Insight Type: Lifestyle Insight

We learn how ‘Superagers’ keep their brain health top of mind, with brain exercise tips and workouts to keep your brain mentally alert and sharp – no matter your age.

Young of mind ‘superagers’

If your idea of ageing gracefully is all about staying mentally sharp, then take some inspiration from the so-called ‘superagers’. These are people who are 80+ years old, but still think and learn like they’re much younger – anything from 20 to 60 years of age.

It’s hard to pin down exactly why some of us become superagers, but a likely factor is continuing to engage in challenging mental activities. Stepping out of your mental comfort zone seems to be a common denominator among people who age well mentally.

What happens to your brain as you age?

Clues about what determines this kind of superageing, or lack thereof, come from what research tells us about older brains. As you age, two characteristics of your brain change:

• First is size ­– your brain will get a little smaller. Along with this, your brain’s nerve cells can shrink or lose their connections with other nerve cells.
• Second, your brain’s blood flow tends to slow down.

These physical changes are thought to be linked to mental (cognitive) function, and may help explain why mental function declines with age.

But what are superagers doing differently to prevent this decline?

Since we’re living longer these days, it’s no surprise that research on the factors that may be responsible for preventing cognitive decline is well underway. What we know so far is that five interesting characteristics are common among people who live longer and age well.

• Maintaining social interaction – keeping close relationships over the years
• Drinking modest amounts of alcohol – a couple of glasses of wine or beer each day
• Moderate caffeine intake – roughly 2 cups of coffee per day
• Regular exercise habits – 15 minutes per day is a good start, but 30–45 minutes per day makes a bigger difference
• Engaging in a hobby – something that keeps you occupied for a good part of each day

What can you do?

Although no one can promise that you’ll join the elite ranks of the 5% of people who become superagers, here’s how you can give yourself a better chance!

• A bit of brain strain is good for you. Engaging in strenuous mental activity on a regular basis is thought to be helpful. But you’ll need to go for something that’s more challenging that a few games of Sudoku. You should aim for a tough brain workout, and something that interests you. Take a biology class if you’ve always wanted to expand your knowledge of the natural world. Or learn to play an instrument or speak another language if you’re keen on such pursuits.
• Exercise regularly, and don’t just say you’re tired…be puffed! While you certainly shouldn’t put yourself at unnecessary risk of injury, a good physical workout should be your aim – the idea is to get your blood pumping through your body and your brain.
• Remember to sleep well. Enough good sleep can help you maintain healthy memory and even clear some waste from your brain.
• Take dietary trips from the Mediterranean. Eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish and unsaturated fats is great for your brain.
• Have a nutritional back-up plan. If you find yourself struggling to get all the nutrients you need from your diet, consider a supplement to make up the difference.

References available upon request.

Forgetting basic things can be a frustrating experience, but it does not have to be a part of getting older. Try these simple tips to support your mental sharpness.

Mental Sharpness—It’s All About Keeping Healthy

Are you starting to experience more and more “senior moments”? Brain fog, or those instances where your inability to concentrate or think clearly leaves you forgetting basic things can be a frustrating experience, but it does not have to be an inevitable part of getting older. In fact, scientists are starting to discover that challenges to our ability to remember, focus, and concentrate start in early adulthood, not when we are nearing retirement. This is partly because there is more to the cognitive health picture than just age—exercise, sleep, and nutrition play vital roles in maintaining our mental sharpness.

Improving your mental sharpness is about more than just downloading the latest brain-training app. Although there are some benefits to cognitive exercises (e.g. Sudoku), there are ways to help improve your concentration and focus that do not require a smartphone. We hear a lot about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, and for a good reason. Below we discuss some of the concrete benefits for beating brain fog that exercise and healthy eating can provide.

Exercise and Boosting Memory

Regular, moderate-intensity exercise can help contribute to brain health. Moderate-intensity exercise requires a moderate degree of effort and noticeably increases your heart rate. Examples might include brisk walking, gardening, or playing active games with your children.

Exercise has a number of indirect and direct benefits for improving brain health. Exercise helps us maintain a healthy weight and blood pressure, both of which lift our mood and lower stress and anxiety. Greater blood flow to your brain generally means more oxygen and more energy, which will generally improve brain performance.

But exercise can interact more directly with our memory function through the release of certain chemicals in our brain that directly involved with memory. In particular, a neurotransmitter called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (let’s just call that BDNF for short) is released when we exercise, which helps rewire memory circuits to improve their performance.

Exercise also interacts with whole sections of your brain that are involved with memory and cognitive function. When you exercise you increase activity in the hippocampus, a part of your brain that is critically involved with memory and learning. When you exercise you actually physically increase the size of your hippocampus, or at least reverse the shrinkage of this region that tends to occur later in life.

Nutrition, Supplements and Maintaining Brain Health

Much like exercise, proper nutrition can help maintain and improve mental development and acuity. There are a number of parts of your diet that can affect your brain’s health, including fatty acids, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as factors such as alcohol consumption.

Essential fatty acids are required for optimal brain health. To improve your daily dose of these crucial fatty acids, try adding more vegetable oils (for omega-6), and leafy green vegetables, cold-water fish, and fish oils (for omega 3). These essential fatty acids help build the vital brain fats that allow our brain to function optimally. Fatty acids are also involved in regulating the function of new neurotransmitters and molecules in your immune system, improving the communication within your brain and immune function.

