Your brain is a powerful organ—it processes and stores information, it sends signals to carry out bodily functions like heartbeat and digestion, it recognizes pain or other sensations, and it regulates your emotions.
When most people are young, their brains work fairly well. They have no problem absorbing and retaining new information, for example. But like other organs of our body, such as our skin, our bones, or maybe even our heart, our brains start to lose a little bit of function as we age.
Is the loss of brain function inevitable? Far from it! In fact, many healthy practices we observe for good overall health, such as exercise, good nutrition, and sufficient sleep, offer specific benefits for our brain, keeping us at our cognitive best as we progress in years.
But to understand how to maintain a healthy brain, it’s important to start with understanding what happens to our brains as we get older and what increases our risk factors of declining brain health.
What does it mean for our brains to age?
Our brains literally shrink. Talking about losing our mind isn’t just a metaphorical thing: Our brains lose volume as we get older, so we have less brain when we’re older than we do when we’re younger. This happens around middle age, and most of the volume loss occurs in two key areas, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our decision making, and the hippocampus, which is what we use for memory.
We suffer from loss of signal. The other part about an aging brain is a weakened ability to exchange neurotransmitters between the working units of our brain called neurons. When neurons don’t transmit information as readily, it affects our mental and emotional performance. If our neurons don’t send sufficient amounts of the feel-good chemical dopamine, it can dampen your mood and leave you feeling unmotivated. If they don’t send acetylcholine, it can hinder the speed of your reflexes, your ability to focus, or whether you’re able to retain new information.
Ultimately, there’s less function. With less volume and weakened neurotransmitters, your brain just doesn’t work the way it used to—and that shows itself in so many of our regular activities. For some people, it might show up in the form of memory loss, an inability to multitask, or slow thinking. This varies widely from person to person, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease can speed up the loss of neurons or diminishing of brain mass.
Is declining brain health inevitable?
It’s completely normal for our organs to weaken a little bit as we get older. Think about how our skin loses some elasticity and wrinkles, or how our hair thins, or how our bones might be more susceptible to fractures. But the severity of our aging comes down to our lifestyle, and certain risk factors can make the aging process worse—that applies to brain health, too. Some major risk factors affecting brain health include:
- Chronic health conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol, which can reduce blood flow to the brain.
- Excessive alcohol use and high stress levels, of which both speed up loss of brain volume.
- Lack of exercise, which can reduce blood flow and oxygen to the brain.
- Poor sleep, which deprives your brain of an ability to clear waste and consolidate memories
How can we keep our brains healthy?
The best approach to maintaining a healthy brain is maintaining a healthy overall body. Practices like exercise, stress management, good nutrition, sleep, and socializing can keep your mind sharp well into old age. Here’s how:
Exercise. A healthy organ is one that’s consistently getting oxygen from blood flow, and exercise keeps our cardiovascular and circulatory systems at their best. But there may be more to it than that. Dr. Ryan Sultan, a double board‑certified psychiatrist and the founder and medical director of Integrative Psych in Chelsea, New York, and Miami, Florida, sees exercise as a way of feeding your brain, in a way. “I think people underestimate the importance of exercise in brain health,” he says. “Regular exercise boosts anti-inflammatory cytokines and brain-derived neurotrophic factor—the ‘fertilizer’ for your brain that supports growth in key regions of the brain related to memory such as the hippocampus. It also protects existing brain cells as the brain ages.”
Stress Management. Chronic stress raises our blood pressure, which, like being sedentary, limits blood flow to the brain. Practices like meditation or therapy are good for our mental health not just in the shorter term by helping us achieve clarity and regulate our emotions, but also by reducing our stress levels and ensuring our brains remain strong, functioning organs. At the very least, take time every day for some deep breathing exercises.
Nutrition. A nutritious diet gives our brain the energy it needs to function and repair itself from regular wear and tear. Michael Chmura, spokesman for Boston-based Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, recommends the MIND Diet (Mediterranean-DASH Interventions for Neurodegenerative Delay), a popular brain-focused way of eating that combines the Mediterranean Diet with the DASH Diet, short for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The focus on leafy greens, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, and olive oil, with limitations on red meat, butter, cheese, sweets, and fried foods, supports blood flow to the brain and reduces the oxidative stress that can play a factor in brain aging.
Sleep. Sleep is when your glymphatic system does its work, clearing out metabolic waste and excess interstitial fluid that builds up in your brain, as well as beta-amyloid, the protein linked to Alzheimer’s. Focus on quality of sleep as well as quantity by maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, which will create sleep pressure, the natural recognition by our body that it’s time to sleep and sleep deeply.
Socialize. Finally, don’t forget that socializing is good for our brain. Get out and interact with people who are engaging, intellectually challenging, and emotionally supportive. “Lacking social connection is as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes every day,” Chmura says. “Building strong social connections and managing stress through evidence-based relaxation strategies can foster mental wellness.”
