When it comes to maintaining brain health, daily brain games like Sudoku and crosswords aren’t enough to protect the mind as you age.
Dr. Randy D’Amico, a neurosurgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital, recommends paying attention to systems you may not necessarily think of when considering brain health.
Keeping tabs on muscle strength, hearing and other aspects of overall health as you enter middle age can help reveal early signs that something is wrong while you there’s still time to address them.
Vascular health tracking
1. Blood pressure: D’Amico says he always starts with blood pressure. With age, arteries lose flexibility and become more stiff, causing blood pressure to rise.
“The bottom line is that it’s probably the most underappreciated threat to the brain,” D’Amico told The Post. “It increases your risk of stroke. It increases your risk of dementia. It causes silent brain injury.”
Tracking blood pressure is the best way to catch high blood pressure before it affects the heart or brain. About half of US adults have high blood pressure, or hypertension.
2. Cholesterol: High cholesterol adds fuel to the fire when a patient has high blood pressure, and people often have both conditions.
Cholesterol can be tracked with a routine blood test. D’Amico notes that recently doctors have been paying more attention to ApoB, which is a more specific test that more accurately predicts heart disease risk.
“The same arteries that nourish your heart also feed your brain, which is why cholesterol matters so much,” he said. “You want to take care of your cardiovascular health because when you’re taking care of your blood vessels’ health, you’re also taking care of your brain’s health.”
The best way, he says, is to manage cholesterol through diet, exercise and sometimes medicine, which can help reduce the risk of stroke and vascular disease.
3. Blood sugar: Blood sugar can also be measured with a routine blood test for HbA1c, which reflects average blood sugar levels over the past few months.
“Type 2 diabetes, if you have it, roughly doubles your risk of dementia. And so, if you care about brain health, you really should be caring about your metabolic health. This is absolutely critical,” D’Amico said.
Activity tracking
4. Minutes of movement a week: “Exercise is basically a brain-protective drug,” D’Amico said. “If you think about what you’re doing, you’re ramping up blood flow, circulation, and cleaning out waste product.”
Shoot for 150 minutes a week, which could look like two one-hour sessions with one half-hour session over seven days.
“This is something near and dear to my heart because I think it’s paramount to getting healthier,” he added.
5. Strength training: Strength training goes beyond muscle mass. This exercise releases myokines, which help neurons connect and play a role in memory and mood.
“When we see muscle wasting, we call that frailty,” D’Amico said. “Frailty predicts cognitive decline. And so, muscle and brain aging go hand in hand. You have to maintain your muscle, which means that you have to prioritize strength training without a doubt.”
6. Body composition: This is how much fat and lean muscle is contributing to your overall weight. You can measure this with tape measure around the waist, to get an idea of visceral fat.
“Your brain metabolism and your body metabolism are very deeply connected,” he said. “Paying attention to that matters.”
Recovery tracking
7. Sleep: Make sure you’re getting somewhere between seven to nine hours of sleep a night.
“You’re basically preserving your brain’s ability to housekeep while you’re sleeping. When you’re sleeping, you are getting rid of waste products, consolidating memories, regulating emotions and learning,” D’Amico said.
Chronic sleep deprivation can affect memory, mood and long-term brain health.
8. Mental health: Keeping track of mood, activity and social activity over time can help identify specific problems and patterns.
“Depression, anxiety and chronic stress can influence sleep, cognition, attention and quality of life,” D’Amico said. “Taking care of your mental health is part of taking care of your brain.”
Connection
9. Purposeful and new activities: To protect the brain, “you have to challenge yourself. You have to learn things. Your brain thrives on new experiences and challenges,” D’Amico said.
There’s no baseline requirement here, but all challenges are good for the brain — from reading and learning an instrument to traveling and speaking a new language.
10. Social connection: Humans are social creatures, and being social is “one of the most overlooked aspects” of keeping our brain healthy, he said.
“Regular, meaningful relationships are associated with better physical and cognitive health,” he said. “Loneliness is probably just as dangerous to health as smoking and has been linked to increased risks of depression, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and mortality.”
Hearing
Yes, even your ear health affects your brain.
“If you can’t hear and no one’s helping you treat that, you’re increasing your risk of dementia,” D’Amico said. “So having your hearing checked, especially as you get older … is absolutely paramount to wellness and brain health without a doubt.”
