Lifestyle Practices to Support Better Health with Berniece Hunt

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our public episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week, our guests educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. Today's podcast affirms what we know about healthy aging and highlights 5 lifestyle practices that help us to stay healthy and keep our brain sharp. Our guest is Bernice Hunt, a brain health specialist and wellness coach. We cover nutrition, exercise, engagement, destressing, and sleep. And as we know, education is one thing, but accountability is a central ingredient to successful behavior change. We learn how this can be accomplished and what it looks like. Finally, we explore the topic of neuroplasticity, the capacity of brain networks to learn new pathways and connections, and also the concept of neurobics. First, a little background. When her husband Oliver contracted sepsis, which went to into his brain, she experienced a short glimpse of life with someone whose brain was broken. That incident halted Bernice's 12-year post-retirement gig as a part-time wellness coach and turned her focus specifically to brain health. With the pandemic limiting her options, she plunged into the internet world. Her grandkids became her biggest cheerleaders. As approaching 70, she received her certification as a brain health professional and launched her online business. Keep Your Brain Sharp. Bernice is loving it, challenges and all, and learning to feel the fear and do it anyway. I love that. That's a great line, Bernice. Welcome to our program today.

Thank you so much for having me, Joe.

Yeah, you're very welcome. You're very welcome. So I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the highlights that brought you to where you are today. I touched on them briefly, of course, but yeah, What are the highlights from your perspective?

Yeah, well, like you said, when my husband was hospitalized with sepsis and also kidney failure, that really got me thinking about the brain. And then, you know how they say that stress can trigger things in you? Stress can make things come out that you're not expecting. And so that's what made me go full-fledged into the brain health arena, because after I got my husband home and he was recovering nicely, and I thought, you know, all this is, you know, get going behind us and everything's looking good. I'm driving down the street one day and all of a sudden I don't know where I am. None of the landmarks around me look familiar. I couldn't have told you if you paid me. I couldn't have told you where I was. I was scared the jeebies out of me and I just kept driving. I didn't know what else to do. And I was looking around for just a familiar landmark, could not determine where I was. This only happened— it only lasted for about 6 or 7 seconds. It did not last long, but those are like the longest 6 or 7 seconds of my life. I didn't know where I was. And then it's like my brain just shifted and got back in place, and all of a sudden I recognized where I was. And I was shocked to find out that I was around the corner from my house. I was like, what just happened? And I was so scared, I did not tell anyone about it, not even my husband, for years. Several years after I got the business started doing classes and stuff is when I first shared that experience, because I didn't want to hear the responses.

Possible explanations.

Yeah, yes. And I— but it really, like, before that, I was already delving into brain health and doing research on my own and all of that kind of stuff to try to figure out what is this thing, because I knew there was no medical cure as yet, and I wanted to know what possibly do. I was fortunate enough with my husband that, you know, after the sepsis got taken care of in his brain, you know, he's fine, he shifted back. But you can't say that for so many people don't have that experience, you know. And so it really got me into thinking, okay, what can I learn to share with others about that? But then when that happened to me personally I was like, okay, there's a different level of motivation for you.

Sure.

Yes. And so that got me full-fledged into the certification and all of that. And I'm so glad. It was just— it's been a blessing because I've learned so, so very much about brain health.

And your company is Keep Your Brain Sharp. Tell us about your practice, your, your types of clients that you work with. Who Who presents themselves to you?

Yeah, well, basically I work with anyone that has a brain that's interested in improving it. But what we find out, what I find out, is most people don't, um, really take it seriously or are not really concerned about it, you know, until they hit around their 60s. You know, that's what I'm finding out. I'm happy to say though, I do have a following of people that are in their 40s and The research is showing that if you're going to ever take a stab at improving your brain, that's the optimal time. If you haven't done it by then, it's definitely in your late 40s. That's when you should start. You really shouldn't wait until you're in your 60s, although it's never too late to improve your brain. It's just a matter of do you want to have to climb a rolling hill or do you want to have to go up a steep mountain? You know, what do you want to do?

