HOW TO BUILD A BETTER BRAIN
New research has found that boosting your memory and staying sharp don’t require cutting-edge technology or supplements. The real solution: Stick to the basics.
New research has found that boosting your memory and staying sharp don’t require cutting-edge technology or supplements. Sticking to the basics is more powerful than we ever knew.
WWendy Suzuki was a highly respected brain researcher with her own lab and a string of published studies when a high-energy gym class and a quiet cup of tea changed her neurons—and her life.
“I just wanted stronger muscles, but after six months of aerobic exercise, I noticed that difficult mental jobs were easier. I could keep lots of little details in my mind,” recalls Suzuki, 55, a professor at New York University’s Center for Neural Science. “It transformed my research. Exercise and the brain is a major focus of my work now. And I exercise almost every day.”
But that was only the beginning. While on vacation in Bali around that time, Suzuki met a monk staying at the same inn. He was a tea master, and he shared his morning meditation: “Simply brewing a cup of tea in silence and sipping it, without thinking about the million things you have to do today.” Suzuki, who had never been a serious meditator, felt invigorated. Now, she says, “I start every day with a meditation as I steep and sip my tea.”
The encounter led to a 2019 study titled “Brief, Daily Meditation Enhances Attention, Memory, Mood, and Emotional Regulation.” The participants, who were not experienced meditators, benefited from just 13 minutes a day of gentle breathing and relaxation for eight weeks.
If Suzuki had looked into her own brain after establishing her new routines—and, as a neuroscientist, she is the rare person who could do such a thing—she’d have witnessed some amazing things: new brain cells sprouting new connections, new blood vessels feeding more oxygen and fuel to her neurons, and more brain tissue in areas involved with learning, memory, and decision making. Both exercise and meditation, it turns out, can trigger chemical reactions that pave the way for a
rejuvenation explosion. Even more astounding, this renaissance—called neuroplasticity—was once thought to happen only in children’s brains.
But research now shows that the brain can do these tricks at any age. Benefits include improved memory and thinking skills, more creativity, and a reduced risk of dementia. Or, as Suzuki enthusiastically says, “You can grow a bigger, happier brain.”
Lately, an avalanche of new studies is pointing out exactly how to harness neuroplasticity. Advanced brainimaging techniques (among other lab tools) are allowing researchers to get a peek at how everything from sleep to food to physical activity affects your little gray cells.
One insight worth mentioning right here: Brain plasticity works both ways. “About 50 percent of the things people do every day that affect their brain are toxic,” notes cognitive neuroscientist Sandra Bond Chapman, PHD, founder and chief director of the Center for Brainhealth at the University of Texas at Dallas. “They skimp on sleep. They multitask. They aren’t active.”
Besides changing those bad habits, what can you do to grow your own new brain cells? Hint: Brain scientists don’t recommend spending a lot of money on brain-training programs or nutritional supplements. Nor do they advocate trying science-fictional stuff such as do-it-yourself electrical stimulation. (See page 68 for more on that.)
Fresh from the front lines of brain science, here are simple things you can do to build a better brain.
Yes to Green Leafy Veggies, No to “Nootropics”
In 2015, researchers from Australia’s Deakin University published one of the first studies measuring food’s physical effect on the left hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped brain region crucial for memory, learning, and decision making. It is also one of the first areas to shrink in people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Two hundred fifty-five people filled out diet surveys and then underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans that measured their brains. Four years later, they returned for another scan.
The study found that the left hippocampus was heftier in the healthy eaters than in the unhealthy ones, regardless of age, sex, weight, exercise habits, or general health. The average difference was 203 square millimeters, nearly one third of a square inch. Sounds small, but that’s room for a lot of extra brain cells—and strong new evidence that eating the right foods and skipping the wrong stuff could
“ABOUT 50 PERCENT OF THE THINGS PEOPLE DO EVERY DAY ARE TOXIC.”
help protect against declines in thinking and memory that lead to dementia.
Brain-friendly fare associated with a bigger hippocampus included fresh fruits and vegetables, salads, and grilled fish. The brain-shrinking diet was heavy on burgers, fries, and soft drinks, as well as sausage, potato chips, and red meat.
Healthy eating doesn’t just prevent brain decline. It boosts scores on thinking and memory tests, according to a study published in March 2019 that tracked 2,621 American women and men for 30 years. “Plant-based diets have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects that may protect against cognitive decline and dementia,” says lead researcher Claire Mcevoy, RD, of the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Even a little healthy food goes a long way. According to a 2018 Rush University study that tracked 960 people for 4.7 years, participants who ate just 1.3 extra servings of green leafy vegetables a day—that’s 1.3 cups of salad or a smidge more than half a cup of cooked spinach, kale, or collards—demonstrated cognitive abilities similar to those of people 11 years younger. And a January 2020 study in the journal Neurology showed that getting just 15.3 milligrams a day of plant compounds called flavonols—the amount in a small green salad plus one cup of cooked veggies and a half cup of berries—was associated with a 48 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s-like dementia.
