ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? Clever ways to train your brain

Forget clean eating, it’s ‘clean thinking’ that will make you less forgetful, distractible and foggy. Nicola Down discovers how to train her brain

Like most 40-plussers, I don’t just want to do it all and have it all, I want to remember it all, too. But the number of times I’ve turned bottles of white wine into Slush Puppies when I’ve left them in the freezer to chill and promptly forgotten about them has made me question whether I’m as sharp as I used to be. Whereas once the mere act of agreeing to do something used to be enough to log it into my memory, I now rely on Alexa; even then, I’m not making a pinky promise. But with the hectic hustle of work, family and life that demands an increasing array of Post-it reminders, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I drop the occasional ball (or, er, forget where I parked). I’m not alone in noticing fuzzier thinking. Friends running start-ups, who are at their peak of power and creativity, talk about going blank when trying to remember their card PIN. Cloudier thinking, brain fog and mild memory lapses are also oh-so-common during the perimenopause (a time before menopause when oestrogen levels start to decline) and into the menopausal years. But with life expectancy on the rise in the UK, a switched-on mind is key to bossing all that extra time, meaning our grey matter has never mattered so much.

Cognitive chaos

Firstly, a heads-up on what happens to our brains as we age. It is, as you’d expect, complex, and it varies from person to person but, broadly speaking, brain function can be split into two. There’s the mechanics (responsible for things like information processing, memory, speed of response) that can gradually slow with age, and there’s the brain’s pragmatic functions (drawing upon accumulated knowledge and experience to make decisions), which actually improve with age. This new wisdom we’re clocking up with every birthday is one of the reasons why Dr Daniel Levitin, a leading neuroscientist and author of trailblazing new book The Changing Mind, believes it’s possible to hold mental downfall in check. ‘While memory, reasoning and speed can slightly slow with age, our mental vitality need not,’ he says.

In fact, it’s unlikely to be our minds tripping us up but our increasingly overscheduled lives, a culture of multitasking and a plugged-in society. ‘Busy is good for the brain, but overwhelmed is not,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘When you’re at a high level of demand and are stretched thin, you may have a feeling of being less mentally sharp, but chances are you’re not losing your keys because of your memory, but because you weren’t paying attention to where you put them in the first place.’

The problem is that we’re increasingly doing one thing while thinking of (or being distracted by) another. ‘With age, the prefrontal cortex changes in ways that make us more distractible – and distractibility is the enemy of memory encoding,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘Short-term memory depends on you actively paying attention to something, but if you start thinking about something else, even momentarily, or are distracted with a new thought, someone asking you a question, your phone pinging, this can disrupt your short-term memory. Our ability to automatically restore this memory declines slightly every decade after the age of 30.’

BE A CLEAN THINKER

The answer? Monotasking rather than multitasking and remembering that doing 10 things at once dilutes our focus. Being more mindful of the black holes of distraction at our fingertips (yes, smartphones and other tech, we’re talking about you) is also essential. Dr Levitin suggests practising good digital hygiene: namely, only checking emails a few times a day at times you decide and switching off other tech alerts so you stay engaged with the task at hand. This is backed up by a study from Stanford University, which found that heavy media multitaskers (think listening to a podcast while looking at emails) tended to do worse on tests of working memory and long-term memory than light users. ‘Many of us need to step back and think, “What can I do about distractions?” rather than, “What can I do about memory?”’ says Dr Levitin.

We also need to get more involved in what we need to remember because, according to Dr Levitin, passively listening is a surefire way to forget something. ‘We tend to remember best the things that we pay the most attention to,’ he says. ‘Actively using information, generating and regenerating it, engages more areas of the brain than merely listening.’ For example, if you forget names, saying ‘Nice to meet you, Tom. Have you read any good books lately, Tom?’ could boost your recall by 50% with very little effort. Writing things down and making lists are also useful, and there’s a growing body of research to suggest that drawing what you need to remember forces your brain into a deeper kind of processing, too.