Sure. So to start earlier, midlife. It's a lot of exercises and activities, but it's easier. And we build our, probably our neural connections and pathways. And, you know, prepares us for some of those bigger challenges down the road.

Or you may not never experience them, or you may experience them so gracefully or so mildly. It's not, you know, you just see when people, a lot of people that do come to me are already experiencing something, or someone in their family has experienced it around the same age that they are now.

Yeah, yeah.

So they're like, okay, I'm ready, what do I need to do?

Yeah, so I see some question marks here. Sure. So tell us, I'm not familiar with a brain health specialist, that's a specialty, but can you explain what that is? What's the range of training and the focus?

Yeah, yeah. Well, simply what I do is I show people how to take better care of their brain. And so there is a credentialing program I went to the Amen Clinics. So that's my background with brain health. And you go through his program, takes you through the medical side, you know, in general, you know, in terms of the scans and things that they do and what to look for in those things. But basically, they teach you about your lifestyle because like I say, there's no medical cure for it right now. But there's a lot of research on the benefits, you know, of doing this and not doing this, starting this and stopping this kind of thing. And they just really have you concentrate in areas. One of the doctors, Dr. Benson, was talking about he has a scenario where he has a leaky roof, a roof with 32 holes in it, because he's, I think, coming up with 32 markers for Alzheimer's. And so he says, think if you have a roof that has 32 holes and you go up there and you know it has holes. So you go up there, you know, I'm going to repair my roof. So you work on it and work on it and work on it. And you are so very, very proud of yourself because you've You mended 18 of them, you know, and you come home, you're like, you know what, I did such a great job. I mended 18 of those holes and looking good up there. And then it rains that night. What's going to happen to your house? Yeah, it's still going to get wet.

You got 14 more holes.

Yeah, you didn't. And so a lot of that, that's what they talk about with brain health. It's not just like a magic bullet, you know, or something like that. It is a lifestyle of practices, and it's several different areas that you need to attend to or be aware of, you know, so that— because you never know which hole is going to be where you're going to have the gap.

Yeah, sure. So the training is largely, um, I mean, you have some of this kind of, um, neurophysiology background, but not in depth. But right, there is the emphasis on lifestyles and what kind of lifestyle practices can help keep our brain healthy, right? We're going to talk about these. So let's, let's jump right into it. 5 lifestyle practices that support our body and brain health. I think you have the acronym NEEDS. NEEDS.

Yeah, exactly.

Tell us about these 5 practices.

Yeah, I came up with the acronym NEEDS and it stands for nutrition, which, you know, that's not shocking. Nutrition, you know, exercise, engagement, de-stressing— and de-stressing also includes detoxing— and sleep. So those are 5 areas that you need to be aware of, the do's and don'ts, kind of like, in those areas. And, you know, everyone is different, so just because you, um, do these exact things, you're not saying that someone else does those exact things, the outcome is going to be exactly the same. You know, our bodies are unique, but the research is showing that it benefits you to focus on those areas, and the outcome for people that focus on those areas is a lot better, a lot more promising than when people don't.

Yeah, yeah, we learn so much about lifestyles, and I always cite this research from the Institute of— National Health Institute saying that our longevity is, is based on our genetics about 30% and lifestyle about 70%. So that says, yeah, 30% of our, how long we live is not under our control, even though that's changing a little bit more. But 70%, that's a, that's a huge amount. 70% of how long we live is up, up to us under our control.

Right. And then you want the quality of life as well. You know, people are living longer, but, you know, some of them, you know, their quality is so diminished.

So yeah, of course. And so let's start with nutrition. Um, any surprises there? I mean, we all hear the recommended plant-based diets and minimum red meats and avoiding processed foods, ultra-processed foods. Any things that really stand out for you in terms of nutrition?

