulation and though is that of positive, goal-oriented thoughts as I just mentioned earlier. Those are the ones we want, as opposed to negative thoughts. Even worse that negative thoughts is worry. Worry not only manifests more negativity in your future, but it also appears to bring on potential dementia related illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease. Getting back to the recent studies of the 997 individuals, those with the highest scores for the "conscientious" personality trait were a whopping 89% less likely to develop Alzheimer's as compared to those with lower scores of that personality type.

It appears as though what we think has a lot to do with our mental health not only in the present, but also in our future. What we think most definitely can and will manifest itself in different ways and most of us would more than likely prefer a more positive manner. So, maybe we should begin to reconsider how bad a 'bad day' really is. In order for us to live a healthy life, we need to focus on more positive things and not so much on what we don't want or what the careless individual just did to us on the freeway. Getting upset about most of the things in our lives really only hurts ourselves. So, the one thing to remember as we all move forward is to keep our minds stimulated with positive thoughts and activities. Be more social, set more goals. Never forget you're your passions and what you are here for in the first place. And most importantly, never forget your dreams. As they are the goals that will always keep you going.