The Invincible Brain: A Neurologist’s Guide to Never Aging 🧠

You know, this is the time to sit by the pool and do crossword puzzles. Yeah, we watch a football game and drink beers. Yeah, if that's your idea of retirement and getting old, well, that's how you get Alzheimer's disease.

Today I'm going to be talking with a doctor, an MD who's also a PhD, and he is a neurologist, Johns Hopkins and Harvard-trained neurologist who has really focused on brain health. And we're going to be talking about brain health. He has a book coming out, The Invincible Brain, has an app, The Invincible Brain. And he has a course about the Invincible Brain. And so we're going to dive into what actually keeps your brain healthy. We go down the rabbit hole on a number of different things. I think if you're interested in brain health, you're going to find this informative and useful podcast.

He went from saving hearts as a cardiologist to rewriting the entire aging playbook. Dr. Jeffrey Gladden believes 100 is the new 30, and he's got the science to back it up. This is the Gladden Longevity Podcast.

So, Majid, welcome to the podcast. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And you're touching on a couple of areas in your soon-to-be-released book, which we'll talk about, about cognitive maintenance, if you will, avoiding Alzheimer's. And then I'm also curious about conversations around trauma, stress, how they're stored in the body, the impact on biology. So welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for inviting me to your podcast. I'm really excited to talk with you, Jeff.

Yeah, that's great. So let's start with your book. I think this is gonna be published, you told me, in March of this year, called "The Invincible Brain." And I know you have a very strong background in neurology, PhD and then a medical degree and residency, etc. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about your take on cognitive decline and then what you see are some of the primary drivers of it and some of the levers to actually reverse it or prevent it, either one?

Well, thank you very much for introduction and mentioning my book. There are many things that shrink the brain and these factors are often lifestyle related. There are at least 5 things that can shrink the brain: sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, sleep apnea or insomnia, too much stress, and having a lazy brain—people who don't challenge their brain. Most people think that as they get older, their cognitive functions will decline and they just get, you know, weaker and weaker and they just die. What we have come to appreciate is that if you control these negative risk factors, then you're able to maintain your cognitive functions for a long time. With aging, there may be 5% or 2% or 3% decline in cognitive function if you have a healthy lifestyle and do the 5 things that I recommend. And these are the 5 pillars of brain health: exercise, sleep, nutrition, stress management, and brain training. So you were asking what are the factors that cause cognitive decline. Those are the things I just mentioned, mostly lifestyle related. And what are things that we can do to reverse that and grow the brain? And those are the 5 pillars of brain health. Yeah.

So let's talk about growing the brain. I think this is a really interesting area. We're seeing some stuff recently on, and you may have seen this as well, that people that play racket sports actually live about 9 years longer than people that don't play racket sports. And I was seeing something by Daniel Amen where he was talking about that. And the feeling was, is because they're, they're actually activating their cerebellum when they're playing these sports. And he was saying that so many neurons are located in the cerebellum that when you're actually exercising that, that it actually has an impact across the entire brain. And one of the things that we stress here, I'm not a racket sport player per se, although I do mountain bike and run and snowboard and do things like that, is that we really do a lot of balance training, like on different kinds of things that challenge the brain. And it's not just standing on one foot. It may be on a board with a roller under it, or it could be on a slack line, or it could be any of these things that actually challenge your brain, and doing it with your eyes closed also. And then also walking figure eights frontwards, backwards with eyes open and eyes closed, I've found to be really, really helpful at building proprioception and balance and a sense of fine motor control. And it seems like the kind of exercise has an impact on it, right? So we know cardio, I think, obviously has impact for the brain, but I've come to understand that really balance training, let's call it that, and you can get that a lot of different ways, seems to have a big impact as well. I'm curious what your take is on that.