Yeah, well, lately, lately I've been really advocating and focusing a lot on our gut bacteria, you know, because there's more and more and more evidence that's showing that, you know, the way you treat your little guest is gonna have a lot to do with how your body is functioning, even your brain. You know, your immune system's down there, 70% of it, but they're— it produces certain hormones like serotonin, melatonin is derived from the serotonin. And so it's producing hormones that will affect your brain, your mood, your attitude, your memory, your hippocampus. They have studies that are showing the connection between hippocampus, which is where your memory center is, your memory, your emotions, and your learning. It's all in there. And they're connecting and associating it with the quality of your microbiome.

Okay, what do we do? What should we do to maintain a healthy gut biome?

You got to feed them the right things and not give them the wrong things. Okay, so basically most of the gut bacteria are in your large intestine and they require certain foods. They just, I was just doing a little thing the other day. They're not like, you remember the commercial, Mikey, you know, give it to Mikey, Mikey will eat anything. Your gut bacteria are not Mikey. They're not going to eat anything. You know, they're very finicky, very picky. There's only things— and the challenge is people may not realize that not all your food even gets down there intact for them to eat. A lot of them are digest— a lot is digested beforehand. And so they can be starving even though you're eating every day, eating all this stuff. They could be starving because you're not getting any food down to them. And what goes down to them, you can't fool them. If it's not food, when it gets down to them, you're like, what is this? I'm not eating that. And so what you need to feed them are what they call prebiotics, you know, the prebiotic foods, like, uh, but they have the fiber content in them and all of that. And also what's called resistant starches, um, which are like prebiotics, but they, um, they're starch, you know, but they also are not digested earlier. They make it all the way down to your gut bacteria and they can feed off of that. And so we're talking rice and potato. And what's interesting, rice, but it's like cooked rice that has been cooled off, then you can reheat it and eat it. So you're supposed to cook it and cool it. And potato salad, the potato starch, but it has to be cold. I don't— don't ask me why. But anyway, you know, and things like that. Green bananas, which I really can't get. I haven't got there yet, but green bananas, you know, so that you, you can Google or whatever. There's a whole list of different resistant starches and, you know, and prebiotics. But what people don't realize is that every, every plant that has fiber is not necessarily a prebiotic. It doesn't necessarily mean just because it has fiber it may not reach it down to your large intestines undigested. And it has to reach there so that they can digest it and ferment it and eat on it. And they said if they are starving, guess what they start eating? They go into the little— it's like where your lining of your gut lining. And it says it has like— it's jointed like this. And it has like— it's packed with like, I want to say like cement in between to hold it together, right? They eat the little cement that's holding the little joints together. And so that's where you can start getting leaky gut.

Yeah, they break through the barrier.

It can break through there. So we need to really be conscious of what we're eating, especially in this day and age, because we're eating so much processed food that doesn't have an additional nutritional value. It's not prebiotic or whatever. You know, and then also there's— everyone's pretty familiar with probiotics, which is, you know, live bacteria you're feeding, and you do need that as well. You know, and so that they're finding more and more and more information about the importance of taking care of your gut.

Is this where fermented foods come in?

Probiotics are fermented foods, yes, that still have the live bacteria. Now, that you have to be careful as well, because once you— they pasteurized it or heated it up, they killed the live bacteria. It's dead bacteria now, you know. And so you have to make sure for things like people say they eat a lot of sauerkraut and stuff, but are you eating sauerkraut that still has the live cultures in it? Because if it's sitting on the grocery shelf, not refrigerated, that probably means it's been pasteurized and there's no live culture.

It doesn't have the live bacteria.

Right, right. And yeah, and so, and not all cheeses, you know, do. You have to be selective. But if it does, you know, I'm sure it'll say live, active, live, you know, cultures, because that's the marketing tool. So make sure you read the label and see what it has on there. But yeah.

So exercise, we all of course hear everything about exercise and the need to be active and strength training and balance and all of that. So what jumps out at you is what's the essential? What do we need to have? Every day in terms of exercise.

