Just ask bees: In the study, which appeared in the journal Experimental Gerontology, researchers found that old bees remain more mentally competent when they care for their young. 10 Ways To Keep Your Mind Sharp By the time bees are done nursing their offspring and go off to gather food, they lose significant brain function and the ability to learn new information. But when researchers removed nurse bees from the hive, the older, foraging bees were forced to continue to care for the young. The result: The old bees regained their mental capacity. The improved mental state could be due to a protein change in the bees’ brains, says lead researcher Gro Amdam, PhD, an associate professor at Arizona State. Two proteins increased during the study: One that protects against dementia, and a “chaperone” protein that protects against damage in other proteins. Both proteins are also present in humans. But for all their brain-boosting benefits, your children have to leave sometime. So here’s how to enjoy your empty nest and stay mentally fit after the kids fly the coop: Grab a controller.
 Your son may be gone—but his toys aren’t. So dig up that old Xbox and plan a game night with your husband. Playing with others can be instrumental in keeping your brain sharp, Amdam says. She recommends playing a multiplayer game in which you and your partner have to work together to solve a puzzle, because the social interaction is key. How To Love Living Alone Hit the road
 If you’ve always wanted to cross a country off your bucket list but couldn’t bring the family along, now’s your chance, says psychologist Lawrence Balter, PhD, professor emeritus of applied psychology at New York University. Don’t think of your kids’ absence as a void to fill, he says, “but rather, an opportunity to do some things you didn’t have time for before.” And a little travel can open up your mind—in 2009, a team of researchers found that adapting to foreign cultures makes you more creative. Why? “Being exposed to other cultures doesn’t just change the content of what we think—it also changes how we reason and think about that content,” says study leader Adam Galinsky, PhD, of Northwestern University. “That new knowledge we gain leads to creativity.”