“That’s not a lot on a day-to-day basis,” says lead study author Thomas M. Holland, MD, a Rush University researcher. If you eat “a big salad every other day, throw in some carrots or broccoli at dinner, and snack on some strawberries, then you’ve got it.”
How are these power foods working
with your brain cells? Animal and test-tube experiments suggest that compounds in healthy diets—such as B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and beneficial polyphenols found in plant foods—help new cells make copies of DNA when they divide and multiply. Meanwhile, high-fat, high-sugar processed foods—from packaged meals to chips and candy—harm brain cells by boosting inflammation and leaving brain tissue vulnerable to damage by rogue oxygen molecules called free radicals. This may interfere with brain plasticity, making processed foods an especially potent threat for the developing brains of kids and teens.
While food emerges as an important brain protector, experts say brain supplements (sometimes called nootropics) aren’t all that effective. These pills and capsules may contain vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and amino acids in addition to herbs, caffeine, green tea extract, mushroom powder, jellyfish protein, or other ingredients. But studies show that they don’t activate brain cells in a significantly positive way. “Let the buyer beware,” says David Hogan, MD, a specialist in geriatric medicine at the University of Calgary. Dr. Hogan authored a 2015 review of brain supplements in the Canadian Geriatrics Journal that found no convincing evidence of benefits.
In fact, at least one ingredient in some of these supplements could harm your health. A study of nootropics in the November 2019 Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that the unapproved drug piracetam was found in four out of five brands tested, at levels that could cause side effects such as insomnia and depression.
Exercise: Moves That Reprogram the Brain
“PLANT-BASED DIETS PROTECT AGAINST COGNITIVE DECLINE AND DEMENTIA.”
Most of the time, your brain is the boss of your muscles—directing how you hit a ball, play the piano, or open a cereal box. But when it comes to growing new brain cells, more and more research shows that when you exercise, your muscles (along with your liver and body fat) take charge. When you’re active, they send chemical signals telling your brain, “Hey, it’s time to grow!” Recent research suggests physical activity has multiple brain benefits, encouraging the birth and growth of new brain cells and the extension of blood vessels that supply oxygen and blood sugar to brain cells.
In a 2016 National Institute on Aging study, people who ran on a treadmill for 45 minutes three days a week boosted their levels of brain-derived
neurotrophic factor, a chemical that acts like fertilizer for new brain cells. After four months of workouts, their scores improved on a memory test.
Without exercise, Suzuki says, “little baby neurons don’t get bigger and make thousands of new connections to other brain cells. With exercise, you get fully functioning adult brain cells.” Studies suggest that in younger adults, this can add to the overall number of cells in the hippocampus. And once age-related brain changes begin, starting in our 30s, exercise helps keep brain cells alive longer and replaces old cells with new ones. It’s a good deal. “There’s evidence these new brain cells are very active,” she says. “They’re excitable, like teenagers. They get involved in more memory circuits than older cells do. You get more connections.”
At any age, you might notice over time that you feel more alert and have an easier time remembering things after you start a new exercise routine.
Sticking with it could reduce your risk for dementia. “Women who were fit at midlife and stayed fit into their 80s delayed the development of dementia by nine years in one exciting study,” Suzuki says. “That’s huge.”
Again, a little goes a long way. If you’re inactive, a stroll around the block may be all it takes to encourage neuroplasticity, she says. And every bit counts. In a 2019 Boston University study of 2,354 adults in their 40s through 60s, sedentary people who boosted their daily walking by 7,500 steps or more had bigger brains than those who didn’t exercise—equivalent to 1.4 to 2.2 fewer years of brain aging. The more light activity study participants logged, such as doing housework, shopping, gardening, or walking the dog, the greater the overall size of their brains.
Sleep: The Nighttime Brain Cleanup
In 2019, Boston University researchers put caps with attached wires on 13 people, sent them to sleep for the night inside a functional MRI machine, and then tracked the electrical activity that naturally ripples across the gray matter. It was like shooting a film of the brain’s secret life, and it was a great show. The researchers found that as brain waves slowed during deep sleep, blood levels dropped in some areas, allowing more of the cerebrospinal fluid that normally surrounds and cushions the brain to pulse in and then recede like an outgoing tide. The watery ballet may increase communication in the slumbering brain. It also might wash away toxins—by-products left over from a long day of thinking— thought to interfere with memory.
The results suggest new ways sleep restores our little gray cells. Long familiar to bleary-eyed new parents, college
students pulling all-nighters, and the sleep scientists who study them, sleep deprivation messes with mental focus, stifles creativity, interferes with recall, and slows reaction times by as much as 50 percent. The effects are immediate— in a University of South Florida study of 130 middle-aged women and men, missing out on just 16 minutes of sleep reduced their concentration the next day. (Sleep changes have also been linked to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, but it is less clear which comes first.) In contrast, a good night’s sleep doubled volunteers’ ability to remember words they’d learned the day before, according to a 2015 study from the United Kingdom’s University of Exeter.