What I start telling people, people tell me they don't exercise, you know, because you can come up with all kind of, you know, reasons, reasons, excuses, whatever you want to call them for not— and some of them might be valid. I'm not saying they're not valid, but you know, but the point is you need to move your body. You know, you need to move your body. Your body, you don't want your body to become a cesspool. Your lymphatic system does not move unless you move, and that's what it's eliminating waste and stuff out of you. One of your detox systems, and it's not going to move until you move. It doesn't have a pump like your heart. So what I tell people is I like to tell them, especially if they have— if they're not exercising, of course, cardiovascular and strengthening, those are wonderful for your brain. Your brain actually has 5 forms. But if you're not doing anything, I don't like to have them jump into the deep end of the pool. Let's just start with— let's start on the shallow end. So I tell them to make sure they get up and move every hour or so. Stand up. I think the rule of thumb is for every 40 minutes— you sit for 40 minutes, then you stand up for 5 or 10 minutes, and then you move. And I'm not talking necessarily running around the block or doing calisthenics or push-ups. I'm just saying move your body. Walk into the other room. You know, go take out the trash. Go sweep the floor. Move your body for another 5 or 10 minutes. Start doing that because the more you move, the more you move. You know, the more you move, the more you will move. And so you're not exercising at all, just purpose to start doing that. They even call standing a form of exercise now because people don't exercise at all. So if you stand up, you're at least automatically exercising your core, your leg muscles, your, your butt, or it's strengthening. So that's not the best exercise, but it's something. And, you know, our default is that we sit.

Yeah, standing is better than sitting. Sure. And how about the second E?

Oh, engage. Yeah, engagement. And usually when I talk to people about the brain, when I talk about engagement, they go straight to, you know, crossword puzzles. You know, I do crossword puzzles, I do jigsaw puzzles, which is wonderful. The thing is your brain thrives on discovery and problem solving and aha moments and new experiences and all that. And if you're doing the same thing all the time, it becomes routine and your brain will go on autopilot. And at that point, you're not strengthening your brain, you're just doing it. But your brain's like, you know, he could do it with his eyes closed kind of thing. It's not, it's not learning anything. Strengthening anything, and it's not creating new pathways, which is what you want to do, especially as you age. Because guess what? Your brain cells are going to die, right? All of our cells die. Our cells die at some point. Brain cells are going to die too. But as they're dying, you want new ones to be maturing and flourishing. And that's not going to happen without new experiences and discoveries and new connections and new pathways and all of that. So there's engagement. That's the kind of engagement that's involved with that.

Love that concept about challenging our brain and creating these new neural pathways. And we talked about neuroplasticity a little bit in the intro, but our brain really needs that, doesn't it? It needs the challenge. It needs to learn new things, new skills, new languages, new activities, a new instrument, whatever. All the more challenge that healthier that is for the brain. Yeah, so maybe we can touch on neuroplasticity here. What's your understanding of this and why is it such a breakthrough?

Because they used to think that, you know, what you got is what you got, you know, what you're born with, you know, that's it, you know. And they thought your brain wasn't able to make very many changes from that. They thought you had a finite number of cells, brain cells. And, you know, we always just say, you know, I can't afford to lose any brain cells because you didn't think you're going to get any more. And they found out that that is just not true. They also found out that your brain is capable of adapting. It's plastic. It can be reshaped, remolded, you know, to a certain extent. And it can grow and it can shrink, you know. And so there's all these things about that they didn't know. And if you think, if you think about it, it's like how you raise your children. When we get our children, not our whole goal, but a large part of what we do is we nourish their brain. We give them all kinds of experiences. We give them— let them discover things on their own. We let them problem solve. We don't tell them, give them all the answers to everything. Sometimes they have to figure out some things themselves, you know. We give— we put them in all kinds of different environments. And what are they doing? Their brain is developing all of those years, right?

Sure.

