Keeping Your Brain Young

While there are numerous ways that have been proposed to slow or stop the decline of mental functioning associated with aging, there’s four key measures that have the greatest impact according to the vast majority of anti-aging research. So, as an aging person myself, let me discuss them before I forget what they are.

Sleep is top of the list and it’s the simplest one to manage well in most cases, yet it also one of the more common areas of neglect when it comes to health. The basic recommendation is to try to get at least 7 hours of actual sleep per night. I say “actual” because there’s a big difference between “going to bed” and sleep. If you get into bed at 11:00 PM and get up at 7:00 AM, that’s potentially up to about 8 hours of sleep (if you fall asleep quickly). But if you lie in bed reading, surfing the internet, playing games on your phone, etc., the time for sleep can easily get cut down to well below 7 hours on an ongoing basis.

Technology really is not our friend in this area. When I was a kid, there were no cell phones, no internet until I reached my teens (and initially it was painfully slow dial-up), and for the most part, television broadcasting ended at midnight. There weren’t nearly as many interesting distractions available, so we were more likely to go to sleep while the hour was still in the PM range.

Sleep deprivation appears to work somewhat like getting drunk – you may not realize that it’s happening due to the dimming of mental function that it causes. A recent study of people who were sleep deprived by a couple of hours per night for several nights showed that they had clearly imparired mental function, even though they self-rated their function as normal. So, if you think you’re just fine getting 5 hours of sleep per night, you might not be doing quite as well as you think you are and the negative effects of sleep deprivation worsen with age and accelerate loss of overall cognitive function.

Next on the list is keeping your blood lipids at a healthy level. Elevated LDL cholesterol and apoB levels (if you’re unfamiliar with apoB, you can learn about it at: https://besthealthandwellness.beehiiv.com/p/apo-b) are well-established risk factors for cognitive decline, and this is likely due to the effects of atherosclerotic plaquing in the blood vessels of the brain. Most people can maintain healthy blood lipids by eating a reasonably healthy diet, which is also a major factor in the next measure for slowing cognitive decline.

Maintaining normal insulin sensitivity and avoiding Type II diabetes is another important measure in preventing cognitive decline. The big idea here is to minimize the intake of refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar. This will also help keep blood lipids in check. I’m not going to go into diet in-depth in this article, but simply keeping refined carbs and other highly processed foods to a minimum will go a long way all by itself.

Last, but not least, is exercise. Exercise has been shown to be an independent factor in slowing cognitive decline (likely due to improved circulation to the brain), but can be helpful in achieving the other three recommendations as well. It’s associated with better quality sleep, healthier blood lipid balance, and improved insulin sensitivity.

There’s some debate over what type of exercise is best, but my starting recommendation is always to do whatever form of exercise you enjoy (or at least don’t hate) so that you will do it consistently long-term. Beyond that, the research suggests that a mixture of different exercise types is probably healthiest in the long term, particularly doing about equal amounts of resistance training, low intensity cardio, and high intensity interval training for a total of at least 3 hours per week (although pretty much any amount is at least somewhat beneficial). More is generally better, provided you allow adequate recovery time for your level of conditioning.

There are of course various supplements and other anti-aging approaches that may be worthwhile to incorporate as well, but the “big 4” just discussed are probably going to give you the most “bang for your buck” in terms of benefits for the time and effort you put into them.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.