Yes, you can re-energise your mind

Tips and techniques from a fascinating new book by a top neurosurgeon prove...

WHEN I began working as a neurosurgeon more than 25 years ago, the idea of improving your brain seemed a rather misguided one.

After all, I was trained to remove tumours, clip aneurysms and relieve pressure from collections of blood and fluid inside people’s heads.

Despite all the advances in technology, even today, it is still not possible for a neurosurgeon to lift the lid on a human brain and adjust the 100 billion or so neurons to make the organ more intelligent and less vulnerable to decline.

While a heart surgeon might be able to snip away life-threatening plaques in the heart, I can’t dive in and tease away the brain tangles often associated with Alzheimer’s disease. There is still no operation or medication to cure dementia or reverse the ravages of ageing on your brain.

But I have worked in frontline brain surgery both in large city hospitals and in war zones, and have travelled the world in search of the secret to living longer, healthier and happier — and am now more convinced than ever that the brain can be changed constructively.

The science now shows we can optimise our brain in a variety of ways to improve its functionality, stimulate the growth of new brain cells and help stave off age-related brain illnesses. The great news is the human brain can be enhanced and fine-tuned, and I will show you how.

All this week the Irish Daily Mail is exclusively serialising my new book, Keep Sharp, and every day I will be bringing you scientifically proven ways to flex and strengthen your thinking power to help you build the mental resilience needed to keep mentally agile and focused into older age.

You might be surprised to read that my methods aren’t about improving intelligence. You won’t find exercises to help you remember items on your shopping list, to boost your performance in exams or execute tasks adeptly (though all of those goals will be more achievable with a better brain). Instead, I will show you how to propagate new brain cells and make existing ones work more efficiently.

My mission is to help you learn to build a brain that connects patterns others might miss and help you to better navigate life. This, ultimately, should help protect you from dementia.

It is not surprising that many of us consider dementia to be the bogeyman of old age. We fear losing our minds more than any other form of illness — even more than death.

I, too, worried deeply about cognitive decline when I had to watch my grandfather progress through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

At first, he seemed to be contributing to conversations in nonsensical ways. Because he was a fun-loving, quick-to-laugh sort of guy, we thought perhaps he was making jokes we weren’t quite in on yet. What finally gave him away was the vacant stare that would turn to puzzlement, and then panic, as he realised he could not recall how to carry out the most basic tasks and plans.

I will never forget that look — at least, I hope to never forget it.

Globally, the number of people living with Alzheimer’s disease will swell to 152million by 2050, which reflects a 200% increase in cases since 2018.

While science is trying to push back, there hasn’t been a single new treatment for the disease since 2002, despite more than 400 clinical trials.

So, it is reassuring to know that in this series, I will show you how to take the best possible steps to protect yourself against this terrible disease. My advice

is designed to help you achieve your greatest potential, and that includes helping you to prevent cognitive decline.

We know now that diseases like Alzheimer’s start 20 to 30 years before any symptoms develop, so this series gives you an opportunity to intervene and delay or even prevent Alzheimer’s altogether.

But fear of dementia should not be your sole motivation for following my advice. Instead, it should be the knowledge that you can build a better brain at any age. I will show you how you can make yours as sharp as it can be, so you can live life to its fullest.

I will show you just how important activity and exercise are for your brain, the significant dementiadefying role played by socialising and I will outline the protective powers of a brain-healthy diet.

I’ll help you discover great ways to ease the impact of stress, and increase the capacity of your brain so you can become sharper and more focused than you have ever been — whatever your age.

Some of the strategies I will teach you will help assemble brain scaffolding: creating a support structure for your brain which builds space, so you can safely perform a few renovations and reinforce your brain’s foundation.

Other strategies will help provide the raw materials you need to perform ongoing maintenance. Yet more aim to build what’s called ‘cognitive reserve’, or what scientists call ‘brain resiliency’. With more cognitive reserve, you can lower your risk of developing dementia.

Some of these behavioural changes are not merely effective, they are pretty much surgical in terms of the rapid improvements they can bring about.

The truth is, most of us have not done nearly enough to improve ourselves. But follow my guidance and you will develop a brain highly resilient in the face of the crushing life experiences we are now facing in the pandemic that might be disabling to others.