Yes Boomer, You Can Still Change Your Brain!

Over the past twenty years I have everything I could about brain aging and brain health.  I am a leading-edge boomer, and I believed that all my friends, family, and acquaintances would be as excited as I was to learn that we could change our brains.  Alzheimer’s didn’t need to be the death sentence we all feared.

I was in my fifties then and was absorbing all the knowledge I could about brain health because it was an unknown entity at that time.  My friends took it as inevitable that they were doomed to growing old with dementia.  Remember – we were in our fifties and didn’t really believe that we would grow old – at least in that way.  Introducing a new concept way before there is a lot of information about it proved to be very difficult.  The years went by without much acceptance of the power of the brain to change. 

However, I just kept learning and the field of knowledge on brain health saw a huge expansion.  Research that had been ongoing while I was in my fifties was now mainstream information and people were starting to pay attention. What I found was that the information on brain aging and brain health were being directed toward those in their forties and fifties.  Those years are critical to maintaining a healthy brain and it is a reasonable age to target.  But in this rush to get the message out to those in their forties and fifties, everyone over sixty was being left behind in learning how to take care of their brains.  To those over seventy the message was all about the care needed for boomers and how was that care going to be paid for. 

The whole approach to brain health was completely left behind when it came to boomers.  There was the attitude that there was nothing that could be done to help boomers learn how to take care of their brains.  Or that it was too late to change their brains.  Nothing can be farther from the truth.

We all experience aging losses in our brain as we age.  But our brain does not know how old we are; it does not function on chronological time.  Our brain ages by the lifestyle that we lead. Boomers cannot be written off in their sixties or seventies just because they have reached a chronological marker.

So, Boomers take note — you can still change your brain!  You can recover brain aging losses and build brain resilience.  You can prevent Alzheimer’s disease with concerted effort and determination.  It does take more effort to create those changes, but it is certainly worth the effort to prevent or delay Alzheimer’s disease.

All our brains are capable of neurogenesis (create new brain cells) and to change our brain through neuroplasticity (creation of new neural fibers). Together neurogenesis and neuroplasticity can increase brain mass volume and replace the losses sustained from aging.

It is necessary to commit to a brain healthy lifestyle. 

·      Physical Exercise: Stimulates the heart to beat faster and send 20% of blood, oxygen, and carbs from every heartbeat to the brain. The brain needs this influx of blood, oxygen and carbs to function as its energy source.

·      The blood, oxygen and carbs sent to the brain initiate the release of BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor) a brain chemical that stimulates the budding of neural stem cells!  You have created new brain cells (neurogenesis) by exercising.

·      Mental Stimulation:  The brain is constantly learning and adapting to our environment – good or bad.  (neuroplasticity) When we stimulate the brain, we are growing new neurons and neural pathways.  It is through this process that we can create an ageless brain.

Keep in mind as you read this that chronological age has nothing to do with creating an ageless brain!

·      Nutrition:  The brain has very specific needs when it comes to nutrition. The MIND Diet provides those nutrients through natural sources.  Supplements will not give the brain what it needs to thrive.

·      Socialization: We are hardwired to connect.  It is important that we are with other people. We build cognitive reserve when we socialize, and this benefit reduces your risk for dementia.

·      Sleep:  Our brain does not rest when we are sleeping.  On the contrary it is very busy.  Our brain takes in massive amounts of information while you are awake. It is up to the brain to determine what is important, what you learned, and what should be kept in memory.  The hippocampus, center of learning and memory, is responsible for sorting through this information while we sleep. Memory can be encoded or consolidated in our brain while we sleep.

·      We have a system in our brain that clears waste and toxins while we sleep. Cerebral spinal fluid moves through the brain along a series of channels that surround blood vessels.  This system is managed by glial cells (another brain cell) creating the glymphatic system.  The glymphatic system clears out and recycles all the brain’s toxins.

This brain healthy lifestyle does not make any mention of chronological age.  This lifestyle will make a profound impact on your brain no matter what your age is.  Now as we get older, we do sustain more brain aging losses.  It is estimated that we lose 5% of brain mass volume every decade after age 40.  That means that if we don’t do anything to take care of our brains, we can lose 20% of brain volume by the time we are 80.  Remember – lifestyle determines how fast our brain ages – not our chronological age.

My message to Boomers is this – Yes, You Can Still Change Your Brain!  You are not doomed to dementia because you are over 60 years old. Instead of giving up as those aging changes start to hit – double down on your lifestyle and recover those aging losses. 

For more information contact me at patricia@myboomerbrain.com

The Boomer Brain:  available at https://Amazon.com/dp/1962133613

#brainaging #brainhealth #boomers #healthylifestyle #chronologicalage

#physicalexercise #mentalstimulation #nutrition #socialization #sleep