As we grow older, we need to maintain strong core and we need to maintain balance because one of the things that happens when people get their 70s and 80s, they have reduced proprioception, they're at increased risk of falls. And when they do fall, they have a hip fracture, they end up in hospital, and that's usually the beginning of the end. Now, you want to work on your core and you want to do balance. It's interesting you mentioned standing on a slackline. There was a recent study that showed that if you take a group of people, do MRIs at baseline, and then have them stand on slackline and, you know, maintain their balance, and then 2 months later, look at their brain MRIs again, you see actual improvement in their brain functions just with that simple exercise. So, Balance and coordination are functions that heavily depend on cerebellum. The other thing you could do to improve and activate your cerebellum is to do racket sports. I personally play tennis and I love it. I was just happy to hear that playing tennis is considered a racket sport and can increase longevity. But when you do the racket sports, you're constantly maintaining your attention on a ball, and you're constantly coordinating so many of your muscles. That's right. I think brain training is an important element of those 5 pillars of brain health I mentioned. And, there are types of brain training that activate multiple parts of the brain at the same time. So, for example, when you learn to do snowboarding, you have to learn so many things. That's right. Maintain your balance. It's not easy. It's really hard. And so, you are really challenging your whole brain. When you learn how to snowboard. And the same thing when you're trying to improve your serve on tennis, you're improving, you are challenging many parts of your brain at the same time.

No, I think that's right. I think what we've discovered, and this is true in so many parts of the physiology, right? The bones like to be challenged, the muscles like to be challenged, the nervous system likes to be challenged, the brain likes to be challenged, right? And yet, we kind of are in this comfort society, right? Where it's like, well, I'm comfortable in my chair and I get that. But really the key to vitality is really continuing to challenge yourself in safe ways, incremental ways. But I find it really kind of exhilarating, quite honestly, to feel yourself get better at something. It's really, it's kind of one of the joys of life is to feel yourself get better at something, whether it's learning medicine or whether it's learning to balance on a slackline or an endo board or, you know, a Bosu ball or whatever you're working with. Right? So there's a lot of joy that comes out of it. And I think that's something that people miss. They feel like they have to do it because it's like a thing to do. But actually, that mastering something, that learning something, that challenging yourself creates so much joy. Then you get all the endorphin rush and you get some oxytocin out of it. You get a lot of other things that are super helpful to us. Right? You know, you make a great serve, you make, you win a match. Right? There's a lot of dopamine, a lot of, you know, a lot of joy that comes out of that. So Yeah.

One other thing I find is that a lot of people who go to their 60s or early 70s, they sort of give up on trying to get better at things. They just get into this slippery slope of saying, "Well, I'm getting old. I'm not going to do that." And then, because they don't do things, they decline more. And because they decline more, they see for a fact that they can't run, they can't play tennis, they can't do this, they can't do that. And they get worse for real. And I find it really exciting. You know, I sometimes do triathlons. And a couple of years ago, I was finishing a triathlon. I had done like 1 mile of swimming in ocean. I had done 28 miles of bikes. And then I was doing 8 miles of running. And I was close to finish. And I saw this gentleman who clearly was in his 80s trying to pass me. And I said, wait a minute, I'm not going to let you pass me. I love it. But at the same time, I loved it that this guy who was about 30 years older than me at the time or 25 years old, he was passing me. And I actually talked with him and he has such an interesting story to talk about actually. But, I think that we need to change people's mindset, Jeff. I think what we need to do, we need to tell people, set aside the old way of looking at aging. We're not getting old, it's advancing our age. And like Shakespeare said, midlife is like a new childhood. This is where you can start having fun. You're done with your 9-to-5 job. You're done with your little daily obligations. You can learn new things, you can travel, you can work on your body. You have more time for exercise than you used to. So, I think people need to change their view. We need a paradigm shift in the way we're looking at people in their 60s and 70s and 80s. You know, I'm in my 60s and have a lot of friends in their 70s and some friends in their 80s. And my circle of friends are like you. They may be 70, but they are so active, so engaged, so fun to hang out with. And I feel bad for a lot of other people who are getting to their 70s and they sort of come to appreciate and come to tell themselves and believe that, you know, this is the time you sit by the pool and do crossword puzzles. Yeah, we watch a football game and drink beers. Yeah, if that's your idea of retirement and getting old, well, that's how you get Alzheimer's disease. That's the kind of mindset that will definitely get you on that slippery slope of brain decline. The things I told you that shrink your brain— the sedentary lifestyle, lack of brain activity, and not challenging yourself, not eating right. Those things will just continue to erode and shrink the brain and get to the point of Alzheimer's disease. I believe that only small percentage of people, maybe 5%, 7%, have the genes that make them be very sharp despite having done everything wrong or lose their marbles despite having done everything right. Most people, more than 90% of people, will not experience cognitive decline if they do the 5 pillars of brain health, which I talk about in my book and in my lectures. I personally plan to be 90, be sharp and independent. And knowing what I know, I think there's a very small chance I won't get there. I mean, I may have a car accident, I may develop cancer, or something unexpected may happen. But based on everything I've read in my field, there's no reason for me to be, you know, slow or not be able to do things in my 80s. Why not? Why not? I have arms and legs and brain and eyes. And so, you know, my vision may be 10%, 20% less, My hearing may be 10%, 20% less, but that's not going to limit me from enjoying life.

