How to Age-Proof Your Brain

Can You Really Control Your Brain Health?

We all want to keep our brains healthy for as long as possible. But many people believe cognitive decline is simply part of aging. The truth may surprise you.

According to neuroscience researcher Dr. Marc Milstein, we have more control over brain health than we think. His research suggests that you can actually keep your brain younger than your real age. For example, at 50, you could maintain the brain health of a 40-year-old.

So how do you protect your brain? And is it difficult?

The good news is that Dr. Milstein shares simple, practical habits anyone can follow. These lifestyle changes support long-term cognitive health:

• Sleep

• Nutrition

• Stress management

• Exercise

• Social connection

Let’s start with the most powerful one.

Sleep: Your Greatest Ally for Brain Health

Quality sleep plays a critical role in memory, focus, and emotional balance. During sleep, your brain clears toxins and strengthens neural connections.

Understanding Sleep Cycles

Each night, your body moves through repeating 90-minute sleep cycles. Every cycle includes three stages:

Light Sleep

Brain activity looks similar to when you’re awake.

Deep Sleep

Brain electricity drops significantly. This stage supports physical recovery and memory storage.

REM Sleep (Rapid Eye Movement)

Brain activity rises higher than waking levels. This stage supports creativity and emotional processing.

All three stages matter. Skipping any one of them can affect cognitive performance.

How Much Sleep Does Your Brain Need?

Most adults need 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night for optimal brain function. However, the exact amount varies from person to person.

A very small group—called short sleepers—can function well on less sleep. They make up less than 1% of the population. Many people who believe they fall into this category are actually sleep deprived.

If you regularly sleep more than nine hours, talk with a doctor. Excessive sleep may signal health issues such as diabetes, heart disease, or depression. It can also increase the risk of memory problems, obesity, and chronic pain.

 

ACTION STEPS

1. 1. Sleep in True Darkness
      Is your bedroom completely dark or just kind of dark? Bedrooms are often filled with cell phones, nightlights, televisions, and computers.

The little bits of light they emit can keep your brain from reaching the deepest, brain-boosting levels of sleep. Unplug these devices before bed or put them in another room. You could also hang blackout shades and curtains. 

2. 2. Chill Out for Better Sleep²
      Most people find it easier to fall asleep in a cool room, and it has to do with your sleep cycle. The first phase of the sleep cycle, light sleep, lasts about 20-30 minutes.

During this time your brain lowers your core body temperature to transition from light sleep to deep sleep. Slightly reducing the temperature of your bedroom can help you reach deeper, brain-boosting sleep. 

3. Get Out Early
   Prepare for a good night’s sleep by getting natural light first thing in the morning. Spending 10-15 minutes outside walking your dog, checking the mail, or taking a stroll around the block will set your brain clock.

Food

You Are What You Eat (And So Is Your Brain)

Your gut is a lot like a second brain. It contains 500-million brain cells that communicate with your brain. This communication is called your gut-brain axis. What happens in the gut can impact mood, memory, and how we age.

What we eat can calm or increase inflammation, help us lose or make us gain weight, and even improve our brain function.

Research points to a Mediterranean-type diet as being optimal for brain health. This diet is filled with fruits and vegetables, bursting with beans, nuts, and whole grains, and features fish, seafood, and healthy fats such as olive oil. The Mediterranean diet lowers the risk of Alzheimer’s disease even in those with a genetic risk factor for the disease.

Stress

The Stress Surprise

We hear it all the time: Stress is bad. But some stress is good for you because it focuses the brain and can even slow down brain aging. How do we find the right amount of stress to keep our brains and immune systems running like finely tuned Ferraris?

A study found that stress and unhappiness can be caused by our minds wandering. When our minds wander, they often go to unhappy, stressful, and anxious thoughts about the past or future. An antidote to this is being present, which is associated with greater happiness and less stress.

One way to be present is to practice mindfulness. A Harvard study asked people who’d never practiced mindfulness to do so for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks. Pictures of participants’ brains were taken before they started, during the eight weeks, and after.⁴

Throughout the study, the participants’ brains changed. The hippocampus grew-that’s the part of your brain that allows you to learn new things. The prefrontal cortex got stronger and longer-that’s the part that calms your stress response. And the amygdala shrank-that’s the part that manages our fight-or-flight stress response.

We can’t control much of what surrounds us, but we can gradually become experts at managing stress.

ACTION STEPS

1. Breathing Exercise
   There are many mindfulness exercises, and they often involve breathing. Here’s one that’s simple and effective.
2. Say to yourself or out loud, “breathe in calmness” and inhale through your nose
3. Say “breathe out anxiety” and exhale through your mouth
4. Try to focus on the breath going in your nose and out of your mouth
5. If you’re having trouble focusing, place your hand on your stomach and pay attention to your breathing for five seconds. Feel the rise and fall of your abdomen with each breath.

If 30 seconds feels like a long time, that’s okay; it may take practice. If you can do 30 seconds, try to                           add another 30 seconds tomorrow. Think of it like lifting weights and increasing your reps.

2. 2. Change Your Perspective

Stress can be quite useful-and you can train yourself to view stress in that light. Even a bit of stress from                  sitting in traffic or standing in line at the grocery store can be beneficial.⁵ These bursts of acute stress can                  be healthy for the brain. So next time you’re in the “10 items or less” lane at the grocery store, and the                        person in front of you has 30 items, thank them, and shift your perspective on stress as something that                     can be beneficial.