If we don't do that, we give them music, music lessons, sports, whatever, you know, the arts, whatever it is that we want to throw at them that will stick, something that they like, you know. We expose them to all those things, and their brain just develops and develops and develops. But somehow, after we— especially after we retire, but a lot, for a lot of us, when we become an adult, we have a family and all of that, we start, um, we stop doing that for our brain, especially when we get, when we get into, like I say, retirement years. We say, oh, I don't need to learn anymore, I don't need to do anything, I've done that, you know, I'm just going to sit here and enjoy life. OK, I agree, enjoy life, but don't turn your brain off because your brain, like I said, it has to continue to make new pathways, new discoveries. That's what's going to happen when you put yourself in new experiences and new environments. OK, and so that— there was a book that I read about Boy with Half a Brain. And it was about a little boy. I think he was around 3 or 4 when he was having all these seizures. And so at that time, the only thing they needed to do, the only thing they could possibly think to do was to take half his brain out. And they did. And they didn't know what was going to happen. They didn't know if he was going to live. They didn't know what was going to happen. But he was having, I don't know how many hundreds of seizures every minute or whatever it was. So it was crazy. But anyway, so they did it. That little boy not only learned how to talk, walk, he went to school, learned to read and write, graduated from high school. Went on to call all of this with half of his brain gone.

Yeah. So the remaining hemisphere really was able to pick up the slack and learn and expand and grow as if it had both hemispheres.

Yes, it took over and it learned how to do new things and it changed what it had to do. Could you imagine? At that point, they're like, wow, our brain is a lot more capacity than we could ever think.

Yeah, that's a tremendous breakthrough, scientific breakthrough, that understanding and insight. But that insight is really crucial because it really does reinforce the whole notion of continued engagement as you talk about. What about social engagement? Where does that come into the picture?

Yes, yes. Social engagement is very important also. I call that external, but it's very important also. And a lot of people learn that the hard way, you know, during the pandemic when everything shut down and closed down and they, for some reason, didn't recognize the importance of still engaging with other people, you know. And a lot of people went into depression, you know, mood swings and all those kind of things because they didn't realize the connection with other people. And so it's very, very important to get that social engagement because when you think, when you talk to someone, you piggyback off the things they say. They take you into new directions, things you didn't think of. They'll say something that'll spark something in your mind. If you have to explain something to somebody, it's sharpening your own skills. They say the best way to know if you know something is to teach it to someone else. That's going to be the true test if you know what you're doing, you know. And so if we deprive ourselves of that, you know, also laughter, the benefits of laughing and engaging and smiling, all of those things when we do social engagements are occurring, and it's giving you those feel-good hormones that are kicking in and all of that. The pleasure, the kindness, even acts of kindness are beneficial to your brain.

Yeah, you know, yeah, um, acts of gratitude and appreciation for what we have and for what others have given us. Yeah, well, okay, so these are essentials, these are really the fundamentals here. And then we want to talk about destressing, that D in our acronym, destressing.

Yeah, it's a big D. And, and in my life, that's where I was— well, that's where I had the biggest hole, because de-stressing is something a lot of us, um, put ourselves on the back burner, you know, in terms about caring for ourselves and taking time. Some of us even feel guilty when we take time out for ourselves, you know. With this life the way it is, you may find yourself going so many directions or good reason. I mean, you have to take care of your kids, your family, your job, whatever. I mean, you have— it's not that you're not, not doing anything that's, that's needed. But at some point, on a regular basis, hopefully a daily basis, you need to pause and love on yourself for a few minutes. You know, it doesn't have to be hours and hours, but just take time to slow down and enjoy something for you. And if that means different things to different people, Find out the things that you truly enjoy because it's going to take you out of that fight or flight mode that we put ourselves in, either consciously or unconsciously. Some of us that are workaholics or go-go-getters or people that can't stop or whatever are in this low-grade stress mode that we've become accustomed to, that we're comfortable with, that we don't even recognize in ourselves anymore. It's always there. And if that's there, that means you're not resting. And if you're not in that restful state, the parasympathetic state, if you're not in that state, your body is affected because your blood pressure raises when you're in the fight or flight. Your digestive system slows down or even shuts down when you're in that. So you need to get back in the parasympathetic so that those things can turn on again. So your blood pressure can go down where it's supposed to be. So your digestive system can start. So your healing, your healing cannot occur when you're in that fight or flight stressful mode. And for all those things to occur, you need to put yourself back in that. And so taking time out for you and calming down, shutting things off, having a set time— you know, I'm not working to 9 or 10 o'clock at night every night. I'm closing shop at a certain time. I'm doing something for me. That is so, so very important. And that's what a lot of people don't do until their body does it for them.

