Senior moments aren’t just for seniors anymore.

Anyone can have a brain hiccup no matter how old or young they are — but the latest research shows that the cognitive slide we usually associate with aging actually begins earlier than anyone would have thought.

Much earlier.

And if you’re in your 40s, I got some bad news for you: Your brain may have already passed its peak, and it’s not getting any better from here unless you do something about it.

More on that in a moment — but first, the study that’s going to be hard to forget: A look at data on 5,200 men and 2,200 women who took part in the Whitehall II study of British civil servants finds that people begin a noticeable cognitive slide at the age of 45.

Over a 10-year period, men and women alike who were between 45 and 50 at the start of the study saw declines in every category except vocabulary, with an average drop of 3.6 percent in overall mental ability.

Men between 45 and 50 also experienced a 4 percent dip in reasoning and thinking skills during that 10-year period, while women saw a decline closer to 5 percent.

Obviously, older volunteers had even bigger drops — senior men suffered a 10 percent loss in thinking and reasoning, while senior women lost about 8 percent.

But the fact that younger people experienced any decline at all should be a wake-up call to take the actions now that can save your brain later — and that action should start with the simple B vitamins available at any health food store.

The Bs help control the most essential parts of brain function, everything from mood to muscles to memory — and if you boost your intake now, you can protect all three… especially that memory.

Studies have shown that seniors at risk of cognitive decline can slow, stop and even reverse the slide by upping their levels of B6, B12, and folate — but as the new study shows, you don’t want to wait until you’re a senior to start getting your Bs.

Start today… no matter how old — or young — you are.

It’s just about the slowest and easiest form of exercise on the planet — but what tai chi lacks in flash, it more than makes up for in benefits.

These simple Chinese stretching exercises have been shown to help seniors beat everything from pain to depression — and now, new research shows that they can also help improve balance and prevent falls.

Falls are a leading cause of loss of independence in seniors. The breaks and fractures often require long and even permanent hospitalization — and with the rise of hospital-acquired infections, any admission for any reason has the potential to be your last.

But if the new study is any indication, you can dramatically lower your risk of a life-changing or life-ending fall through tai chi.

In the new study, researchers assigned 70 seniors from assisted-living homes to either four months of tai chi or musical instruction.

Music is nice — but those who went to the 90-minute tai chi classes three times a week learned critical skills such as weight shifting, awareness of body alignment, and the rotation of the head and trunk.

As a result, the study in Age and Ageing found that these seniors had significant improvements in their ability to balance and the awareness of the position of their limbs than those who learned music.

And if boosting your balance and slashing your risk of a fall aren’t enough, that’s not all tai chi can do for you.

Studies have found that these slow stretches can help bring relief from arthritis and osteoarthritis, boost overall physical function, beat depression, and even improve your quality life.

Along with being easy, tai chi is cheap or even free. There may be a group practicing tai chi in your local park, library, or senior center.

And if you can’t find one near you, you’re only a mouse click away from some free lessons — search YouTube for “tai chi” for some simple exercises you can do right now, in front of your computer.

A good meal, a little spending money, and a night of passion — any one of those things would be enough to make most people happy… especially that last one.

You might overeat and feel horrible afterwards… and it’s easy to spend all your money. But you just can’t overdo it when it comes to sex — and all you need is a willing partner and working parts.

Now, a new survey confirms what most of us already know: People who have more frequent sex are happier, and that’s especially true of seniors.

The survey of 238 married seniors found that 60 percent of those who had sex more than once a month were “very happy with life in general,” versus just 40 percent of those who had no sex at all over the past year.

What’s more, 80 percent of those who had sex more than once a month were happy with their marriages — and I hope everyone reading this falls into that category.

The only catch here is that some people have a hard time keeping up in the bedroom once they reach their later years — and that’s especially true of men.

Sometimes, the mind is willing… but the parts just aren’t up to the task.

Don’t be fooled by all those TV commercials — the best way to fix this isn’t with a penis pill. In fact, that’s actually the worst possible solution: Sex meds like Viagra and Cialis have been linked to vision problems, hearing loss, headaches, breathing problems and more — including painful erections that require a trip to the ER to correct.

In many cases, erection problems are linked to obesity — so if you’ve put on a few pounds over the years, lose the weight now… and watch your sex life return.

Other men may simply need a boost in testosterone, the male hormone that drops off naturally after middle age — leading to dips in vitality, sexual function and more.

A naturopathic physician can get you back on track with natural hormones. And that, in turn, can improve both your marriage and your overall happiness.

I know plenty of seniors who would pop pretty much any pill — risks and costs be damned — if it meant they’d never have to battle Alzheimer’s disease.

But it turns out they may not have to face any risks at all to get a leg up on dementia — because the latest research confirms that simple, safe and widely available B vitamins can dramatically slow the rate of cognitive decline.

Researchers gave 266 men and women older than 70 either a placebo or a blend of B vitamins — 0.5mg of B12, 0.8mg of folic acid, and 20mg of vitamin B6 — and tracked them for two years.

Those who got the real vitamins did 70 percent better on memory tests than those who took the placebo. They improved in just about every way, with real boosts in semantic memory (the memory of facts and concepts) as well as overall global cognition.

And the biggest boost of all came in “episodic memory,” or the part of the mind we use to remember our daily tasks. That’s the first part of the mind to go in dementia patients, so you can see why these results are so exciting.

The good news doesn’t stop there: In some cases, patients who were already battling memory lapses before the study actually improved their memory after two years of B vitamins.

The researchers say the biggest benefits were seen in patients with the highest levels of homocysteine at the start of the study. (Homocysteine is an inflammation marker with strong links to dementia, heart disease, and more.) Those benefits went well beyond anything measured on cognitive tests.

In fact, patients who took the vitamins had real and visible changes in the physical structure of the brain itself.

Before I get into that, a little background: All our brains shrink a little as we age. It’s a frightening thought, but it’s perfectly normal.

In dementia patients, however, the brains often shrink at a much faster rate — so researchers believe anything that can slow that loss of gray matter may also slow or stop the disease itself.

And the vitamins were able to slow that loss of gray matter by an average of 30 percent overall and 50 percent in those with high homocysteine levels — with one patient seeing a shocking improvement of 500 percent.

It’s clearly too early to say whether B vitamins can stop or even slow Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s also pretty clear you need more of the Bs than the tiny levels the powers-that-be recommend — so talk to your doctor today about adding a B complex to your regimen.