Once this brain chemical stays suppressed long enough, you lose far more than focus — your brain begins shrinking at a structural level. And you won't feel a single thing.
Margaret, you just distilled a 2,000-word article into four bullet points and somehow made it better. "Use it or lose it" is the entire neuroscience behind synaptic pruning, and you said it in five words.
But your article had more lasting impact and helped what she distilled down to actually sink in. Just reading her points aren't enough for most to even consider making changes, let alone doing them.
Interesting piece. I am on my phone several hours a day, but I spend a good amount of time reading multiple types of content. So even though I am on my phone, my brain is being exposed to diverse and fairly involved content
This article has made me sit up and reflect on my own habits.
1. I have gone down the slippery slope of constantly scrolling through social media and although I do read some interesting educational stuff, and challenge myself with samurai sudoku games on weekends, I admit I have lose a sense of time and could be scrolling for hours....
It doesn't help that a lot of my work related communication is also done on WhatsApp and social media
Once a voracious reading I am now finding it hard to sink my teeth into a book and tend to reach for the phone all the time. Sigh!
2. I can speak 4 Indian languages and read in some too... I have seen how my retired husband's efforts to learn Portuguese online has kept him v busy... Although I am not sure I will go down that road ... Maybe I will try to rejoin my art classes that I had really enjoyed some years ago
There is so much more that I need to learn and do from reading this article, but this would then become like a journal entry instead .
Andrei, the salient points in this article are valuable and I am planning to adopt the ones I don’t do. But I agree that the way it’s written sounds like AI all the way through. I wish it didn’t.
It sounded like a solicitation to me. I read the initial paragraphs, then quickly scrolled down to the end to see what financial sacrifices I would have to agree to to receive the secret code to some natural, holistic, historic preventative supplement in order to save my brain. I was surprised to see that no such money grab was lying there at the end, waiting to grab me.
But with all my longwindedness, I found the COMMENT section (my favorite) and read the entry by Margaret G, said the word ‘exactly’ and realized that she had followed one of the author(s)’ recommendations: read something and then retell someone what you read and what you gained.
Boy howdy did she! She said thoroughly through ten seconds of reading what took the author(s) countless hours of research and common sense to produce. They could take a lesson from Margaret. Go girl!
I followed up on that "phone-free" or "less screen-time" demand plus resulting conclusions. Even a very deep search firing up all my latest AI-based research tools didn't surface any scientific support.
The real driver here is NOT putting the phone down. Reading on a screen and reading on paper is the same thing, a puzzle on a tablet, a discussion in an online group, a scientific research on a laptop, all of them satisfy the need for "brain-jogging", have the expected benefits.
So it's not an on-screen/off-screen thing. It all rather depends on WHAT we are doing and not WHERE or HOW we are doing it.
There is actually a lot of evidence the proves that online reading in NOT IN ANY WAY as beneficial as paper reading. Just go through some of the points and research in Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath's "The Digital Delusion"
Victoria, I thought I was clear about not finding any scientific evidence. That kind of research is a specialty of mine and I did it out of true interest.
Of course, there is endless opinionated writing or even philosophical reasoning about bad influences, usually directed at the youngest generation. I am old enough to have seen a lot of this talk come and go in waves throughout my lifetime. From rock music being brought to us by the devil to TV-watching eating brains. A liberated sex, OMG...
Having been "danaged" again and again by almost all of those bad influences over my lifetime it is actually amazing I am doing exceptionally well at my still young age of 71.
You seem to have completely dismissed the scientific research I mentioned, using your age and self-identifying metric as explanation why the post is wrong. Though you claim to be doing exceptionally well despite being “danaged” for decades, it is only someone with their head in the sand that would say that society at large has benefited morally and cognitively from the unfettered, warp- speed development of technology.
I already have good sleep patterns but need to be more consistent with exercise. My jobs as editor for scientific papers and books forces me to read about subjects that are complex and new. It is time to pick up a language or two. 🙃
Hi Petrena — thank you for this. You've essentially just done the self-audit from the article, and your results are genuinely strong.
The deep reading piece is huge. Editing scientific papers isn't just "reading" — it's the kind of sustained, cognitively demanding processing that forces multiple brain regions to coordinate in real time. That's exactly the mechanism the Neurology data highlighted: people who engage in regular complex reading show up to 32% slower cognitive decline over time. You're not just checking that box. You're checking it at a level most people never reach.