Yeah, and the, the whole practice of mindfulness is one of the key kind of vehicles or bridges to that de-stressing because it forces us to stop and slow down and really tune into what's going on, what's going on in our body. You know, I did an exercise this morning with a small group that I run, and we did a raisin meditation, and it was like 7 or 8 steps to look at a single raisin, feel it, smell it, hold it up to our lips and then taste it and chew it. So it took several minutes to eat a single raisin.

Yeah.

And that, you know, when I told the group, I said, imagine if you could eat your meals like this with that kind of mindfulness and appreciating every sensation that we take in. So that's what you're talking about. Yeah. Really slowing down and removing ourselves from the hustle.

Yes. Yeah. And then the detox aspect, and if there's so many toxins out there that we aren't able to do away with, we're exposed. And so we have to, we have to work on reducing the toxic load, you know. So there are things that we can do personally to reduce the load, that the exposure that we're personally getting. And that's in a lot of different arenas. It's the environmental, and it's of course the food, you know, it's the household cleaning, it's the personal care, cosmetics, it's the cellular radiation. It's a lot of different areas. That are toxic to our brain. Neurotoxins, you know, established neurotoxins that have become convenience to us.

Yeah. Okay. So we're making it through the 5 letters, N-E-E-D, and the last one is S for sleep.

S is for sleep.

What are the essentials here? What's the point you want to drive home about sleep?

The point I want to drive home is that your brain needs its time to do what it needs to do. That's the time that it has set aside. Where it's like, my husband was a construction foreman. And he used to tell me how they did their job. When they were working on building up what they call a tilt-up, when they're building that thing, they didn't worry about all the debris and the trash and stuff. They were on a time schedule. And their job was just to get that thing up. And they think stuff is flying and everything, trash is everywhere. And they leave it alone. And they just keep working, keep working, keep working. And when they get it up, they have— then they have a big mess to clean up. And they bring in their cleaning crew, and it may take them days, 30 people or whatever it is, cleaning up everything. And so they let things fly where they may because they know that it's going to get cleaned up when it's done. That's how our brain works. During the day, our brain is just doing stuff, and it's taking care of all the business, doing all this stuff. It's not worried about cleaning up. System, glial cells, this system are 10 times more active at night when we're asleep. So during the day, there's a minimal, minimal of cleaning and stuff going up in terms of the debris, the waste, the toxins, the waste products, all that stuff, organizing, putting things in their place. They don't worry about all that. That happens because they know that at night when you go to sleep, all hands on deck, we're going to take care of it. And it's going to take them 7 to 9 hours to do that. And so if we're not going to give our brain that time, that's like going to a hotel and you're in your hotel and you leave and they're supposed to come in and clean up and you keep on saying do not disturb, put it on there, and you don't never let them come clean up. Eventually your, your room's gonna look pretty bad.

Yeah.

And so we do, we do that with our brain. We sacrifice sleep for so many other things to our detriment.

Yeah, we used to think of sleep as a, a way to get our needed rest, but it's so much more than that, isn't it? It really is. Is cleaning processes, toxin cleaning process, the glymphatic system, especially in deep sleep. That if we don't have that deep sleep, I don't think we can, you know, eliminate a lot of those toxins.

