Challenge Your Body and Your Brain

Researchers from Concordia University recommend staying in school and climbing stairs to keep your brain young.

The Harvard Health Letter says to SHIELD your brain from decline: Sleep, Handle stress, Interaction with friends, Exercise daily, Learn new things, and eat a healthy Diet.

Researchers from Concordia University, led by Jason Steffener, a scientist at Montreal-based PERFORM Centre, found that the brain age decreases by 0.95 years for each year of education, and by 0.58 years for every daily flight of stairs climbed between two floors in a building.

They measured the volume of grey matter found in participants' brains because its decline, caused by neural shrinkage and neuronal loss, is a very visible part of the chronological aging process. Then, they compared brain volume to the participants' reported number of flights of stairs climbed, and years of schooling completed.

Results were clear: the more flights of stairs climbed, and the more years of schooling completed, the younger the brain.

"This study shows that education and physical activity affect the difference between a physiological prediction of age and chronological age, and that people can actively do something to help their brains stay young," Steffener says.

(You’ll find more details about this study in the March 9, 2016 issue of ScienceDaily.)

We’ll have more to say about this below, because I’ve recently had an MRI of my brain. We, of course, know that I graduated second in my class at law school. I’m also constantly going up and down the stairs connecting the three levels of our house during the day.

The February 2022 Harvard Health Letter uses the SHIELD acronym to remember the lifestyle habits that will help protect our memory and thinking skills: Sleep, Handle stress, Interaction with friends, Exercise daily, Learning new things, and eat a healthy Diet.

They suggest that you take them one at a time, eventually incorporating them all into your daily routine. Do that, they tell us, and it will make a substantial difference in your perception, reasoning, and remembering skills.

I would give myself a high score on everything except for engaging or interacting, where my communicating primarily by computer may be problematic. It allows Carol and me to engage with friends from all over the world but falls a little short on face to face contact. I enjoy doing it that way and Carol is happy either way.

Terry Todd enjoyed calling me the hermit on the mountain. But at the same time saw fit to display my photos at the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the University of Texas, Austin, as a display of the power of physical culture to preserve youthfulness.

We’ve long known that exercise—strength and aerobic—is good for the body and the heart. It now appears that what’s good for the heart is also good for the brain.

Heart and brain problems often coexist. The Cleveland Clinic Heart Advisor tells us that these “diseases of aging” are connected.

They tell us that “managing your cardiovascular risk factors appears to reduce the risk of dementia.”

“Staying active and enjoying the company of friends may help stave off both heart disease and Alzheimer’s.”

“Dementia is an umbrella term that describes a progressive deterioration in thinking and reasoning skills and judgment or behavior that interferes with day-to-day functioning.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the development of…plaques and…protein tangles in the brain. The most common symptom is short term memory loss. Alzheimer’s patients have problems storing recent memories, but often remember things that happened long ago.”

Harvard Professor Daniel E. Lieberman provides an example of the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in his book Exercised (Vintage Books, 2021):

When my grandmother's short-term memory started to fail, we thought it was caused by the stress of taking care of my ailing grandfather. But after he died, her mind continued to decline slowly and relentlessly, memory by memory. At first she couldn't remember where she had put things, whom she had just spoken to, and what she had eaten for lunch. Then, as her Alzheimer's progressed, she started having trouble recognizing family members and friends, and remembering basic words and key events of her life. Eventually, she lost her sense of both the present and the past. It was if the disease had stolen her mind, leaving behind just her body.

“Managing your cardiovascular risk factors seems to reduce the risk of dementia,” says James Leverenz, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Exercise, following a heart-healthy diet and not smoking may help prevent these feared brain diseases.

“We have learned that changes in the brain can start 10 to 20 years before you develop significant symptoms. That means that there is plenty of time to take steps to impact the course of the disease,” says Dr. Leverenz.

“What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Take care of yourself.”

When I asked Bill Pearl how he deals with his back problem, his answer was “I live with it.”

That’s how I’m approaching my problem with short term memory. It’s frustrating to have to think through doing things that I would normally do automatically.

I find that I do pretty well if I just go about my business—and not dwell on my problem.

I just did an interview on Zoom with an author and a fitness trainer, both from Canada. I did fine.

I enjoy talking about the how and why of my training and diet. I break both down to a few simple concepts.

My strength is connecting ideas. My article about Bob Hoffman--linking my own experiences with Hoffman with what I learned from Dan Sawyer and historian John Fair--was one of my best, highlighting my cerebral strong point.

