10 Simple Healthy Brain Aging Tips

The Bottom Line

Healthy brain aging tips come down to three things, increasing brain reserves, decreasing inflammation, and decreasing oxidative damage.

Summary

One of our most susceptible organs to aging just so happens to be one of the most important, our brain. Even if we are fortunate enough to dodge the bullet of Alzheimer’s and dementia, as we age, our memory starts to fade, and we can’t quite think as well as we used to. However, there is good news. Recent research shows that lifestyle changes can not only keep your brain young and healthy but in some cases can even reverse the signs of brain aging.

So, what type of lifestyle changes should you make to support healthy brain aging? It all comes down to three things, increasing brain reserves, decreasing inflammation, and decreasing oxidative damage. If you can do these three things, you can lower your risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s while slowing brain aging.

Increase cognitive and brain reserves

The theory goes that cognitive impairments happen once you deplete your pool of brain and cognitive reserves. The bigger the pool, the less likely you are to drain your resources and experience cognitive impairment. Most noteworthy, research found a correlation between larger brain size and a decrease incidence of dementia (Katzman et al. 1988).

So how do you increase brain volume along with cognitive and brain reserves? Exercise. Exercise can increase total brain volume while improving memory performance. Now follow that exercise with some brain teasers. One study found that while exercise increases the proliferation of neurons, cognitive stimulation (like brain teasers) helps those cells survive (Kempermann and Gage 1999).

Decrease inflammation

Inflammation impairs neurogenesis and neuronal stem cell survival, two crucial pathways for keeping your brain young and flexible. Additionally, inflammation also speeds up cognitive decline and the development of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease. Higher levels of neuroinflammation are also associated with brain atrophy and a decrease in brain volume, shrinking your brain and cognitive reserves. 

So what causes neuroinflammation? Aging, poor diet, and excess body fat are just a few of the culprits. While we cannot do much about aging, we can manage our diet and body fat to minimize inflammation. 

When it comes to diet, there are two ways to reduce inflammation; stop eating pro-inflammatory foods that increase inflammation and eat more anti-inflammatory foods that help to reduce inflammation.  

Pro-inflammatory foods include additives and preservatives found in processed food, damaged and processed fats such as trans-fat, and refined sugar. 

Anti-inflammatory foods include fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids. Another perk of eating anti-inflammatory foods is that they can actively help your body fight inflammation. For example, getting enough omega-3 fatty acids can help reduce the production of pro-inflammatory molecules while protecting against neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive loss.

Swapping pro-inflammatory foods in your diet for anti-inflammatory foods will not only reduce inflammation, but it can also help you lose weight. Weight loss means less body fat. Fat tissue produces pro-inflammatory molecules that cross the blood-brain barrier to trigger inflammation and brain aging (Purkayastha and Cai 2013). Therefore, switching up your diet to an anti-inflammatory diet can give you double the brain boost. Don’t know where to get started with an anti-inflammatory diet? Try by 30 Day Body, Mind, Goal program designed to heal your gut, optimize your mitochondria, and reduce inflammation. It comes complete with an anti-inflammatory meal plan and recipes to get you started.

Decrease oxidative damage

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a by-product of life and metabolism. Excessive production of ROS leads to oxidative damage. ROS can cause oxidative damage to cells, proteins, and even your DNA, accelerating the aging process. Furthermore, oxidative damage accumulates with age and is harmful to mitochondria function. Mitochondria are important signaling organelles and your body’s energy producers. Damaged mitochondria produce less energy and create more ROS than healthy mitochondria, which can lead to cell damage and death. 

Furthermore, in neuronal cells in the brain, damaged mitochondria, and cell death can cause cognitive impairment (Freitas et al. 2017). So what can you do to fight free radicals and the oxidative damage they cause? Eat more antioxidants and polyphenols. Antioxidants and polyphenols such as vitamin C and vitamin E can combat cognitive loss and oxidative damage by neutralizing ROS (Head et al. 2008). Fruits and vegetables are good sources.

How To Implement

To build a healthy mind long into old age, work to increase cognitive and brain reserves, decrease inflammation, and decrease oxidative damage. Every single one of these healthy brain aging tips hits at least one of these three.

10 Healthy Brain Aging Tips

1. Keep your brain insulin sensitive

Insulin is the hormone your body uses to maintain blood sugar levels. When you eat something that contains carbohydrates, your pancreas releases insulin. This insulin than signals to your cells to take up sugar in the bloodstream and metabolize it. Insulin sensitivity is a measure of how well this process occurs. Insulin sensitivity is essential for healthy aging. The better your insulin sensitivity, the healthier you will be. 

Insulin sensitivity plays a role in energy metabolism, inflammatory response, oxidative stress, clearance of amyloid-beta plaques, and memory formation. Insulin resistance can even cause type 2 diabetes, along with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. 

