How Your Brain Changes as You Age 🧠

I want to ask you a question because as you know I had my 56th birthday this year so I'm getting old and um my wife is worried that my mind is going and my memory and my focus and she might be right um but help us understand yeah what goes on as we get older with our memory and does your book address some of those particular issues because that's kind of where I'm headed and I wanna I want to make sure that people know some of cool stuff that I learned in your book absolutely so

as we age our bodies and our brains are obviously part of our bodies they they undergo changes right that can affect your memory and your cognitive function so where where it shows up in areas because I don't want people to feel um now we we donated all the proceeds to limit list it to to nonprofits oh right right I forgot to tell people that yeah no no yeah we built schools fully funded Ghana Guatemala and Kenya and also Alzheimer's research specifically for women and M of my grandmother women are twice as likely experienced alzheimer's than

men yet a lot of the research is done on male brains a lot of treatments on male brains so it's something we're very passionate about um but as we age so there's a few markers so first uh no particular order a little bit slower processing speed right aging just like our body slows down a little bit we can't maybe run as quickly or or move as fast uh Aging in slow cognitive processes making it a little bit more challenging to learn new information quickly to screen out uh the distractions that can interfere with memory and

learning also uh potentially there's there might be a reduced working memory capacity right working memory is your ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind over short periods so this capacity can decline potentially as as we grow older um long-term memory challenges maybe um especially like um so there's something called procedure procedural memory which is how you do something and then there's something like implicit memory which is your unconscious memory such as your habits they tend to remain stable but episodic memory you think about episodes this is like recalling specific events so that potentially

can be compromised a little bit and decline you know as as we grow older and then also changes in uh like memory consolidation aging can affect the consolidation of new memories making it a little bit more challenging and so how do you how do you support that there there are many things you could do uh mental stimulation first of all engaging in yeah engaging in mentally stimulating activities such as um you know learning a new skill learning new language solving puzzles playing in a musical instrument uh could be good uh my favorite is always reading

uh I think reading is your mind what exercises your body and research is saying it actually could help you live longer by keeping your mind stimulated the two big cognitive dips we see uh on the you know for age and Stage is when people graduate school because often people associate learning to their education formal education they stop they feel like they they're done learning and also when people retire yes when people retire they often retire their minds and unfortunately their their bodies are not far behind and so there's a study done with nuns that were

living 890 and above and they wanted to find out what was their key to longevity and half of it was their their faith and gratitude more emotional Co but the other half they were lifelong Learners they they were reading having deep conversations and debates every day and because of it at years to life and then life to their years it was on the cover of Time Magazine I remember the study was called Aging with Grace which I think is a beautiful name of the study wow another thing we could do is physical exercise I mean

there's so much research showing that physical exercise could help uh boost your your brain power regular physical activity especially cardiovascular exercise increases blood flow which increases oxygen to your brain um when you exercise resistance training you create something you create uh dopamine serotonin endorphins like these neurotransmitters that are important for cognitive health and performance you also when you exercise I say when your body moves your brain grooves I like that yeah when you exercise uh you create something called bdnf brain derived neurotropic factors which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity uh some of the activities that

are walking uh swimming uh cycling uh racket sports are incredible like table tennis or pickle ball um and uh and uh I know I know I know your wife is is very very active is very active in tennis and pickle ball and and dance uh ballroom dancing land dance is is so wonderful for the brain and so that's physical activity um and then a couple just really quick things for to to mitigate the the brain aging challenges nutrition we we covered you know about hydration isn't hydration a big one yeah so uh on our podcast

we we we talked about this recently uh our show is only 20 minutes long no no sponsors or anything and people could listen to it it's just kind of binge listen into it awesome just just being uh just being 2% dehydrated could affect your cognitive Health performance and staying hydrated could boost your reaction time and thinking speed upwards of 30% really so just staying hydrated yeah you'll notice I'm drinking throughout this conversation um especially first thing in the morning because you could lose up to a pound of water through respiration and perspiration while you sleep

and so staying hydrated your brain we know is 75 around there 75% water and so so stay hydrated and then last thing I'll mention is um a couple social engagements a lot of times without that social interaction it it definitely can help uh reduce depression stress uh which can contribute to memory loss right being socially active who you spend time with as who you become um it could help reduce the negative effects of loneliness and so much more and in the same kind of category managing our stress chronic stress has been shown to shrink the

human brain when you're in fighter flight you're creting cortisol adrenaline uh if you do it you're that fight a flight too much it also holds you hostage in your survival brain and it keeps you away from your executive function your creativity your ability to solve problems uh chronic stress could damage your hippocampus which is again the part of your memory involved in in memory formation and retrieval so I don't know what you do for Stress Management but meditation deep breathing exercises uh for me nature you know what a wonderful way of of doing that and

then and then I mean again this would this list would be incomplete if we didn't talk about you know sleep sleep is crucial as you know for memory consolidation short to longterm memory uh when you sleep some research suggests your the sewage system in your brain kicks in you clean up that beta amid plaque that lead to brain aging challenges it's also where you dream um you there's so many your your brain doesn't shut off at at when you sleep if anyway so sometimes it's a little bit more active in some areas and people don't

realize this U Mary Shelly came up with the idea of Frankenstein in her in her Dreams yeah I know isn't that crazy yeah Paul McCartney came up with this song Yesterday in his dream a chemist created the framework of the periodic table in his dream Elias how created the sewing machine in his dream so like uh so that's why you know that the that slow wave that the REM sleep so very important um we you know if people in the book we teach people how to remember their dreams because a lot of times people forget

their dreams you know and so that all that is kind of lost but yeah and then just memory training in general we we have a memory program that's uh I've done it you know it's awesome yeah 30-day program on teaching you literally science-based tools and ancient uh wisdom to to remember names client information product information where you put the keys you know remember give speeches without notes learn another Lang anguage and so much more but just remember this there's no such thing as a good or bad memory there's a trained memory and there's an untrained

memory I like that and you know we're all about getting people memory mentally fit