‘WHILE MEMORY CAN SLIGHTLY SLOW WITH AGE, OUR MENTAL VITALITY NEED NOT’

Get chronobiology clever

Looking after your chronobiology – aka the set of internal clocks that regulate our various cycles of attention, energy, restoration and repair that our brains and bodies go through – is also key. ‘When these are not functioning properly, neurons degenerate, cell metabolism is compromised, and the body’s normal system of cellular repair is disrupted,’ says Dr Levetin. The cornerstones of chronobiology? Step forward the trio of diet, exercise and sleep.

The first thing we should be doing? Making a commitment to exercise regularly, as it’s a science-backed way to pump up retention and recall. In a nutshell, it improves blood flow to the brain, which keeps nerve cells healthy and supplied with oxygen. But while exercising on a treadmill is good, walking around the neighbourhood is better, and walking in nature is better still. ‘Every step you take on a treadmill is helping to oxygenate your blood, but it’s not helping your brain to keep its navigational skills and memory systems honed,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘In contrast, walking on an unpaved trail outdoors requires you to make hundreds of micro adjustments to foot pressure, angle and pace, and to adapt to new things, and this can make an enormous difference in fending off cognitive decline.’ A top tip? Before you’re about to learn something new, do something active – whether that’s going for a run or an energising yoga class. ‘When you get your heart rate up just before a mental task, you prime the brain with increased blood flow, which creates an enriched setting for mental activity,’ says Dr Levitin.

No prizes for guessing that a balanced, nutrient-rich diet is vital for brain health, but there’s also growing evidence that the gut microbiome affects cognition and brain health. ‘We already know that serotonin is important for mood, memory and anxiety, and it turns out that 90% of the serotonin in the body resides in the gut,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘Kefir, yogurt and other fermented milk products containing probiotics have been shown to have a positive effect on mood and the brain’s emotional centres.’

Recently moved to a more plant-based diet? Know this: ‘Vitamin B, which is found in meat, poultry, eggs, milk and fish, is necessary for the production of myelin (a nerve cell protector) in the brain,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘A deficiency is associated with cognitive decline, while older individuals with high B levels generally perform better on cognitive tests. Vegans may want to consider supplements. As we age, our stomachs also produce less gastric acid, reducing our ability to absorb vitamin B, so deficiency is more common as we get older.’

Clocking up zzzs is also vital. ‘Sleep is restorative – it’s when your cellular repair and cleansing mechanisms kick into overtime,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘It’s only recently that we’ve begun to fully appreciate the enormous amount of cognitive processing that happens when we’re asleep. Consolidation of memories takes place, alongside problem solving and emotional processing.’ Need more convincing to get to bed? ‘The amount of people who can get away with fewer than five hours of sleep a night without showing major impairment is tiny – said to be between 0.5-1%.’ The best plan of attack? Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning – even on weekends. ‘Even a slight change to your schedule – staying up an hour later than usual, for instance – can affect your memory and alertness for days,’ says Dr Levitin.

STRETCH YOUR MIND

Right now, there’s a wave of research finding that meditation can also help to lift the brain fog. ‘It involves maintaining attention to your immediate experience in the moment, and away from distractions and mind wandering, and this can make your brain more efficient,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘In research, long-term meditators show structural changes in the brain, but even brief meditation reduces fatigue and anxiety, and increases processing and working memory. In many cases, these benefits last even after meditation practice has stopped.’ So, if you have a big presentation and you have those jitters where you think you’ll forget every word, pause. Take a second to bring yourself back to the present, focus on your breathing, and relax. Your mind will work better for it.

Making time for relationships – for your partner, friends, family, and to extend your social circle with people both younger and older than you

– is also a no-brainer. ‘Studies have found that a bigger predictor than cholesterol level at age 50 for health at age 80 is the quality of your relationships, with those having people they can count on in their time of need retaining sharper memories for longer,’ says Dr Levitin. ‘Social interaction – being around others – activates nearly every part of our brains and uses relatively advanced cognitive operations. This is one of the reasons why isolation and lack of connectedness are strong predictors for disease and mortality.’

So, spend more time with others IRL and you might find you’re less likely to forget the name of whatshisface in IT.

It’s Dave, probably. Or Darren…

‘EVEN BRIEF MEDITATION REDUCES FATIGUE AND ANXIETY, AND INCREASES WORKING MEMORY’

The Changing Mind: A Neuroscientist’s Guide To Ageing Well by Daniel Levitin (Penguin Life) is out now