3. Rose, Thorn, Bud
   Take a moment and think of the best thing that happened in the last 24 hours. That’s your rose. Next, think of the most challenging part of the previous 24 hours. That’s your thorn. Now think of something specific you are looking forward to in the next 24 hours. That’s your bud. This technique was shown in a 2019 study to be an effective means to manage stress and boost happiness.

Exercise

Get Moving

Exercise is like a miracle drug for the brain. If a drug generated the same brain benefits that exercise does, there would be lines stretching miles long to obtain it.

Lowers Risk of Dementia

A study at Cardiff University in the UK found that simply walking 30 minutes a day lowered the risk of dementia by about 65 percent.⁷ Those 30 minutes didn’t even have to be done consecutively.

Similarly, another study asked 50-year-old women to use an exercise bike, then placed them in four categories based on endurance. The categories ranged from “high physical fitness” to “could not finish the fitness test.” Forty years later the researchers found:

1. 5 percent of the women in the high physical fitness category developed dementia
2. 25 percent of the women in the moderate and low fitness categories developed dementia
3. 45 percent of the women who couldn’t finish the fitness test developed dementia

Women who were classified as highly physically fit at 50 years old were 90 percent less likely to develop dementia than the group that couldn’t finish the test.

Improves Memory

A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease investigated two groups of adults age 60 and older. For a year, the group did aerobic exercises while the other group just stretched. Afterward, the aerobic exercise group showed a whopping 47 percent average increase in memory scores while the stretching group saw no memory improvement.

Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference

How much exercise is required to protect your brain? Do you need to drop everything and train for a triathlon? Fortunately, no. It turns out even small changes can have a big impact. The next time you’re given a choice between stairs and an elevator or escalator, consider this: A study found that people ages 19-79 who consistently took the stairs had a younger-looking brain.⁸

DIET:

ACTION STEPS

1. 1. Cue: Setup Visual Reminders
      Exercise becomes a habit when we make it a default behavior. We can set up a cue that drives us to take action to stick to an exercise program.

Placing your walking shoes where you can’t miss them will remind you to take your daily walk. A smartwatch that reminds you of your steps can be another visual cue. 

2. 2. Start Small
      When it comes to exercise, it’s best to start small and build.

For example:

• Walk in place during TV commercials or before the next episode of a program you’re streaming
• Stand/walk during phone calls
• Park farther away from the grocery store
• Do 10 jumping jacks every hour (you can set your smartphone to remind you to do this)

3. 3. Reward: Do Something You Enjoy
      Exercise must be fun and rewarding, or you likely won’t make it a habit. Pairing exercise with something you enjoy can be very helpful, such as exploring a new hiking trail or learning a new sport.

Variety is the spice of life-especially when it comes to fitness. The body can acclimate to the same activity, and results will diminish. The same is true of the brain. Keep your workouts fun and fresh.

Friendship

Friendships Can Help Protect Your Brain

Can going to a dinner party preserve your memory? People over fifty-five who regularly participated in, or hosted, dinner parties or other social events had a lower risk of losing their memories.¹³ It wasn’t because of what they ate or where they went; it was the effect of the repeated social connection with other people.

How important is social interaction to our mental and physical health? We’re used to hearing about the dangers of smoking and obesity, but loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, making it worse for us than obesity.¹⁴

Additionally, loneliness is associated with poorer decision-making, attention, cognitive ability, and brain shrinking and aging.¹⁵

It’s normal to feel lonely from time to time, but there’s a greater risk of loneliness as we age, as family and friends pass and children move away. That persistent loneliness makes us feel socially isolated.

 

ACTION STEPS

Spend Time With Family and Friends (Especially Friends)

A study investigated whether people find more joy in being with their friends or family. (In this study, family was defined as people who share a home.) They found people were happier when they spent time with their friends instead of family.¹⁶

One reason people didn’t feel the same happiness and joy with family members that they did with their friends involved how they spent time together. Activities with family members were more likely to involve chores: doing laundry, washing dishes, taking out the trash, doing housework, and paying bills.We tend to reserve fun activities for our friends. We need to try to ensure that family time isn’t just about chores and to-do lists.

Get a Hearing Check

People with mild untreated hearing loss are twice as likely to develop dementia than those without hearing loss. Those with severe loss are five times as likely to develop dementia.¹⁷

There are a few reasons for this connection between hearing and memory loss. First, hearing loss can lead to social isolation and a lack of engagement and learning.There’s also a theory that hearing loss causes changes in brain activity that can promote abnormal proteins that are the hallmark of brain trash. Using a hearing aid doesn’t just improve hearing, it protects the brain, too. If you know someone who needs a hearing aid but is resisting getting one, you can tell them they aren’t just improving their hearing; they’re also protecting their brain.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Marc Milstein, PhD

Dr. Marc Milstein is a leading scientific researcher on neuroscience, health, and happiness. His insights provide science-based solutions to keep the brain healthy, lower the risk of dementia, boost productivity and maximize longevity. He earned both his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry and his Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from UCLA.

Dr. Milstein’s new book “The Age-Proof Brain” has been a #1 best seller on Amazon in several categories, including, Aging, Longevity, and Neuroscience.