On exercise consistency — one thing worth noting: research from the University of British Columbia found that even moderate aerobic activity (brisk walking, 3× per week, 40 minutes) was enough to increase hippocampal volume in adults aged 55+. You don't need intense workouts. The bar is lower than most people think. The consistency matters more than the intensity.
Picking up a language is a brilliant next step. A 2021 study in Journal of Neurolinguistics found that adults who began learning a second language after 40 showed improved executive function and delayed cognitive aging — not because they became fluent, but because the process of decoding unfamiliar grammar and vocabulary strengthens the same neural networks that resist decline. So the struggle itself is the medicine.
You're in a better position than most. Keep us posted on the language journey — would love to hear which one you choose. 🌍
Actually, your article came at an interesting time for me. I have materials for four foreign languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese. I had four semesters of Spanish in college and was to the point where I could read it well, but I have forgotten most of what I knew. I picked up a little French on the fly right before a trip to France when I was in my early 60s. I live near a condo that is rented out to various Chinese couples who each come to the States to learn the restaurant business. They come here having no English. I have no Chinese except a smile and “hai”. I have no Italian. But I did have three years of Latin in high school. Because of the research done in the article, would you have suggestions for which of those languages to focus on first? Petrena
Taught myself Latin in Junior high school, had started French in grade school. In high school improved French to reasonable reading, writing and speaking and started on Italian, Spanish and German. Unfortunately at 15 had a severe concussion, I could "read" but couldn't understand or recall from line to line. A slow process of learning to read again but all that language knowledge helped, there is a lot of Latin, French and German in the English language. I took about ten years before I could even think about going to University.
I'd say work on Chinese from your neighbours as they work on English. Pick any one of the "Romance" languages (French, Italian, Spanish). German and norsk languages can be tricky with their propensity to combine separate descriptive words into one long word for an object, position, or...
Thanks, Chris. Concussions are no fun. I’m glad you were able to move on from yours. I will probably dabble in all four of the languages I have materials for. But I do have an immediate need to know Chinese. I would like to be able to read the other three as well. Take care. Petrena
Chinese is a hard language with a script that is new to you. So choosing Chinese would be a productive challenge that will force your brain out of its comfort zone and give it the essential anti- aging nutrients. Even if you don’t really learn it, the effort to figure out the sounds and the script is highly exciting and beneficial.
That’s one reason I travel! Because it’s so challenging. Although now that I’m 70, I find when I learn a new word on a trip, it goes in one ear and immediately falls out the other one, LOL
Gotta love how everyone tells you to get sleep, but nobody tells you how to get sleep after 60. My deep sleep is averaging 30 to 60 minutes per night. I do all the things: morning sunlight, deep breathing, same bedtime every night, dim the lights, cool the room. Nothing contributes to my deep sleep.
Beth, this is a completely fair frustration — and you've actually identified one of the least-discussed problems in sleep research. Standard sleep hygiene advice was largely tested on younger populations. After 60, the rules change.
Deep sleep declines roughly 2% per decade starting around age 30, not because you're doing something wrong, but because the thalamus — the brain region that gates sensory input during deep sleep — becomes less effective at blocking out stimuli. You can do everything "right" and still get shortchanged.
A few things that do move the needle in older adults, beyond the basics you're already doing:
Resistance training. A 2022 study in Sleep Medicine found that older adults who did 3 sessions of moderate resistance training per week increased slow-wave sleep duration by roughly 20 minutes on average — more than any sleep hygiene intervention tested.
Core body temperature drop. A warm bath or shower 60-90 minutes before bed causes a post-bath drop in core temperature that acts as a biological trigger for deep sleep onset. This works specifically well in older adults because their thermoregulation is less efficient — the artificial drop helps.
Magnesium glycinate (not oxide or citrate). Glycinate crosses the blood-brain barrier. Several small trials in postmenopausal women showed improved deep sleep percentage with 300-400mg before bed.
You're not broken. The advice you were given just wasn't built for your biology. Start with the resistance training if you add only one thing — it has the strongest evidence base for this age group.
I listen to a sleep meditation almost every night and it really helps me to fall asleep. I am usually asleep before the meditation ends. The one I listen to the most is about 20 mins long.
one thing no one seems to offer in regards to sleeping well is a small protein snack 2 hours before bed. This has helped me tremendously and I am 70. Also, the racing brain issue at night can be helped if I pretend to be asleep... make an effort to stop thinking.... that one is the toughest.