Yeah, I think, I think all that's right. I think it's very important when people feel like they're losing something, right? Because I think a lot of people equate aging with losing capabilities, and I don't do that. I, I divorce my chronological age from my, my age, right? I lived young for a lifetime. It's one of the things that we do here. So I'm 27, right? I wake up 27 and I'll have an inverse of 27 birthday coming up in February, but I'm still 27, right? So, and that's, that's a great, it's a, it's an amazing mindset. And the reason I bring it up is because if I don't feel 27, then I never say, oh, well, but I'm good for my age. Oh, but I'm still able to do so many things. I never say that. I always say, what do I need to do to get back to 27? Right? Because in life, you only get the questions, the answers to the questions that you're asking. Right? And so if I'm asking, how do I get to 27? There are ways now available to us to get there, right? And so I think that's a really important mindset around this. So my, my admonition to the, uh, to the audience would be to say, if you feel like you're losing something, don't sit there and try to make peace with it. Ask the question of, how do I get it back? What do I need to do to get it back and actually come back stronger? And maybe it's, maybe it's thyroid medicine, maybe it's hormone replacement therapy, maybe it's engaging in the proper kinds of exercise that really challenge your brain, maybe it's adjusting to the foods, maybe you've got mold in your house, maybe you've got all kinds of things that could be complicating the situation, but you'll never figure it out if you settle for loss, right? And so that's, I think that's really an important takeaway.

You're absolutely right. A common thing that happens is that when people get to their 70s, they have hearing loss and they sort of accept it and they don't fix it. And as a result, they don't hear well and they may not engage fully in conversations. And as a result, they may avoid conversations because they fall behind, they can't keep up. As a result, they become more isolated. As a result, they get brain stimulation. And as a result, they develop dementia. Many studies have shown that people who get a hearing aid reverse their cognitive trajectory. They were going to go down, and the simple thing like a hearing aid will reverse it. The other thing that happened is, you know, a person in their 70s They start feeling like, oh, I'm not doing anything, I'm home alone all the time. And then they move and they live in a house near their children and grandchildren, and they hang out with grandchildren more often. And that interaction with grandchildren makes them feel so much better and their brain functions better. You're absolutely right, Jeff, in that people sort of accept that with aging comes decline. And when there are treatable reversible things that are happening, they don't address them because they just think it's a part of the game. It's not. It's not. It's not. And that thing, unfortunately, is a secret to longevity that, in my experience, most people don't know. You're like one of the few people who have articulated this so well. But you are among the few people have heard this. You know, I'm the one always telling people that. And I'm so happy to hear from you being a cardiologist, experience these things. And I love your attitude. And that's my attitude. You know, I think if I have a joint pain, I figure out what the problem is and I figure it out. You know, sometimes you need injections, sometimes you need anti-inflammatory, and you may need a knee replacement. Well, do it.

Don't do it. That's right.

Don't miss out because, you know, I was thinking like when you retire, you have a third of your life ahead of you. A third. That's right. That's a lot of life. And it's a pity to miss out on a third of your life being miserable and have this doom and gloom approach.

It's another important point about if you do have an injury, there's kind of an understanding that, okay, I'll make a hypothetical. Someone's knee is bothering them, right? And it's like, well, I went to see the doctor and he said I didn't need a knee replacement, but you know, hang in there and maybe you'll need one in 3 years, right? Maybe you'll need one in 5 years. And my approach to that is to say, okay, let's see what we can do to regenerate your knee, right? I've built, rebuilt my own knee, you know, through some regenerative technologies that we use here in the clinic to where I can do anything I want again, right? I can run, I can snowboard, I can mountain bike, I can, you know, do anything I want. And that's what you want to do. But for other people, their knee is beyond repair, and yet they kind of force themselves to live with it. What they, what they don't realize is that they decline so much, not only physically, but also mentally because of that. And if you need a knee replaced, go get the knee replaced, right? I've got clients who were cross— big CrossFit people, and they, you know, tore up their shoulders or they hurt their knees doing it, right? And we're not big CrossFit fans for that reason. However, once they got their knees done, the knee replacements are so good now, they're back skiing, they're doing all— they should— I should have done this 5 years ago., right? And that's, that's what we hear over and over again. So I'm not advocating for unnecessary surgery, but what I'm advocating for is whatever it takes for you to get back on your feet so that you can actually reengage with life, that's what you need to be doing. You know, it's physical or whatever else. So, yeah.

