806 Health Tip: Do You Use Your GPS A Lot? It Can Hurt You

Our telephones do everything for us these days. That is not necessarily a good thing.

I mean remember when we were told as students that we need to be able to do simple math because we won't have a calculator with us all the time?

We sure showed them. Not only that but we use it as a camera, we keep our life in the calendar. We can check our email, the alarm clock wakes us up, oh and it makes phone calls too.

I use the GPS a lot! How about you? Did you know that using it all the time is not a good thing. How is that you ask? Well it could increase our chances to end up with Alzheimer's disease.

This is all according to David Barrie who wrote a new book called "Incredible Journeys". Sounds scary doesn't it? Well he says that one of Alzheimer's first signs is feeling disoriented. The part of your brain that you use to navigate and to actually remember how to get places, called the hippocampus, starts to shrink.

If you don't use it you start to lose it. That is what happens when you use the GPS all the time. You don't use your brain to figure out how to get places. You don't have to remember you can just count on your GPS in your phone to get you there.

This is just his theory right now but it makes sense. The less we remember and the less we have to remember does hurt us in the long run. I mean how many phone numbers do you know by heart these days? I can really only think of a handful. We use to memorize all of them. So I see how technology can actually hurt us in the brain power.

Just to be sure try to count less on your GPS and try to actually remember how to get to your location every now and then. Your brain will thank you later on.