Yeah, that's like the stages too, because they say with the people that wake up a lot during the night, you know, then they have to go back to the stage 1, and that does not allow for the brain to continue, like you say, to get to the deep sleep or stay in the deep sleep or whatever. And so there's different practices that you can do. I mean, this is habit. And they say, unfortunately, they say it can take like 10 weeks of consecutively working on a certain thing to change a habit before you see results. Hopefully it's not going to take that long, but they say don't give up unless you've done it consistently for like 10 weeks to decide that that's not working for you.

Well, these are essentials, like you said. These are the, the building blocks of healthy aging. The 5, you know, the N-E-E-D-S. So nutrition and the exercise and engagement and de-stressing and sleep. So of course the fundamental question is, even more than knowing this, is how do we implement this? How do we put this into practice? We, we hear this time and again, we need A, we need B, we need C, we need all these, but how do we do it? And you talk a lot about that in terms of getting the— helping the person take responsibility, being accountable for these behavior changes. What's the secret that you like to share?

I like to say, first of all, it's a journey. So let's not be too hard on ourselves. It's a journey. So, and no one's perfect. So when you fall off the wagon, you get back on, you know, get back on the horse. You fall off the horse, get back on the horse, you know, so you don't have to get into guilt or quit because you're not perfect or you can't get it, you know, in 2 weeks or whatever. It's a journey, it's a lifestyle. So that's number 1. Number 2 is, like you said, it's enough to know what you're supposed to do. I hear people all the time, I mean, they know what to do. You have to come up with a plan. Okay, how are you going to implement it? You know, keep saying, I know I should get— I should sleep more, I know I should sleep more. Okay, so what are you doing to to move you toward sleeping better. You have to have some kind of plan. And that plan is going to look different for different people. Like I say, we're all unique. And everyone's not going to want to do the same thing. Fortunately, there are lots of different options. There's lots of different ways you can get to the same result. And so I like to present people with different choices. And then they come up with something that's going to fit them. Because you know and I know that someone can tell you what you need to do. And as they're telling you, what you need to do, you're looking right back at him thinking, I'm not doing that. You know? And so you need to find a plan for you. So you need to be willing to take a look at what your options are and come up with a plan. But still, even after that, that's not good enough because guess what you have to do? You have to work your plan. Because you know, that's one thing, that's the next step we do. We all, we know what to do. We say we're gonna do this. But we never initiate it, you know. And then you need to monitor and assess, you know. A lot of times that takes a buddy, that takes a mentor, that takes a counselor, that takes someone else that you have confided to in terms of, this is what I want to do. Because you know how we are, we'll tell ourselves we're going to do something, but if nobody else knows about it, then if we don't do it, you know, no foul, you know.

Yeah, easy to miss that day, right?

You know, but once you make— step out there and tell someone and exactly what you're going to do, and then they say, okay, is it okay if I, you know, remind you or, or ask you to get back with you and see how that's coming, you know, then that even gives you more motivation. And so I found that that is very, very helpful because it's helpful with me, you know, and it's helpful with a lot of other people too. But you have someone that's going to monitor and assess and reassess and all of that.

I, I like what you said. That, that's very good. Thanks. I like what you said about it being a journey and it's a process. It's not going to happen overnight. And we can set a goal and whatever it is. And I like to talk about behavior changes. Goals are great, but what am I going to do tomorrow that brings me a little closer to my goal? Or what did I do today that I didn't do yesterday that brought me closer to my goal? It's these tiny turtle steps and we build momentum from that and we get success and we get reinforced. So that's where I think it's so hard to change behavior. We all know that, right? Right. But, um, it's taking these tiny steps. And like you say, we need the plan, of course, and we need to work the plan and we need to make sure it's working for us, individualized, tailored for our specific needs. But again, being mindful of the tiny steps. And like you say, It's a journey. It's a journey. Yeah. So ease up on ourselves.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now we're just about out of time. I'd like to ask about this term you introduced me to, neurobics. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Neurobics. N-E-U-R-O-B-I-C-S. So what's this about?