Yeah. I'd like to learn outside this about the knee, regenerative knee.

I'd like to hear about it. Yeah. Yeah. No, we do a lot of cool stuff here. So let's talk a little bit about trauma also. I know that you have some connection to trauma and how it's carried in the body and stress and making some distinction between those two. You know, we're big fans of this as well in our, in our Life Energy Circle. Of course, we talk about mental health as being so critical because, you know, if you're suffering with anxiety, stress, depression, PTSD, addiction, things like that, it sabotages your ability to engage in life. It sabotages your decisions that you're trying to make and, and things like that, right? So from our standpoint, a lot of the mental health issues that, that we can deal with can have somewhat of a genetic predisposition. There are people that are predisposed to more anxiety or less anxiety, more less depression. But then there's also the traumas that we've all experienced, and then we end up living in reaction to those traumas, and then we normalize that. And now we're living on tilt, so to speak, like a poker player that just lost 5 hands in a row, right? Everybody knows they're on tilt when they walk in the room, but they don't know it because they've kind of normalized it. And so in our world, one of the goals is to actually really deeply understand the trauma, deconstruct it, understand what we contributed, what somebody else contributed, and then forgive everybody involved, including themselves, to where you can actually heal it. And then you can move to another phase where you actually transcend it. And this is where you actually become grateful for everything that ever happened, because now you have more empathy, more insight, more wisdom, right, that you can share and live your life from. And you become unencumbered by these traumas that you've experienced. That's for us, it's kind of how we think about it. So I'm curious to know how you think about it in your, in your own world of trauma and impact on the brain and things like that.

Yes, I have the same approach. You know, in my neurology practice, I saw thousands of patients who came to me with memory loss and brain fog. And many of my patients had different etiologies for why they were having cognitive decline. For some people, maybe the things I mentioned to you, like obesity, sedentary lifestyle, sleep apnea. But for others, it was psychological and trauma-based issues. For example, I had a patient, I never forget her. She was a young woman in her actually 70s. She looked very young.. And she was very adamant to improve her memory, which I loved. But one of the things that she told me during our first visit was that she regrets the way her life turned out because 30 years earlier, her parents had died and her brother cheated her of the inheritance of the house they had. And as a result, she lost $1 million. And throughout all these years, she always thought about how her life would have been so much better if she had $1 million 30 years ago. So every, every day she was thinking about how $1 million back then would have been like, you know, $5 million now, and what kind of house would have she— she would have had this and that. And then as a part of our brain fitness program, where we help people improve their memory by those 5 pillars of brain health, we also help people with the psychological health. And so our social worker talked to her about reassessing that Something bad had happened to her 30 years ago, and it's a done deal. She can't change it. And it would be a pity that she would miss another 20 years of her life regretting what should have happened, could have happened. And so after talking with her for a few times, then she came back to see me for follow-up. And I loved it. Her face was bright. She was smiling. She says, Dr. Futuhi, I wasted 30 years of my life. I spent so many hours every day thinking about something where I could have just spent that time, exercise more, eat better, be more active, engage with life more. And now I've decided, you know what, it is what it is. I'm just gonna let go. And I feel so much lighter. I feel like a burden is off my shoulder. And now, instead of, you know, going to those repetitive negative thoughts, I can actually think about the future. I can think about, okay, well, I have a great life. Maybe it would have been different, maybe not. You know, sometimes money can cause problems, but I have a good life. I have a place to live, I have a car, I'm able to do everything, and I'm going to enjoy the rest of my life. And that change in thinking is the key to overcoming the psychological trauma that happened decades ago. It's very common. I have seen hundreds of patients who have had issues that happened to them, you know, when they were younger, and that has persisted throughout their life, unfortunately. And some of them actually were able to have an aha moment and set it aside, and some of them we had to send to a counselor for further evaluation treatment.

Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. Again, she was living in reaction to that for all those years, right? And it had an impact on everything. When she became unencumbered from it, all of a sudden she's light, she's free, she can, you know, make her own decisions, do whatever she wants. You know, the interesting thing is that in 30 years she probably could have made that million dollars back 6 ways to Sunday if she, you know, thought about it in new ways or whatever, right? So yeah, there's always opportunities out there if you look at the world through opportunistic kind of lenses. And to your point, I think it's all about perspective, really, and gaining perspective. So talk to us a little bit from the neuroscience perspective about how brains work when they're, you know, either ruminating on something or they're in anxiety or reactions to trauma or stress.

Talk to us a little bit about that. One of the things that fascinate me about our brain is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity means that our brain has the ability to change and rewire. So for example, where you learn how to balance yourself on a snowboard, or when you learn to stand on a slackline, or when you learn to play tennis, or you learn to improve your vocabulary, or learn a new language, or pick up a new hobby— in all of those things, you're literally forming new pathways in your brain. One of the things I find fascinating about cardiology is that you can get you know, the walls of the ventricles can change. And, you know, obviously the lining of the blood vessels can change. These are not hypothetical. These are anatomical changes. The narrowing of the arteries is— it's a real thing. And the heart muscle is getting thicker and more fibrotic. It's a real thing. You know, in Harvard Medical School, I remember one session we had in pathology where we looked at hearts, and they had put about 50 hearts in trays around the room. And, our job was to look at every heart and decide what was the problem. Like, one was cardiomyopathy, one was coronary disease, one was a heart attack, and so forth. See, our brain is the same way. Our brain can anatomically change, physically change. A lot of people think that the brain is like an ear or the computer, it just sits there. It's not. It's a living organ with a capacity to change. And so when you learn something new, when you exercise, you change the anatomy of your brain, you make it bigger and stronger. This is called positive neuroplasticity. Unfortunately, there's this thing called negative neuroplasticity, where when you ruminate over the same idea, then the pathways that you use to ruminate get stronger and stronger and stronger. It's like you spend an hour a day playing the piano, those pathways get stronger, stronger, stronger every time you practice. And so when you ruminate over something 1,000 times or 1 million times, that pathway becomes so much stronger and it becomes a default. So a lot of people fall into the default, like the lady we're talking about. Her default was in that thinking about that, and that thinking over and over again made connections in a negative way, which then reinforced her behavior. And the good thing about the brain is that these pathways can change. You can modify those things. It's like, you know, you want to remodel the kitchen, you can literally remodel your brain based on your habits, based on, you know, whether you pick up new hobbies, you do things, or whether you take gambling or you do drugs or you know, you're stressed or you're not stressed, you literally change the brain, much like life experiences can modify the anatomy of the heart.