I find that exhaustion at the end of the day is what contributes to my deep sleep. That might mean getting longer or more strenuous exercise during the day.
I have struggled to get into deep sleep and sleep well throughout the night for years. Recently I started taking Glycine, pure powder, at bedtime and I am sleeping deeper than I have in years! I also take "Sleep 3" at bedtime and that helps me to fall asleep. I've previously tried everything, other than prescription drugs, and nothing helped except for Advil PM and that is not good for my gut.
I’m jealous that glycine works for you, it makes my heart race and I am awake all night if I take any. My doctor recently prescribed Doxepin much does help.
I’ve added magnesium glycinate and L-Theonine to my nighttime routine to help calm my mind. Also recommended by specialists in women's health are magnesium glycinate combined with L-Threonate. As always, check with your pcp before adding supplements. Good brain builder, studying up on post menopausal research and studies😉.
I was always a voracious reader. Then internet and working long hours as an older person came along. After we moved to a more rural location I retired and started reading books again. I have a nonfiction and fiction on my table. I started at 20 minutes and am up to about 45. 76 here and no dementia.
Pamela, you're living proof of the article's thesis — and at 76, you've essentially run your own longitudinal study. The 20 → 45 minute ramp is exactly how neuroplasticity works: consistency beats intensity every time.
A longitudinal study from Cambridge followed older adults for 14 years and found that frequent readers had significantly reduced risk of cognitive decline — independent of education level. You didn't need the study, but it's nice to have the science on your side.
Nonfiction + fiction on the same table is an underrated combo, too — each activates different neural networks. Thanks for sharing this.
I reread your note today. That’s how “ boring” my life is 😁. I wanted to add some important things. I learned routine and consistency from my parents. I learned from my mom that doctors are not God. I think the most important is that I always listened to myself. I was always an observer. One of those observations I learned as a child, that people are cruel and don’t think much. And sometimes , like “ intellectuals” too much. Judaism is different than any other religion. We are taught to take “ derech tov” the good road and not choose“yetzer harah”, the evil inclination. I
One of the very first things my mother told me explicitly is: "Learn something new every day." I still do that and put a mental check mark on the precise item involved. One thing I do is read items like this one. One related thing I learned a while back is that every time one recalls a complex memory the brain cleans up the pathway. Logically that process and the one described herein, should clear out some space for new ideas. (Something new learned.)
The headline says Harvard scientists followed 200 ageing brains for ten years and discovered that one daily habit made the difference. However, the article provides:
no study title;
no researchers’ names;
no journal;
no DOI or direct paper;
no description of how BDNF was measured;
no participant demographics or statistical results.
Most importantly, none of the references at the bottom of the article matches that description. The references are a mixture of separate exercise studies, reviews and popular books published over many years.
Appreciate the insight and clarity. Curious as to "post-stroke" application, which I am aware is a more complicated set of conditions but seems to be relevant on the new neuroplasticity building.
Great article. I will “read” it when I’m not scrolling and skipping my exercise as I am feeling very lazy. I’m kind of kidding - I will return to read over earlier in the evening!
Read.
Exercise + Sleep = WOW!
Phone-Free Hours Daily.
Solve things. Use it or lose it!
Thank you!
Margaret, you just distilled a 2,000-word article into four bullet points and somehow made it better. "Use it or lose it" is the entire neuroscience behind synaptic pruning, and you said it in five words.
But your article had more lasting impact and helped what she distilled down to actually sink in. Just reading her points aren't enough for most to even consider making changes, let alone doing them.
It was probably quite close to the "author's" prompt LMAO
That’d be an interesting experiment. Afterwards it might call plagiarism on itself.
Thanks for this very important message 👏
🙂
Interesting piece. I am on my phone several hours a day, but I spend a good amount of time reading multiple types of content. So even though I am on my phone, my brain is being exposed to diverse and fairly involved content
This article has made me sit up and reflect on my own habits.
1. I have gone down the slippery slope of constantly scrolling through social media and although I do read some interesting educational stuff, and challenge myself with samurai sudoku games on weekends, I admit I have lose a sense of time and could be scrolling for hours....
It doesn't help that a lot of my work related communication is also done on WhatsApp and social media
Once a voracious reading I am now finding it hard to sink my teeth into a book and tend to reach for the phone all the time. Sigh!
