The One Thing You Should Never, Ever Do if You Want to Lower Your Risk of Cognitive Decline, According to a Neurologist
Woman experiencing cognitive decline
What does living well in old age look like to you? For most people, it’s having both a still-functioning body and mind. While cognitive decline is more common with age, it isn’t inevitable. Your mind can still be as sharp as it is now, but not without the effort of taking care of your brain.
While we certainly can’t control our health completely, it’s empowering to know that the way you live can greatly impact your body, including your brain. With this in mind, if you want to lower your risk of cognitive decline, there’s one habit you should avoid completely or quit ASAP if it’s something you currently do.
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The Number One Habit to Avoid if You Want to Keep Your Brain Healthy
Brain health is complicated and Dr. Amy Naquin-Chappel, MD, a neurologist at Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital, says that avoiding cognitive decline doesn’t come down to just one habit. “There are numerous factors that have been shown to increase the risk of cognitive decline, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, genetics, sleep disturbances, brain injuries and depression, to name a few,” she explains.
Dr. Naquin-Chappel says that while some of these factors are controllable, not all of them are. In other words, you can’t control everything that impacts your brain. That said, Dr. Naquin-Chappel shares that there is one important habit to avoid if you want to keep your brain healthy: not smoking. “Smoking presents a higher risk of cognitive decline than other habits or factors,” she warns.
Numerous scientific studies back up the connection between smoking and worsening brain health. There is strong evidence showing that smoking can increase the risk for dementia as well as neuropsychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, depression and anxiety.
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While the exact way that smoking affects the brain isn’t completely understood, brain researchers believe that the negative effects are a result of smoking-related damage to the cardiovascular and respiratory processes in the brain. Imaging studies show that people who smoke have smaller total brain volume than people who don’t smoke, including less gray matter in the brain, which is used for memory, processing emotions and controlling movement.
Other Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy
In addition to not smoking, Dr. Naquin-Chappel says that regular physical exercise is another way to keep your brain healthy and lower the risk of cognitive decline, explaining that it’s recommended to get 150 minutes of moderate cardiovascular exercise a week. Scientific research shows that cognitive decline is almost twice as common in inactive adults compared to adults who exercise regularly. This shows just how powerful having healthy habits can be.
According to Dr. Naquin-Chappel, eating a nutrient-rich diet, keeping alcohol consumption to a minimum and getting enough sleep are all other habits that can help lower the risk of cognitive decline. “These healthy habits help lower risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, all of which are risk factors for stroke and cerebrovascular diseases that cause damage to the brain and increase cognitive risks,” she says.
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It’s also important to never stop learning. Dr. Naquin-Chappel says that the brain needs to be exercised, just like our muscles, explaining, “Remember that exercising the brain is important. If we want big muscles, we lift weights and do repetitive exercises. In the same way, if we want our working memory to be as sharp as it can be, we have to work it out. There are numerous cognitive exercises on smartphone apps and workbooks that can be used."
It bears repeating that we can’t control our health completely; no one with dementia or experiencing cognitive decline should ever be blamed for their condition. But as scientific studies have shown, how we live impacts how we age. Every time you eat a nutrient-rich meal, go on a walk or do a crossword puzzle, you’re doing something good for your brain. And every time you light up a cigarette, you’re harming it. Living well tomorrow means being mindful of how you live today. Every habit counts!
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Sources
Dr. Amy Naquin-Chappel, MD, neurologist at Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital
Changes In Cognitive Function In Human Aging. Brain Aging: Models, Methods, and Mechanisms.
Smoking and Neuropsychiatric Disease—Associations and Underlying Mechanisms. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021.
Cigarette smoking and gray matter volumes in middle age adults: the CARDIA Brain MRI sub-study. Translational Psychiatry. 2019.
Cross-sectional association between physical activity level and subjective cognitive decline among US adults aged > 45 years, 2015. Preventive Medicine. 2020.