Yeah, no, I think that's right for sure. I'm thinking a little bit too about certain neurotransmitters, right? So I'm thinking about some genetics as well. So there's a gene called the COMT gene, right, which is basically responsible for breaking down things like dopamine and different catecholamines like that. And there can be a 4x, a 4 times difference in a person's ability to actually break those down. There are a lot of other genes that can factor in also, but it's interesting that when we see that and we see that people are highly stressed and they, and they have a deficiency in their ability to break that down, one of the things that we look at is how, okay, how do we get that gene to turn on and work better? How do we actually stimulate genetic expression at that point? Right? So we can use things like magnesium, a cofactor, we can use genistein, we can use other things to actually upregulate it. But then actually the person understanding what their genetics are helps them also to understand, oh, okay, when I put myself in a stressful situation, I'm gonna have a, an exaggerated, potentially an exaggerated response to what's there over what somebody else would. So we do a lot of things related to brain training where we, we start to entrain the brain with things like BrainTap to teach people how to go into a theta state or an alpha state to actually lower heart rate variability, calm the entire system so they can go through life really more in a meditative state than in a reactive state. Right? And so this is another way to train the brain is to train it from the standpoint of being stress resistant by training it to be calm and then helping people to regain being calm, you know, should they get stretched out of position. So for me, the analogy is this. It's like if you're snowboarding, let's say, or skiing, and you're a novice at either of those sports, when you hit unexpected challenges, you know, bumps or trees or whatever you're going around, it can throw you off balance. Right? And the goal when you master something, right, when you're a master at skiing or snowboarding, your upper, your upper body's not really moving. Your legs are absorbing whatever's there, and you're looking far enough ahead that you're, you know, you're navigating. And, and so you're, you're actually going through rough terrain, but you're unperturbed, right? You're reacting, you're, you're, you're taking appropriate action, but you're not perturbed. You're not thrown off balance and you're not crashing. And I think that's become for me kind of a nice analogy for, for sort of mastery of our stress nervous system is to actually be able to go through life and navigate the challenges, react in appropriate ways, and yet not get thrown off balance. I think a lot of people sort of feel like, well, I've always reacted this way. I'm just gonna compete, keep reacting this way. When somebody says something, well, it's gonna, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think that that is also kind of acquiescing to something that people don't have to acquiesce. You can become a master of actually your own nervous system and how you respond. You can train yourself just like you can learn to ski or snowboard or play tennis for that matter. Right? You can go into a flow state and it's in a flow state that you now have agency. You probably know this from tennis. When you're in flow, you know, everything slows down. You have complete agency, but you're also very calm. I do that on a mountain bike or snowboard. It's like, oh, I'm in flow. It's like, this is the best thing ever. You can do that in life also. And I think this is something that we stress with our clients, that it's important to master this because it changes, you know, how you live your life and it changes the experience of it.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think the important thing is that you can learn to change your mindset and you can learn to be in that flow state. And, one of the best ways to do that is with heart rate variability training, which you mentioned. Slow breathing, like you can breathe 6 per minute, just breathing in slowly and hold for a little couple seconds and breathe out. That alone can really change the level of activity in the vagus nerve, which then can level activity in the brain and increase those theta waves or alpha waves and reduce beta waves. And, that will put you in a state of mind, which you can describe as a flow. Or, you know, be at ease with nature, be at ease with the universe. And so I think you're right on. You're right on. You're totally on target. I agree with everything you said. We need to get ourselves in that state of mind. And if we have genes like COMT that may change the level of breakdown of dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin in our synapses, and as a result may have more or less serotonin or dopamine compared to other people, we can change it. You know, we are all a mosaic of different genes. And, you know, we have some of the better versions for some genes and not so good versions of the other genes. But if we have the attitude that we're going to fix things, we can address which part of our lives are not optimal and then try to figure out based on our current level of knowledge how we can approach and address those. And if there is a solution for it, at a scientific level, like, you know, is magnesium going to help this process, then do it. If not, then you can go downstream and work on the things that we know can help, such as heart rate variability. And also, I think, you know, people think you're either happy or depressed. I've learned that you can learn to be one notch happier. Even the depressed patients, if they set their mind into it, they can learn to be one notch happier. I'm respectful of the fact that it's not easy to just tell people, "Come on, snap out of it." You know, I've seen tons of depressed patients. I know how difficult it is to experience depression. However, even depressed patients can get training to be one notch less depressed, one notch happier. And, of course, average person who doesn't have depression can definitely find ways. The challenge is to look at it that way. The challenge is not to look at yourself as a victim. It's a challenge to think of it as the master, as the king of yourself. You are the king of your destiny. And if there are problems, describe them, define them, address them. Not feel, oh, poor me, I don't have this gene or that gene. That really applies to intelligence. A lot of people think like other people are smarter. You know, a lot of people may think like, 'Look at him, he's a cardiologist, he has invented things, he has so many physicians working for him. He's just a smart guy and I'm really not anywhere as good at him.' But they don't realize that they have their own forms of intelligence. They may be a good cook, they may be a good handyman, they may be a good comedian, they may be a good therapist, they may be able to connect with people. So everybody has their own package of natural talents but they can acquire all the other talents that other people have because their talents emanate from their functions in the brain. The parts of the brain called cortex and hippocampus generate those forms of talents, skills, intelligences. So anybody can do it. You know, I think, you know, some things might take more training than others, but anybody who spent 10,000 hours practicing the same thing over and over again will get really good at it. So, people need to have that attitude of the liberated attitude that I can be better at anything. I can be physically young like 27-year-old. I can be mentally sharp. And, if there are things I'm not good at, I can learn how to figure it out to be better and I will be better at it. And, as you mentioned earlier, it's such a joy. It's such a joy where you get better at something And you said, my God, I got better. Let me tell a little story. A few of my friends were playing pickleball and they were one person short. And there was this lady sitting there. She looked at an older lady, 79, and she came to play. And as she was playing, these were people in their 50s and 60s and she was 79. So as they played, she was obviously not the same level as they were. And they were thinking like politely telling her, well, thank you, but next time we're okay. Thank you. But this lady really got into it and started practicing when she was not playing with them. So, when she came back, she would play with them. And within a few months, she was better than the other ones. I love that. And she loved the fact that now she had turned 80 and she was playing better than a bunch of people who were 20 years younger than she was. And they couldn't believe. So, everybody was happy. I think the mindset is important thing. If the 79-year-old would have said, listen, honey, I need to go on my rocking chair and read my newspaper, this would not have happened. That's right. She took on the challenge to, first of all, be there, be available, be in a community center where people play pickleball, to be in that situation where she can play pickleball, and then do accept the challenge, like, I can get better, and practice, and then see the results. People need to realize they can get better. See, that's the big problem. A lot of people think it's too late.