Brain scientist Michael Scullin, the director of the Sleep Neuroscience & Cognition Laboratory at Baylor University, believes so passionately in the value of a good night’s sleep that he bribed undergraduates with extra points if they got eight hours’ sleep a night during exam week. “I didn’t expect it, but they also scored about four points higher—before adding the extra credit—on their
A STROLL MAY BE ALL IT TAKES TO ENCOURAGE NEUROPLASTICITY.
finals in my class,” he reports. “That’s enough to go from a B+ to an A. Even I was surprised by the power of sleep!”
To ensure that you get enough sleep (eight hours is the magic number for most people), “try to stick with a regular sleep schedule,” Scullin suggests. “Prime your body clock by getting natural light exposure in the morning and by relaxing at night. And if your bed partner tells you that you snore loudly, tell your doctor. Obstructive
sleep apnea can raise risk for brain threats like high blood pressure.”
You may be surprised by the wide range of brain-powered benefits you reap from getting enough sleep. “Every aspect of brain health is related to sleep quality and quantity,” Scullin says. “We
“WOULD WE BE MORE CIVIL AS A SOCIETY IF WE GOT ENOUGH SLEEP?”
even found in a recent study that people were less likely to forgive each other when they got six hours of sleep than when they got seven and a half or eight hours. When I see all of the impulsive, aggressive, negative messages people send to one another, especially on social media, I have to wonder if lack of sleep isn’t part of the reason. Would we be more civil, more willing to listen as a society, if we got enough sleep?”
Challenge Your Brain, the Smart Way
Human intelligence comes in two varieties. There’s dependable, reliable “crystallized intelligence,” which draws on the knowledge you’ve learned. Then there’s creative “fluid intelligence,” a jazzy superpower that calls on abstract reasoning, working memory, mental focus, and other cerebral talents to find out-of-the-box solutions.
So imagine the excitement in 2008 when University of Michigan scientists announced that brain-training games could boost fluid intelligence. Since then, the brain-training industry has grown into a $1.9 billion behemoth that promises to tune up your thinking, enhance memory, and even stall declines that lead to dementia.
But brain training may work for only some people. In a 2020 study, Wayne State University neuroscientists measured fluid intelligence gains in 424 people ages 18 to 44 who performed various combinations of brain training, mindfulness training, and aerobic exercise for 16 weeks. Two hundred eighty-two also had brain scans. A majority (74 percent) improved their fluid thinking a little, while 9 percent got worse. Just 17 percent (including people from the groups that got brain training) improved significantly. In this group, some brain areas involved in fluid intelligence—including the hippocampus and the larger anterior cingulate cortex—were bigger than average (though a few were actually smaller).
Without getting a brain scan, how do you know if you’re one of the 17 percent who might benefit a lot from brain games, along with exercise and mindfulness? Your attitude might be a clue. If you already love playing brain games, they will probably help.
“You have to increase levels of the feel-good brain chemical dopamine in order to generate brain-cell growth,”
explains neuroscientist William Shankle, MD, medical director of the Pickup Family Neurosciences Institute of the Hoag Hospital Network in Newport Beach, California. “Don’t do things you don’t like because they’re supposed to boost brainpower. Pick something you love. Keep learning about it and doing it. It takes passion to get benefits. Over time, people who keep their minds active have slower declines in memory and thinking. They build cognitive reserve, which helps the brain find work-arounds even when there are physical signs of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.”
So do what you like. A study of 1,091 older adults found that playing old-fashioned games such as cards, bingo, and chess several times a week was linked to sharper thinking and memory skills—on par with a 1.4-point-higher IQ. In a Mayo Clinic study, people who kept up with arts and crafts such as sewing, woodworking, and painting were 45 to 73 percent less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment over four years.
Focus counts too. “Chronic multitasking and constantly switching your attention from one thing to another disrupts the memory-formation system in your hippocampus,” Chapman explains. “Allow yourself to focus on just one thing and go deep. This can change brain structure and brain function for the better.”
Calm Down
While you’re at it, try meditation. It may give the brain a helping hand by calming stress circuits that link up areas involved with memory and thinking, Suzuki explains. In a 2013 study from the University of California, Santa Barbara, college students who learned to meditate had better mental focus and got higher scores on graduate-school exams than nonmeditators.
Yoga also encourages brain plasticity, according to a 2019 University of Illinois at Urbana-champaign review of 11 brain-imaging studies. People who practiced hatha yoga tended to have a larger hippocampus, amygdala (the area of the brain involved in coping with emotions), and prefrontal cortex (involved with planning and making decisions). Yoga’s brainchanging power may come from its mix of exercise with deep stress reduction, the researchers note.
“You can sit still, breathe, and reap brain-plasticity benefits,” Suzuki says. If you’re new to meditation or yoga, start small. “You don’t have to meditate for an hour. Even ten minutes can be too long at first. Start with one minute. Find a style of meditation you enjoy.”
“PICK SOMETHING YOU LOVE. IT TAKES PASSION TO GET BENEFITS.”