To keep your insulin sensitivity at peak levels, avoid eating saturated fat combined with simple sugar. This combination (although delicious) can lead to cell death in pancreatic beta cells (El-Assaad et al. 2010). Beta-cell death causes a decrease in insulin sensitivity, the progression of type 2 diabetes, mitochondrial dysfunction, and production of ROS, increasing both inflammation and oxidative stress. This combination is precisely what you don’t want for healthy brain aging. In addition to changes in diet, exercise can increase insulin sensitivity while decreasing oxidative stress and inflammation.

2. Increase BDNF

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) increases neurogenesis while improving cognition. Both aerobic and strength training can increase BDNF, but the intensity of the exercise is essential. The greater the exercise intensity, the higher the boost in BDNF. High intensity interval training (HIIT) is perfect for boosting BDNF levels. Try one of these workouts to take your brain and fitness to the next level. 

In addition to exercise, stimulating environments can increase BDNF. Try traveling, attending the theater, and art events to keep your brain stimulated and your BDNF levels high (Van Praag et al. 2000).

3. Manage your stress

Chronic stress can decrease neuronal plasticity while increasing neuronal cell death. A one-two hit to healthy brain aging. The good news? Exercise can help. One study found that exercise can decrease cortisol levels while preventing neuronal cell death (Makizako et al. 2015). In addition to exercise, positive coping, resilience, and reducing negative thoughts can all improve stress response.

Did you know that negative thoughts have the same physiological impact on your body as an actual stressful event? It’s true. Research shows that negative thinking releases cortisol and increases inflammation just like a stressful event. But there is good news. You can learn to reduce negative thoughts by practicing mindfulness, focusing on a positive future, accepting the past, and focusing on solutions.

4. Exercise

Not only can exercise increase life expectancy, but it can also slow, delay, or prevent age-related chronic diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, more than any other lifestyle change studied, exercise is the one most strongly shown to reverse brain aging (Guure et al. 2017). It improves vascular health, increases blood flow to the brain, makes positive neuromolecular changes, and increases insulin sensitivity while decreasing inflammation and oxidative stress.

As little as three 45 minute exercise sessions per week are enough to increase brain volume, shown to boost memory performance (Erickson et al. 2011). Ready to get started? Try my 30-Day Fitness Challenge to give your brain and body a boost.

5. Use your brain

Activities that engage the brain, such as reading, discussion groups, card, and board games, solving puzzles, playing a musical instrument, and learning a second language increase cognitive reserves, protecting against age-related cognitive decline (Crowe et al. 2003).

6. Meditate

Mindfulness meditation can cause positive structural changes in the brain, along with beneficial neuroplastic changes (Tang et al. 2015). Furthermore, meditation can improve your stress response by decreasing cortisol levels.

7. Eat your polyphenols

Polyphenols are compounds found in plants that have antioxidant properties. One study found that people who ate more polyphenol-rich brain healthy foods had better cognitive abilities and a lower risk of cognitive decline (Devore et al. 2012). This better cognition is likely due to the polyphenols’ ability to decrease oxidative stress while promoting the brain’s ability to change and adapt new information. 

While all polyphenols provide benefits, two unique polyphenols are catechins found in tea and resveratrol found in grapes, red wine, peanuts, blueberries, and dark chocolate. 

Catechins, in addition to decreasing oxidative stress also have anti-inflammatory properties and help reduce amyloid-beta plaques (Ono et al. 2003). Most noteworthy, catechins can improve working memory and learning ability (Haque et al. 2006). 

Resveratrol can increase cell survival, reduce amyloid-beta accumulation, and decrease ROS (Jang and Surh 2003). One study found that 200mg resveratrol daily can also improve memory (Witte et al. 2014).

8. Curcumin

Curcumin is a top food for brain power. It takes a three-step approach to keep your brain young and healthy. It fights inflammation and oxidative damage while preventing amyloid-beta plaque build-up (Kunnumakkara et al. 2017). Furthermore, one study found that 400mg curcumin daily can improve attention and working memory along with improving mood and contentedness (Cox et al. 2015).

9. Omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring, anchovies, and sardines, include ALA, EPA, and DHA. DHA supports mitochondria function, promotes healthy brain glucose utilization, and reduces oxidative stress (Wu et al. 2004). One study even found that those with the highest DHA levels had a 47% lower risk of dementia (Schaefer et al. 2006). It is essential to get DHA from the diet or supplements as the body is inefficient at making it. Need some recipe inspiration? Check out these 8 Easy Salmon Recipes rich in omega-3s.

10. Intermittent fasting

Simply reducing caloric intake by 30% for three months was shown to improve verbal memory in elderly adults by 20% (Witte et al. 2009). Furthermore, intermittent fasting may be the best way to reduce calories, and it comes with added benefits.

Intermittent fasting is not eating for a set amount of time each day. For example, a classic intermittent fast would be not eating for 16 hours and eating for 8 hours a day. In addition to all the benefits of reducing caloric intake, intermittent fasting also has neuroprotective effects along with increasing BDNF and reducing inflammation (Rothman and Mattson 2013).

You don’t have to try every healthy brain aging tip. Selecting one or two and sticking with it is also you need to keep your brain young and healthy.

Want more healthy brain aging tips? Download our Free ebook containing our complete science backed guide to cognitive enhancement.