Yeah, I agree with that 100%. You know, what's interesting is that I think we access joy more frequently when we have a higher sense of agency, right, where we're actually architecting our lives. And I think it's easy to have experienced life and have experiences and have relationships and things that haven't, quote unquote, worked out the way that you might have hoped, and then to identify with that. And because of it, you end up feeling somewhat sad. And in some level, you actually don't even feel safe because you're not sure if the next relationship was going to go well or go bad or whatever. And so you don't put yourself out on the pickleball court, right? Because of that, you don't have the internal safety to feel like I'm going to be okay. That's one thing. The second thing is you don't have the agency to say, yeah, but I'm an architect of my own life. I can do whatever I choose to do, and I can have fun. I can create joy doing it. Right? So I think if you're listening to this and you're feeling a little bit stuck. The idea is to give yourself safety, right? And then understand that you are the only architect of your life and whatever anybody else thinks about you really doesn't matter at all, right? It's only what you think about you. And so if you incorporate a positive view of yourself and then you become the agent of your own change and your own growth, it's like, oh, well now we're having fun. And the goal again is to joy. It's really about, and so not about doing, it's about creating joy. How you create joy for yourself and other people. When you're playing tennis, I think you go out there because you know you're gonna experience joy. You know, when I do any of the things I do, it's because I know I'm gonna experience joy. And I think if you're listening to this, if you want to take the step forward, keep your eye on the prize, which is I'm gonna experience joy when I do this. And it's like, oh, okay, it's joy. It's all about joy. It's not about walking on the slackline or playing the piano. It's about joy. Okay, well, how do I experience joy? Right. So yeah. Anyway, talk to us a little bit about glutamate. This is a very interesting neurotransmitter that is an excitatory neurotransmitter that not everybody breaks down as efficiently. Some people have receptors that are more responsive to it. Some people make it more readily. Certain foods will increase glutamate levels in the brain and it can be associated with anxiety. It can also be associated, for me anyway, if I have high glutamate foods, it'll cause me to have brain fog, things like that. I know you did some research on glutamate. Do you want to talk about that?

For a little bit? Yeah, when I was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins many years ago, it's hard to believe, almost 40 years ago, I studied the distribution of glutamate receptors in the brain. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter. It's a small molecule which is a messenger molecule that neurons use to talk with each other. And 40% of the neurotransmitters in the brain are glutamate. The other 40% are GABA, And then 20% are the other neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, adrenaline, epinephrine, and things like that. And so it's exciting to know that our brain is made of chemicals, many of which can be modified with lifestyle changes. For example, GABA, which is the main inhibitor neurotransmitter, can be activated with things like meditation that calms your mind. I mean, sometimes people have a glass of wine, which increases GABA activity as well. I don't recommend it, you know, but I think that's the one thing that also reduces GABA. Glutamate is the main excitatory neurotransmitter, and it's challenging to work with because it's everywhere. It's in a part of brain for vision, for moving, for thinking, for seeing, hearing, touching. And so it's challenging to work with glutamate. We know that too much glutamate can cause toxicity in the brain. So for example, when people have a stroke, that part of brain may die. And as a result, when dead neurons are releasing their glutamate, that glutamate then goes and excites the neighboring neurons, and the neighboring neurons are excited to death. It's called excitotoxicity. Now, there are some things like MSG, which may also increase glutamate, and they can really affect your thinking. And so in general, you want to be mindful of things that may affect neurotransmitter levels in the brain, including glutamate.