Neurobics. It's a fun— it turns out being a fun thing. At least I think it's fun. And it is a way to nurture your brain. We talked about your brain needs to be nourished, of course, with nutrition and the right nutrients and all of that. And that's That's definitely true. But it also has to be nurtured. It's just like we're talking about when you have a little child and you want them to be able to create, develop their brain by creating new pathways and things. And neurobics will nurture your new brain cells. Because they say when your new brain cells— and we get new brain cells throughout our life. The pace, the rate at which they come slows down. Of course, it's everything slows down as we age. So that's going to slow down, but they don't stop. So the challenge is, is that if you don't nurture them, 50% of them will die. And so you got your old ones dying because that's part of life, you got your new ones being born, and then 50% dying. You can see where you can run— start running short, you know, after a while. So what you want to do, because they say if you do take the time to nurture them, 99% of those that you get will remain intact and mature, develop new pathways to be able to take over when the old— as the old ones are dying. So that's what you want to do. So neurobics is a fun way, simple way to make sure that your brain is discovering and problem solving and all of that on a basis. So what it is, is that you're going to do a routine that you do all the time, a routine in your life, simple routine that you do. You're going to do it a different way focusing on a different sense, like your eyes or your ears or your taste or whatever. So it's even your hands. For example, when you get up in the morning, you brush your teeth. I'm pretty confident that most of us do that. You brush your teeth every morning. So whatever your non-dominant hand is, whichever hand is your non-dominant hand, like I'm right-handed. So when I get up in the morning, I'm going to brush my teeth with my left hand. So it's a normal routine that I'm doing a different way. Using— instead of using my right, I'm using my left. You can close your eyes to do certain things. So when you're trying to put your— the key in the door or turn on the car or whatever, close your eyes and do it. You can still feel around with your hands, but keep your eyes closed. You can use your smell when you're going to get spices or something out of the kitchen or putting spices into your foods or whatever. Close your eyes and smell it. See if you can figure out the difference between the nutmeg and the cinnamon or whatever, you know. You can, um, of course chopsticks is a favorite one for me because I'm not adept at it, so that's an easy one. But you can go to different stores, you can go to the same store, like you have a brand grocery stores you always go to, go to that store in a different location because guess what, the aisles where they put the food is going to be different places. So you can figure out where the milk is in this store, where the, you know, where the bread is in this store. And you're going to have to try to figure that. That is, that is giving your brain all these new experiences. Go to a different store, that, a different restaurant, eat a different food, anything you can think of, you know. Get up and when you have to go to the bathroom and at night don't cut the light on, don't kill yourself, don't— be careful, you know. That's neurobics. And it's fun.

Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, staying away from the familiar and kind of doing that new thing. And, you know, brushing our teeth with our non-dominant hand, the left hand. Or, yeah, I like the smells and driving to a different route and going in the store, a different store, that from what we're used to. Yeah, that I can see that that's going to help to create some of these new neural pathways. Yeah, very stimulating. That's great. That's a great concept. Well, Bernice, it looks like we're out of time for today. Um, before I wrap up, I just wanna remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club, and sign up for our email list and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. You'll also see an option to contact me with your questions and comments. I welcome your feedback. Bernice, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. For those who might wanna contact you, how can they do that?

I have a website called keepyourbrainsharp.com, so you can go to keepyourbrainsharp.com and you can contact me through there. I also have some free brain quizzes on the website you can take, as well as free masterclasses you can take. And so that's the best way to get a hold of me. Keepyourbrainsharp.com.

That's great. That's great. Stimulating conversation, good ideas, good recommendations, good takeaways too. So thanks so much. Thanks for being a guest on our program today. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

Hey everybody, Jared Sebaste here, host of Retire Repurposed. This podcast is dedicated to help people transition into fulfilling and purposeful retirements. Retirement is a big life change. In fact, the two most dangerous years of a person's life. Are the year they were born and the year they retire. Few people could just flip the switch from working a career 30 or 40+ years, retiring on Friday, without methodical steps to living what we call a repurposed retirement. To listen now, search Retire Repurpose on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.