2. I can speak 4 Indian languages and read in some too... I have seen how my retired husband's efforts to learn Portuguese online has kept him v busy... Although I am not sure I will go down that road ... Maybe I will try to rejoin my art classes that I had really enjoyed some years ago
There is so much more that I need to learn and do from reading this article, but this would then become like a journal entry instead .
Thank you for your article .
This article gave me much pause for thought as well. I need to get more busy and do more productive things! Perhaps this will be the incentive.
Reading this wall of LLM-generated slop definitely aged my brain. Thank you for summarizing it here.
Andrei, the salient points in this article are valuable and I am planning to adopt the ones I don’t do. But I agree that the way it’s written sounds like AI all the way through. I wish it didn’t.
I wonder if addiction to skepticism and cynicism resemble stress in their effect on the brain.
It sounded like a solicitation to me. I read the initial paragraphs, then quickly scrolled down to the end to see what financial sacrifices I would have to agree to to receive the secret code to some natural, holistic, historic preventative supplement in order to save my brain. I was surprised to see that no such money grab was lying there at the end, waiting to grab me.
But with all my longwindedness, I found the COMMENT section (my favorite) and read the entry by Margaret G, said the word ‘exactly’ and realized that she had followed one of the author(s)’ recommendations: read something and then retell someone what you read and what you gained.
Boy howdy did she! She said thoroughly through ten seconds of reading what took the author(s) countless hours of research and common sense to produce. They could take a lesson from Margaret. Go girl!
:-)
The slop comes from people who are ignorant of a tool like AI, are unable to use it properly, and then call it slop.
I thought it was fascinating and useful
Thank you. This is awesome
So precise and extremely helpful.
I followed up on that "phone-free" or "less screen-time" demand plus resulting conclusions. Even a very deep search firing up all my latest AI-based research tools didn't surface any scientific support.
The real driver here is NOT putting the phone down. Reading on a screen and reading on paper is the same thing, a puzzle on a tablet, a discussion in an online group, a scientific research on a laptop, all of them satisfy the need for "brain-jogging", have the expected benefits.
So it's not an on-screen/off-screen thing. It all rather depends on WHAT we are doing and not WHERE or HOW we are doing it.
There is actually a lot of evidence the proves that online reading in NOT IN ANY WAY as beneficial as paper reading. Just go through some of the points and research in Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath's "The Digital Delusion"
Victoria, I thought I was clear about not finding any scientific evidence. That kind of research is a specialty of mine and I did it out of true interest.
Of course, there is endless opinionated writing or even philosophical reasoning about bad influences, usually directed at the youngest generation. I am old enough to have seen a lot of this talk come and go in waves throughout my lifetime. From rock music being brought to us by the devil to TV-watching eating brains. A liberated sex, OMG...
Having been "danaged" again and again by almost all of those bad influences over my lifetime it is actually amazing I am doing exceptionally well at my still young age of 71.
You seem to have completely dismissed the scientific research I mentioned, using your age and self-identifying metric as explanation why the post is wrong. Though you claim to be doing exceptionally well despite being “danaged” for decades, it is only someone with their head in the sand that would say that society at large has benefited morally and cognitively from the unfettered, warp- speed development of technology.
Wow! I’m in on reading and BDNFing my brain.
Thank you!
I read stuff like this. B-)
I do, too. 🙂
I already have good sleep patterns but need to be more consistent with exercise. My jobs as editor for scientific papers and books forces me to read about subjects that are complex and new. It is time to pick up a language or two. 🙃
Hi Petrena — thank you for this. You've essentially just done the self-audit from the article, and your results are genuinely strong.
The deep reading piece is huge. Editing scientific papers isn't just "reading" — it's the kind of sustained, cognitively demanding processing that forces multiple brain regions to coordinate in real time. That's exactly the mechanism the Neurology data highlighted: people who engage in regular complex reading show up to 32% slower cognitive decline over time. You're not just checking that box. You're checking it at a level most people never reach.
On exercise consistency — one thing worth noting: research from the University of British Columbia found that even moderate aerobic activity (brisk walking, 3× per week, 40 minutes) was enough to increase hippocampal volume in adults aged 55+. You don't need intense workouts. The bar is lower than most people think. The consistency matters more than the intensity.
Picking up a language is a brilliant next step. A 2021 study in Journal of Neurolinguistics found that adults who began learning a second language after 40 showed improved executive function and delayed cognitive aging — not because they became fluent, but because the process of decoding unfamiliar grammar and vocabulary strengthens the same neural networks that resist decline. So the struggle itself is the medicine.
