Many thanks to all of you who joined us for our  “Age-Proof Your Brain” virtual event with Dr Milstein.  We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

For those of you who could not join us (or even for those of you who did 😊) we want to share what we found to be the most impactful, and perhaps surprising, actions we heard to get the most out of our brains every day now and in the future.  Overall, it’s clear that little changes go a long way.  Thank goodness!

  • Optimizing our sleep was the most important action we can take, although we all know this is much easier to say than to actually do!  Suggestions include getting outside for 10 minutes every morning soon after waking up, avoiding sleep aid medications and getting rid of those little bits of light in our bedrooms, including our cell phones. 
  • Learning new things to work our brains is important.  While doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles may make us better at doing Sudoku and crossword puzzles, learning lots of new things is absolutely essential.  And learning new things is a very broad goal!  Almost everything counts, including learning all of these new financial tools that we are sharing with you.  Those count for us and for you! 
  • Managing stress, although surprisingly, some stress is good for our brains.  The stress has to be managed and actually go away sometimes though.  Not sure how that works.  Another webinar required. 
  • Treating underlying conditions which can impact brain health.  These include hearing loss, inflammation, sleep apnea, heart conditions, gum disease, diabetes etc.  Surprisingly, the dementia risk from these and other underlying conditions can be almost eliminated by just consistently using the currently available treatment options.  New science is a good thing, but the existing science is pretty darn good too. 
  • Being social.  This includes calls and meetings with your financial advisor as long as we talk about things other than money – which we always do.  Check this one off. 
  • Doing moderate exercise.  No marathons required.  Walking 30 minutes a day, especially outside and with a friend is all it takes.  Even better is dancing.  Apparently so because it ticks several boxes – learning new things, being social and exercising. 
  • Eating real foods.  This is defined as limiting (not eliminating) “foods” which don’t spoil.  We heard that real foods include coffee, tea, and wine.  And chocolate. 
  • Practicing mindfulness.  This includes deep breathing exercise, being in nature or staring at the plant in your kitchen.  The challenge here is doing this one without adding stress.  Let us know how this goes.  We have been told that staring at your Schwab accounts on our computers does not count as practicing mindfulness.  For us or for you!

Since this virtual event was so popular, we are talking about our next virtual event which will be social for sure and allow us all to learn new things.  Watch this space!