There are also a number of supplements available that can help support working memory:

• Bacopa Monnieri, also known as bacopa or brahmi, has been used for centuries for this purpose. A specific extract of bacopa called CDRI 08 has been shown to help individuals store and recall information, while assisting learning rates and concentration levels. This specific extract of bacopa is the result of 30 years of research and development by the Indian government’s Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) and is further supported by Australian clinical trials. 
• Panax ginseng has a long history of traditional use in Chinese medicine as a supplement to support the mental capacity during times of increased demand. This traditional understanding of the herb is further supported by 30 years of clinical research done on a Panax ginseng extract known as G115®.  In contrast, the medicinal properties and cognitive benefits of Ginkgo biloba leaves were only discovered about 40 years ago. Research suggests that a combination of these two specific extracts, Panax ginseng G115 and Ginkgo biloba GK501, can support healthy brain function and mental energy levels. 

When trying new dietary regimes or supplements to support your brain health, it is always important to look at the research available and have a chat with a healthcare professional to discuss your individual needs.

References available on request.

If you’re a student, you can help the learning process and improve your memory by using focus and attention techniques.

Being a student means studying for exams, writing assignments and preparing notes – often all at the same time.

If you find you’re struggling to focus on the multitude of tasks, mastering skills in paying attention, focusing and retaining information can help you to improve the learning process.

A review of research has found your ability to concentrate and how memory works together to store information, influences your understanding and knowledge, also known as your cognition. 

How is concentration important in learning?

Paying attention and focusing, or concentrating, is your ability to focus exclusive attention to one activity to the exclusion of unwanted or irrelevant information. Being able to concentrate while you’re learning means you can absorb more information while you study, which may help you perform better on assessments.

Think of your ability to concentrate like a sponge. The better you can focus while you’re learning, the heavier the sponge gets over time, allowing you to absorb more information.

Storing what you learn in your brain

Once you have successfully processed and absorbed new information, you need to store it to memory for retrieval during assessments. Information that is effectively stored in your memory determines how easily you can retrieve the information later.

Neuroscientists who have studied the brain have found during the learning process, nerve cells (neurons) in different parts of your brain store memory in the gaps between nerve cells, known as the synapse. The efficiency of the transmission at the synapse can help improve your memory. 

New synapses and connections can continue to form between neurons depending on the external environment. Research has also found memory is improved when shaped by an enriched environment, such as physical exercise and increased mental stimulation. 

Focus tips

Active reading and listening

When you focus your attention, participate in the process by using an activity when you read or listen. This may include using flash cards, taking notes or forming a study group.

Active reading can also involve having a reading strategy instead of reading a whole text at once. You may like to break down sections of text using headings to first learn ideas before details.

Meditate

A recent study found that meditation may improve your ability to be attentive and focus on a selected task for a sustained amount of time. If you’re considering meditation to help you concentrate, take twenty minutes a day to help take your thoughts away from studying.

The break can help to clear your mind and re-focus on the information you’re learning.

Eliminate distractions

Maintaining focus while you study means being able to focus on one task at a time. This means eliminating any distractions, such as turning off your mobile phone, not reading emails and finding a study environment that helps you focus.

However scheduled periods of distractions can also be good for your focus. Research has found that taking a break from reading or listening can improve your ability to focus once you return to the task. If you’re able to set blocks of time for study, then take a short break to reward yourself too!

References available upon request.

No longer just techniques reserved for seasoned procrastinators; we explore how banishing clutter and changing things up are techniques you can strategically try to help maintain focus.

De-Cluttering and Switching it Up: How to Stay Focused in a Busy World

It’s no secret that the key to staying focused is to remove distractions—but what if there are psychological distractions that you don’t even consciously notice?

Some distractions are obvious—the email pop-up notification you get while busy at work, the text message from a friend, the ever-present social media tab that’s only one click away. But what about those that are not so obvious? The pile of paper sitting on your work desk, the bundle of clothes sitting in your lounge room, or the other bits and pieces floating around your work or home spaces. How do you beat those distractions? What about your own thoughts; how do you get away from those?

The answer to the first question is easy (at least in theory): de-cluttering. Tidying your work spaces is not the tool of the master procrastinator; it will actually help you stay on task. And as for your own thoughts…well it turns out that taking breaks are also not just for the procrastinators; well-timed diversions can actually help you keep your mind focused and attentive too.

Beating the Clutter

The photos on our walls, the books and trinkets on our shelves, and the personal items we surround ourselves with create a sense of “psychological home” where we can see our sense of self reflected. In fact, attachment to your home can foster greater wellbeing. However, too much clutter can start to resemble a threat to your personal space and contribute to feelings of stress and displacement.

While stress can negatively affect your ability to focus, clutter can also impact your ability to concentrate more directly. Our visual system is only capable of processing a limited number of items at any one time. This means that the more items there are in your field of view, the harder it is for your brain to focus on any one of them. While it might not seem like it at the time, while you are trying to focus your attention on your work, your brain is also trying to process the letter sitting on your desk next to you, the photo of your children next to your computer, and the coffee mug next to your keyboard. No wonder you have trouble focusing!

Switch it Up

Have you ever felt like the more you focused on a long or difficult task, the more difficult it seemed to become? Well you are not alone—psychologists have long been interested in the fact that our focus on tasks tends to deplete the longer we are trying to pay attention. Furthermore, researchers may have also stumbled upon the cure: doing something else.

Researchers have described the loss of focus as a little bit like how you get used to sensory experiences. For example, when you first put your shirt on in the morning you can feel how it sits on your body, but you soon forget about that feeling and will not notice it again for the rest of the day. So what’s the best way to start noticing how your shirt feels again? Put a new one on.

Paying attention for long periods of time works the same way—after a while you just stop paying attention. But just like the shirt on your back, moving to a new task, even briefly, can renew your focus on the original task. One study found that people who took a very brief break in the middle of a task showed no decline in focus at all, while those who did not take breaks all lost focus.

Of course, don’t take this too far. We all know how the “five-minute break” that lasts four hours can end up!

References available upon request.