Though it's impossible to predict memory loss, you can do your best to prevent it. To keep your noggin nimble as you age, follow these ten steps:

Step 1: Exercise your mind
Just as physical activity keeps your body strong, mental activity keeps your mind sharp and agile.

If you continue to learn and challenge yourself, your brain continues to grow, literally. Regardless of age, an active brain produces new dendrites, connections between nerve cells that allow cells to communicate with one another. This helps the brain store and retrieve information more easily, no matter what your age.

How can you challenge yourself? Try:

• Learning to play a musical instrument
• Playing Scrabble or doing crossword puzzles
• Interacting with people
• Switching careers or starting a new one
• Starting a new hobby
• Learning a foreign language
• Volunteering
• Staying informed about what's going on in the world
• Reading

Step 2: Stay physically active
Daily physical activity can help improve blood flow. Some people find it's easier to get motivated when they exercise with a friend. Some choose a favorite pet to accompany them on walks. However you choose to get moving, include these three activities as important fitness components in your routine:

• Aerobic activity. Activities such as brisk walking, bicycling or swimming slow the age-related loss of aerobic capacity, the ability of your heart, lungs and blood vessels to deliver adequate oxygen to your muscles during physical activity.
• Strength training. Increasing your strength by using weights or elastic resistance bands can slow or even reverse the loss of muscle mass associated with aging. Strength training also can slow bone loss, cut your risk of injury and make you feel more energetic.
• Stretching. Stretching increases the range in which you can bend and stretch joints, muscles and ligaments, helping to decrease stiffness and prevent injury.

Step 3: Eat, drink and be healthy
Eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. These contain antioxidant, substances that protect and nourish brain cells. As an added bonus, these foods may reduce your risk of cancer, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, diabetes and osteoporosis.

Drink water. Water is essential to the human body. Water practically is the human body, making up about 70 percent of your body weight. Lack of water leads to dehydration, which can leave you feeling tired, making it hard to concentrate. So drink up.

Here are some tips:

• Take a sip at every drinking fountain you see.
• Fill up a water bottle and keep it close at hand.
• Have a glass of water with every meal.

Step 4: Develop a system of reminders and cues
Information comes at you from all directions all the time. Sometimes it's necessary to take extra steps to remind yourself of what's important. Work through the information overload with these memory triggers:

• Write it down.
• Keep a diary, use calendars and make lists.
• Establish a routine.
• Store easy-to-lose items in the same place.
• Complete tasks in the same order. Change is difficult and takes extra effort.
• Set up cues. For instance, put your keys on the ironing board. That way you're more likely to remember to turn off the iron before walking out the door.
• Practice repetition. "To help remember a person's name, I'll work it into the conversation several times after being introduced," says Dr. Takahashi. "Repetition ingrains the information in your mind. It's a great habit to get into because it works."

Step 5: Take time to remember things
Normal aging changes the brain, which makes your mind slightly less efficient in processing new information. Forgetfulness may indicate nothing more than having too much on your mind. Slow down and pay full attention to the task at hand, whatever it may be.

Step 6: Pray, meditate and learn relaxation techniques
Do you sit at the table with your shoulders hunched? Do you catch yourself clenching your teeth? Do you tap your foot or your finger while you're idle?

Prayer, in addition to being the way we communicate with God, is therapeutic. Concentrating on listening to public prayer or praying silently to oneself is an excellent way to focus on a single line of thought and block out distracters.

Stress and anxiety can interfere with concentration, so it's important to take time to relax—really relax.

One technique involves taking a mental break from the world:

• Lie down or sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed.
• Check in with your body mentally. Is it tense? Sore? Imagine the discomfort melting away.
• Take a relaxation tour of your body. Start with your toes and work your way up. Tighten every muscle group you come across for a few seconds before relaxing and moving on to the next section: toes to feet, ankles to knees, thighs to buttocks, back to shoulders, arms to fingertips, neck to head, and finally all the muscles in your face.
• Breathe slowly, regularly and deeply.
• Once relaxed, imagine you're in a favorite place or in a spot of beauty and stillness.
• After five or 10 minutes, rouse yourself from the state gradually.

Step 7: Keep a positive attitude
Studies show that optimists tend to live longer. According to a study published in the August 2002 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, people who scored high on optimism had a 50-percent-lower risk of premature death than did those who scored more pessimistic.

Happiness makes you more alert; and when you're alert, your senses are more open to receiving information.

Step 8: Talk to your health care professional
Many factors unrelated to aging or genetics can contribute to memory problems. These include the use of certain medications, poor vision and hearing, vitamin deficiencies, fatigue, depression, stress and illnesses unrelated to Alzheimer's disease.

Depression, in particular, can cause problems with memory and concentration and often is mistaken for Alzheimer's disease in older adults. Depression can be treated, improving memory and concentration.

If you or your family worry about your memory, get evaluated. Your health care professional may be able to determine whether the cause is treatable.

Step 9: Check your levels
Know your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Also make sure your thyroid gland is functioning normally. These tests are relatively easy to take and are good indicators of what's going on inside your body. Older adults who keep their blood pressure in check—and who do not smoke—reduce their risk of stroke.

Check your blood pressure. An optimal blood pressure level is 120 or less systolic (top number) and 80 or less diastolic (bottom number). Be alert to sustained elevations in either systolic or diastolic pressure.

Keep your cholesterol at a healthy level. Have your cholesterol checked by your health care professional every five years or more often if you have a problem with your cholesterol level.

Step 10: Keep your perspective
You're not the only one who's placed a coffee cup on the roof of your car and then driven away. You're not the first person to dial a number only to forget whom you're calling. It happens. Take note of it, but unless you feel it's unusually frequent, don't be concerned.

Everyone has difficulty remembering things at times. Do not lose sight of how much you do remember.