Keep your brain from declining after age 30

0:01 What you do with your body affects your brain.

0:04 And what you think with your brain also

0:06 has an effect on the physiology of your body.

0:09 It works both ways.

0:19 People have known that experience can change the brain ever since

0:22 it became known that the brain was the seat of consciousness,

0:25 thought and experience.

0:26 The brain must undergo change to grow and to be plastic.

0:30 Memory tends to decrease with age because our brains,

0:33 like the rest of our body tends to age and function

0:37 does not continue the way it does when we're young.

0:40 One of the things that you can do to keep your brain happy

0:43 and functioning well as you get older is to have a mentally engaged lifestyle.

0:47 Every single time you move your body you are giving your brain

0:52 what I like to call a wonderful bubble bath of neurochemicals.

0:56 Those neurochemicals include dopamine serotonin noradrenaline endorphins.

1:04 Here's the good news:

1:05 You don't have to be a marathon runner to get this, because even ten minutes

1:10 of walking will start to give you

1:13 immediate benefits in terms of decreasing anxiety levels,

1:17 decreasing depression levels.

1:18 The longevity that comes with exercise, that's what everybody needs right now.

1:32 So there’s different kinds of cognitive and memory loss that occur with aging.

1:35 Certain kinds of memory loss, such as forgetting where your car keys are

1:38 are part of the normal process of getting older.

1:41 And in fact, memory peaks surprisingly early at the age

1:43 of 30 and then declines gradually with time.

1:46 If you forget where your glasses are, that's normal memory loss.

1:49 If you forget the fact that you wear glasses, that's dementia.

1:52 It's not well understood exactly what physically underlies this.

1:56 Although plausible candidates are loss of the brain's ability to form new

2:00 connections or to easily modulate the weight

2:03 of the connections between nerve cells, those are called synaptic weights.

2:06 And so those would be candidates for why the brain seems

2:08 to be less plastic in certain ways as we get older.

2:11 You can look in the brains of people who,

2:13 after death, are diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease,

2:15 and they have plaques and tangles that appear to be

2:18 either the causes of cell death or perhaps the residue,

2:21 the aftermath of cell death.

2:23 One of the best things you can do to keep your brain

2:25 alive and healthy is simply improving blood flow to the brain.

2:29 Another major mechanism that's been suggested is the secretion

2:32 of a signaling molecule called brain derived neurotrophic factor.

2:36 It's a factor that's made in the brain that causes neurons to grow.

2:41 And that factor has been demonstrated to improve plasticity in dendrites.

2:44 The idea that exercise, by triggering the secretion of BDNF,

2:49 this neurotrophic factor,

2:50 may lead to increased plasticity and improved brain function.

2:54 When challenged, we can do more.

2:56 And everyone knows this.

2:57 And in the absence of challenges we don't necessarily reach our full potential.

3:01 And the current goal is to try to find ways

3:04 to stave off those cognitive losses by even a few years,

3:07 because as we live longer, having a few years becomes very important.

3:17 The biggest problems are not so much with long-term memories,

3:20 but really the short-term memories.

3:22 So we can remember our first kiss when we were in high

3:26 school but we may not remember what we had for lunch.

3:29 And because we have shrinking of the brain brain cells

3:33 actually start to function less efficiently and do die over time.

3:38 The connections between the brain cells diminish

3:42 and the neurochemical transmitters seem to have problems.

3:47 So all of those kinds of physiological changes

3:49 contribute to problems with memory as we age.

3:52 And what happens is that memory is basically

3:55 stored in little neurochemical packets in the brain.

3:58 So they can be changed and our memories can deceive us very often.

4:03 It's actually possible to improve our memory

4:07 ability with relatively simple strategies and techniques.

4:10 I often recommend that people find things that they prefer personally.

4:15 Things that are mentally challenging but not too difficult.

4:18 So the point is to train but not strain the brain.

4:21 Whether it's crossword puzzles, learning languages, playing musical instruments.

4:25 It's important to try out different things

4:28 and do what works for you and what's enjoyable.

4:34 Here’s why there's hope for everybody

4:37 and that is the principle of brain plasticity.

4:41 Brain plasticity is this idea that the brain

4:45 has an extraordinary capacity to change or modify

4:49 its wiring based on the environment that you

4:53 put the brain in, including the physical environment.

4:56 Are you walking a lot?

4:57 Are you running?

4:58 Are you keeping yourself physically active?

5:01 These result in what I call positive brain plasticity.

5:05 What is the difference between a sedentary

5:08 brain and an active brain of a runner?

5:11 Well, the runner's brain has higher levels of dopamine and serotonin

5:16 boosted every single time that runner goes for a run.

5:19 It elevates general mood state.

5:23 Studies that I did in my lab showed that people that went to three months

5:28 of spin class had overall higher mood states

5:31 than people for three months who played video Scrabble.

5:35 Those people in the exercise group also have

5:38 much more growth factors going through their brain.

5:41 I like to think of it like a watering

5:43 can of growth factors all up and down your hippocampi.

5:46 What's happening?

5:48 They’re growing, popping shiny new hippocampal cells

5:51 and they're making their prefrontal cortex work better.

5:54 But again, everything is fluid with brain plasticity.

5:58 Even if you've been sedentary all your life,

6:01 you can start moving towards what I like to call bigger,

6:05 fatter, fluffier and happier brain with just ten minutes of walking.

6:10 We found the same kind of benefits.

6:12 Better mood, decreased anxiety, depression levels and better focus.

6:17 Physical activity is the most transformative thing that you could do,

6:22 not only for your body but for your brain as well.