Carol took this photo in our home study. Look carefully and you’ll see my paper-weight dumbbell
and Steve Klisanin on the cover of Joe Weider’s Muscle Builder with his Mr. America trophy.
The cover is autographed: Clarence/ The “Inspiration has reversed!”

I believe this is due to my lifetime of challenging my body and my mind, writing over 1000 articles and 10 books on various aspects of self-help.

Winning the pentathlon in high school and then doing well in law school got me off to a good start.

Those experiences taught me to set reasonable goals and work hard physically and mentally to achieve them.

My mother had dementia in the last years of her life. Her father had a similar problem. So I may have some bad genes, but I believe my lifestyle—and other branches of my family—are helping me overcome any bad genes I may have.

My mother knew my sister and me until her dying day. She was loved by the nurses in the nursing home where she spent her final days.

I believe that I have benefited from my mother’s strong points. She was a good writer and a poet. I have wonderful little vignettes she wrote about my sister and me as children.

I believe my genes are responding by a process called epigenetics, by which one’s behavior and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.

Taken by Carol 50 years ago, this photo shows our son with his friend and guardian Sam.
It was a time when you didn't see people everywhere walking their dogs. Sam spent most of his free time in our backyard--and died of dementia.
It was a disturbing warning that inactivity can bring on dementia. It brings tears to my eyes to remember him striding out in the few times when we let him go in the mesa by our home.

It took me a while to put that together, but the message is clear. Keep moving to keep both your body and your mind healthy.

The MRI of my brain suggests that my lifestyle is sustaining my brain—finding no significant abnormalities.

As noted above, I do have a problem with short term memory, probably due to a mild loss of cerebral volume.

My lifestyle seems to be helping me combat any genetic tendency I may have toward more serious problems.

Harvard professor Lieberman states the one thing we know for sure about the mind in his book cited earlier.

"Most studies have focused on aerobic exercise, but the few that compared weights and cardio generally find them to be equally effective. More research will provide better guidelines beyond what is already clear: move for the sake of your mind."

Clarence: A real pleasure revisiting your factual, practical monthly column that keeps us apprised of how to continue to improve throughout life. At 79, that gives me the impetus to press on the accelerator and keep on keeping on.

Tim

(We have no knowledge of this mineral and suggest that you consult with your primary care provider before trying it - as Tim did.)

Appreciate Honesty

Your main piece on the brain, physical activity, and memory is very important. Some loss of memory with aging seems likely for most people. I now write most things I need to do on a pad or a large paper calendar. Still an amazing difference from even my early to mid 60's.

Besides resistance bands, I do a lot of walking mostly with our dog. Also, all the houses in our area are elevated because we are near water and a flood zone. To enter the house in the front or through the garage, we have to climb 12 steps and I do that likely 5-6 times a day if not more.

I appreciate that your honestly, with science and your own work ethic tackling important issues, positively influence so many people.

Richard

How Are You Doing?

I just read your excellent piece on challenging the brain. The research certainly encourages us to continue challenging our body and brain.

My only personal objection to the research is the recommendation for a Mediterranean diet, which, I grant, certainly is vastly superior to the typical U.S. diet, but is not the same as a plant-based diet, which has been shown to have substantial benefits for our cognitive health. I know the Med diet would vastly improve the US diet, but for anyone wanting to do the best for themselves, my vote is for the solely plant-based diet.

How are you doing? Certainly, short-term memory lapses happen as we age. "Why did I come into the living room?" can be a bit unnerving! If I can ask, do your experiences seem out-of-the-ordinary?...........At any rate, the MRI results have to be encouraging.

Oh, my mother too died, at age 84, of dementia, which began in her early 70s.

Jerry

(All we know about my short term memory is in our article.)

Learning Languages

Thanks to articles such as yours, people come to know that a healthy fitness lifestyle is not only good for the muscles but also for the brain.

It turns out that learning a language is also good to prevent the brain from deteriorating quickly. In Belgium we are in the right place, where we learn several languages such as French, English, German and of course Dutch. So also thanks to your articles we maintain our English.

Robert

Masterful

Your article on brain health was especially timely for me because of my role in helping my mom, who turns 84 this summer, to stay independent as long as possible. Ironically, the article itself was a great testament to the current sharpness of your own brain, despite your minor short-term memory issues. The article did a great job of tying together and analyzing three separate but related approaches, and then weaving in your own experiences on the same topic.

Most people of any age would not be capable of pulling that off, but you did so masterfully!

Daniel

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From The Desk Of Clarence Bass