This is a recorded seminar by Total Nutrition & Therapeutics (TNT) in The Villages aimed at educating an active retirement community about optimizing brain health. Speakers describe a computerized neuropsychological test (CNS Vital Signs) that takes about 20 minutes and measures memory, reaction time, psychomotor speed, attention, and cognitive flexibility. The talk emphasizes that cognitive decline begins as early as the 40s, and that lifestyle measures—nutrition (including omega-3s), restorative sleep (about seven hours), regular exercise, and reduced multitasking/technology—can improve memory and cognitive speed. The session also lists common "brain drainers" and points listeners to TNT's Brain Health Story page on YourHometownHealth.com for more information.
Questions this video answers
About 70,000 thoughts per day.
About 20 minutes.
Starting in your 40s (intervene between ages 40 and 50).
About seven hours of sleep.
According to the center for Brain Health, every day the average human brain has about 70,000 thoughts. That's a lot of information for your brain to process and store. The specialists at Total Nutrition and Therapeutics in the villages recently held a seminar session on ways to optimize your brain health.
Our intent for today is really to educate our community. We live in a very active retirement community and our goal, with technology in two of our parts. Number one, focusing on brain health, basically how a person can improve their overall cognitive function, their brain health, through lifestyle measures. So how can you test for it, how can you treat it? Through changing your lifestyle, through nutrition as well as supplementation. Our second presentation today is believing that you can and be. Thompson, who has inspired many of us for many years, is here to give us a talk, really on how to not only start our journey, but how to endure the journey.
I'm here to help educate consumers and residents here on the importance of brain health. The test that we utilize is a computerized test. A patient sits down in clinic, spends about 20 minutes doing a series of computerized neuropsychological tests that measure various cognitive domains. So it's not a questionnaire, it's actually a stimulated response where they have to follow a set of instructions and they're graded on their speed and accuracy. So it measures things like memory, reaction time, psychomotor speed, complex attention, cognitive flexibility, which are all very important health measures. We call it the central nervous system vital signs.
So the goal of today's educational seminar was to really transform our community. And transformation begins with education. Not only educating individuals on a one on one setting, but doing things like this, educating our community, giving them information that not only changes their life, but they can turn around and change other people's life as a result of it. So I think most people know that our memory declines, but I don't really think they believe that they can change it. And today's purpose and our education is really showing them that mental health or brain health actually declines starting in your 40s, unfortunately. So when we talk about the time period that we need to intervene, we need to be intervening between that 40 and 50 year old age point. By educating and changing your lifestyle, you can absolutely improve not only your brain speed, but your thought processes, your visual memory, your verbal memory, just by the foods that you're eating and the way in which you're sleeping, you know, are you getting restorative sleep? Are you not getting restorative sleep? Are you exercising? Are you not exercising? So there's so many things that you can do in your day to day activities that can absolutely improve your brain health.
The specialists at TNT note that if you want to keep your brain healthy, watch out for these brain drainers. Multitasking it disrupts connections and allows for more of the stress hormone cortisol to enter the brain. Too much technology. It teaches the brain to have a shorter attention span. Not getting enough omega 3s memory function is tied to this essential fatty acid. Not getting seven hours of sleep when you sleep, your brain clears out waste and helps consolidate memories. Not getting enough exercise Exercise increases the blood flow to the hippocampus, which has been associated with memory function. For more information on the services offered at Total Nutrition and Therapeutics in the Villages, follow the Brain Health Story link icon on our homepage YourHometownHealth.com.