Yeah, that's good for people to know and understand. And GABA really, I think, is great because it does have a calming effect. So things like taurine can increase GABA and, you know, certain other supplements can improve it. Gabapentin can be used. There's microsomal GABA that people can take that may get into the brain and be helpful. You know, meditation will improve GABA. This ability to actually master your own nervous system enables you to actually, you know, go into more of a GABA dominant state, which helps sleep, which helps calm, which helps relaxation. So anyway, I think one of the take-home messages here, if you're listening to this, is that your brain is really there for you to play with. You can, you know, you can, you can rebuild it. You can, it's like a Tinker Toy thing or Legos, right? You can rebuild your brain. Your brain is not fixed. Your thoughts are not fixed. Your mood is not fixed. Your ability to move through space is not fixed. Fixed, rather. You can, you can do so many different things. You should start to play with it and then just see how many things you can accomplish. I didn't start snowboarding until I was 45 and I didn't start mountain biking until I was in my 50s. Right. So, you know, and I pick up new things all the time and I play the guitar on a regular basis and play new songs and write new songs and all this kind of thing. So it's really important to continue to imagine, to build, to use your brain, to have fun with it, right?

It's super important. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Your brain is not fixed. Your brain is not like computer. Your brain is not like your ears. It's not a fixed structure that just decays over time. A lot of people think that your brain is like a computer that sort of gets rusty and old as you get older. No, your brain is a vital living organ like your muscles. And the more you stimulate it, the more you take care of your food and what you eat, the more you, you're mindful of what things increase inflammation the things that affect your sleep, the healthier will be your muscles and the healthier will be your brain. And as you said, you have so much control over your brain and you can literally shape the brain to the one— the version you want to have. And the good news is this, it doesn't take years to get there. So, we did this program of what we call Brain Fitness Program, which was 12 weeks. And we had a lot of patients in their 70s who had mild cognitive impairment, which is the stage between normal and Alzheimer's disease. And 84% of them improved their cognitive functions in 3 months with addressing, you know, when we see patients, we do what's called a brain portfolio where I ask patients 40 questions, which then tells me all the little things that may be affecting their brain functions. And then we address the treatable ones, like, you know, they have sleep apnea, we treat it. They have depression, we address it. We have vitamin deficiency, we took care of it. They have They have hearing or vision loss, we take care of it, and so forth. So, we have a list of 40 things we address and then, we personalize this 12-week program for our patients. And then, 12 weeks later, they're like, you know, Jeff 2.0. They're like a new person. And, the same person thought they had Alzheimer's disease, they thought like, you know, "I'm just going to die miserably in 5 years." And then, by 12 weeks, they memorize 100 words. They were just— You know, they— so many people said, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, you saved my life. I had a lot of people coming to see me from Texas, actually. And people say, this was the best thing ever in my life. This program was so successful that we were open 7 days a week from 8 AM to 8 PM. We had 25 brain coaches, and our office was open 7 days a week. I mean, if I added a night shift, I would— I think some people would show up. And, I think the reason it was so successful is because people could see results within weeks. With 12 weeks, there were clear objective improvement in cognitive tests. But, even after 3 or 4 weeks, people will realize they were just getting better and better. And so, I'm totally with you in that we need to have a paradigm shift in our field. We need to look at aging through a new lens. Aging does not mean decline. Aging does not mean inevitable cognitive decline. Aging means you have more time to have fun, figure what needs to be done, and do it.

Yep, agreed. Well, beautiful. Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. How do people find out more about, about you or get in touch with you or whatever?

Sure, I have a website, drfatouhi.com. That's D-R-F-A-T-U-H-I. Futui.com, and also I have a new app called The Invincible Brain. So my book is The Invincible Brain, and the app is The Invincible Brain, and there's an online course. I'm also— I have a lot of things on YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and X and LinkedIn as well.

Nice. Okay, so people will be able to find you. That's great. All right, well, beautiful. Well, thanks so much for being with us today.

Yeah, my pleasure. I really enjoyed our conversation, Jeff.

Yeah, it was great.

Thanks so much. How do we live young for a lifetime? How do we make 100 the new 30? The answers are out there and we're bringing them to you every episode. Make sure you're subscribed. Check out more episodes right here and follow us on social media so you never miss a breakthrough.

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