How Your Brain Changes as You Age 🧠

I want to ask you a question because, as you know, I had my 56th birthday this year, so I'm getting old. And, um, my wife is worried that my mind is going and my memory and my focus, and she might be right. Um, but help us understand what goes on as we get older with our memory. And does your book address some of those particular issues? Because that's kind of where I'm headed. And I want to, I want to make sure that people know some of the cool stuff that I learned in your book.

Absolutely. So as we age, our bodies and our brains are obviously part of our bodies. They undergo changes, right, that can affect your memory and your cognitive function. So where it shows up in areas, because I don't want people to feel— now we donated all the proceeds to Limitless to nonprofits.

Oh, right. Right. I forgot to tell people that.

Yeah. No, no. Yeah. We built schools, fully funded Ghana, Guatemala, and Kenya, and also Alzheimer's research specifically for women in memory of my grandmother. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men, yet a lot of the research is done on male brains, a lot of treatments on male brains. So, it's something we're very passionate about. Well, as we age, so there's a few markers. First, in no particular order, a little bit slower processing speed, right? Aging, just like our body slows down a little bit, we can't maybe run as quickly or move as fast. Aging can slow cognitive processes, making it a little bit more challenging to learn new information quickly, to screen out the distractions that can interfere.

Sure.

with memory and learning. Also, potentially, there might be a reduced working memory capacity.

Right.

Working memory is your ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind over short periods. So, this capacity can decline potentially as we grow older. Long-term memory challenges maybe, especially like— so, there's something called procedural memory, which is how you do something. And then, there's something like implicit memory, which is your unconscious memory such as your habits. They tend to remain stable, but Episodic memory. When you think about episodes, this is like recalling specific events. So that potentially can be compromised a little bit and decline as we grow older. And then also changes in memory consolidation. Aging can affect the consolidation of new memories, making it a little bit more challenging. And so how do you support that? There are many things you could do. Mental stimulation, first of all.

Huge, right?

Engaging in mentally stimulating activities such as You know, learning a new skill, learning a new language, solving puzzles, playing a musical instrument could be good. My favorite is always reading. I think reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. And research is saying it actually can help you live longer by keeping your mind stimulated. The 2 big cognitive dips we see on the, you know, for age and stage is when people graduate school, because often people associate learning to their education, formal education. They stop. They feel like they're done learning.

Yep.

And also when people retire.

Yes.

When people retire, they often retire their minds, and unfortunately, their bodies are not far behind. And so, there's a study done with nuns that were living 80, 90, and above, and they wanted to find out what was their key to longevity. And half of it was their faith and gratitude, more emotional component. But the other half, they were lifelong learners. They were reading, having deep conversations and debates every day. And because of it, add years to their life and then life to their years. It was on the COVID of Time magazine. I remember the study was called Aging with Grace, which I think is a beautiful name of a study.

Wow.

Another thing we could do is physical exercise. I mean, there's so much research showing that physical exercise could help boost your brain power. Regular physical activity, especially cardiovascular exercise, increases blood flow, which increases oxygen to your brain. When you exercise, resistance training, you create something, you create dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, like these neurotransmitters that are important for cognitive health and performance. You also, when you exercise, I say when your body moves, your brain grooves.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, when you exercise, you create something called BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factors, which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity. Some of the activities that are walking, swimming, cycling, racket sports are incredible, like table tennis or pickleball. And I know your wife is very, very active.

She is very active in tennis and pickleball.

And dance, ballroom dancing, Latin dance is so wonderful for the brain.

Right.

And so that's physical activity. And then a couple just really quick things for it to mitigate the brain aging challenges. Nutrition, we covered, you know.

What about hydration? Isn't hydration a big one?

Yeah. So on our podcast, we talked about this recently. Our show is only 20 minutes long. No sponsors or anything. And people can listen to it and it's just kind of binge listen to it. Yeah, it's awesome. Just being 2% dehydrated could affect your cognitive health and Performance and staying hydrated could boost your reaction time and thinking speed upwards of 30%. Really?

So just staying hydrated.

Yeah. You'll notice I'm drinking throughout this conversation, especially first thing in the morning, because you could lose up to a pound of water through respiration and perspiration while you sleep. And so staying hydrated, your brain, we know, is 75% around there, 75% water. And so, so stay hydrated. And then last thing I'll mention is, um, A couple more. Social engagement.

So important.

A lot of times without that social interaction, it definitely could help reduce depression, stress, which can contribute to memory loss, right? Being socially active, who you spend time with is who you become. It could help reduce the negative effects of loneliness and so much more. And in the same kind of category, managing our stress. Chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain. When you're in fight or flight, you're creating cortisol, adrenaline. If you do it If you're in that fight or flight too much, it also holds you hostage in your survival brain and it keeps you away from your executive function, your creativity, your ability to solve problems. Chronic stress could damage your hippocampus, which is, again, the part of your memory involved in memory formation and retrieval. So, I don't know what you do for stress management, but meditation, deep breathing exercises.

Yeah.

For me, nature. What a wonderful way of doing that. And then, And then, I mean, again, this would— this list would be incomplete if we didn't talk about, you know, sleep. Sleep is crucial, as you know, for memory consolidation, short to long-term memory. When you sleep, some research suggests the sewage system in your brain kicks in. You clean out that beta amyloid plaque that can lead to brain aging challenges. It's also where you dream.

Yeah.

There's so many— your brain doesn't shut off when you sleep, if anyways. Sometimes it's a little bit more active in some areas. And people don't realize this. Mary Shelley came up with the idea of Frankenstein in her dreams.

Yeah, I know. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah. Paul McCartney came up with this song Yesterday in his dream. A chemist created the framework of the periodic table in his dream. Elias Howe created the sewing machine in his dream. So, like, so that's why, you know, that slow wave, that REM sleep, so very important. We, you know, if people in the book, we teach people how to remember their dreams because a lot of times people forget their dreams, you know, and so that all that is kind of lost. But yeah. And then just memory training in general. We have a Memory program. That's—

I've done it. It's awesome.

Yeah. 30-day program on teaching you literally science-based tools and ancient wisdom to remember names, client information, product information, where you put the keys, you know, remember, give speeches without notes, learn another language, and so much more. But just remember this, there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and there's an untrained memory.

I like that.

And, you know, we're all about getting people memory mentally fit.