You're in a better position than most. Keep us posted on the language journey — would love to hear which one you choose. 🌍
Actually, your article came at an interesting time for me. I have materials for four foreign languages: Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese. I had four semesters of Spanish in college and was to the point where I could read it well, but I have forgotten most of what I knew. I picked up a little French on the fly right before a trip to France when I was in my early 60s. I live near a condo that is rented out to various Chinese couples who each come to the States to learn the restaurant business. They come here having no English. I have no Chinese except a smile and “hai”. I have no Italian. But I did have three years of Latin in high school. Because of the research done in the article, would you have suggestions for which of those languages to focus on first? Petrena
Taught myself Latin in Junior high school, had started French in grade school. In high school improved French to reasonable reading, writing and speaking and started on Italian, Spanish and German. Unfortunately at 15 had a severe concussion, I could "read" but couldn't understand or recall from line to line. A slow process of learning to read again but all that language knowledge helped, there is a lot of Latin, French and German in the English language. I took about ten years before I could even think about going to University.
I'd say work on Chinese from your neighbours as they work on English. Pick any one of the "Romance" languages (French, Italian, Spanish). German and norsk languages can be tricky with their propensity to combine separate descriptive words into one long word for an object, position, or...
Thanks, Chris. Concussions are no fun. I’m glad you were able to move on from yours. I will probably dabble in all four of the languages I have materials for. But I do have an immediate need to know Chinese. I would like to be able to read the other three as well. Take care. Petrena
Chinese is a hard language with a script that is new to you. So choosing Chinese would be a productive challenge that will force your brain out of its comfort zone and give it the essential anti- aging nutrients. Even if you don’t really learn it, the effort to figure out the sounds and the script is highly exciting and beneficial.
That’s one reason I travel! Because it’s so challenging. Although now that I’m 70, I find when I learn a new word on a trip, it goes in one ear and immediately falls out the other one, LOL
Thank you!
Active curiosity rather than passive scrolling takes focus into new information to learn from reading. Exercise, sleep, socializing also essential.
Spot on! Couldn’t agree more.
Gotta love how everyone tells you to get sleep, but nobody tells you how to get sleep after 60. My deep sleep is averaging 30 to 60 minutes per night. I do all the things: morning sunlight, deep breathing, same bedtime every night, dim the lights, cool the room. Nothing contributes to my deep sleep.
Beth, this is a completely fair frustration — and you've actually identified one of the least-discussed problems in sleep research. Standard sleep hygiene advice was largely tested on younger populations. After 60, the rules change.
Deep sleep declines roughly 2% per decade starting around age 30, not because you're doing something wrong, but because the thalamus — the brain region that gates sensory input during deep sleep — becomes less effective at blocking out stimuli. You can do everything "right" and still get shortchanged.
A few things that do move the needle in older adults, beyond the basics you're already doing:
Resistance training. A 2022 study in Sleep Medicine found that older adults who did 3 sessions of moderate resistance training per week increased slow-wave sleep duration by roughly 20 minutes on average — more than any sleep hygiene intervention tested.
Core body temperature drop. A warm bath or shower 60-90 minutes before bed causes a post-bath drop in core temperature that acts as a biological trigger for deep sleep onset. This works specifically well in older adults because their thermoregulation is less efficient — the artificial drop helps.
Magnesium glycinate (not oxide or citrate). Glycinate crosses the blood-brain barrier. Several small trials in postmenopausal women showed improved deep sleep percentage with 300-400mg before bed.
You're not broken. The advice you were given just wasn't built for your biology. Start with the resistance training if you add only one thing — it has the strongest evidence base for this age group.
Thank you, I do all of these things also! Maybe I am not broken, but I think my autonomous nervous system is definitely broken!!
I listen to a sleep meditation almost every night and it really helps me to fall asleep. I am usually asleep before the meditation ends. The one I listen to the most is about 20 mins long.
one thing no one seems to offer in regards to sleeping well is a small protein snack 2 hours before bed. This has helped me tremendously and I am 70. Also, the racing brain issue at night can be helped if I pretend to be asleep... make an effort to stop thinking.... that one is the toughest.
Gummies!!
It puts me to sleep, but it doesn’t give me deep sleep.
I find that exhaustion at the end of the day is what contributes to my deep sleep. That might mean getting longer or more strenuous exercise during the day.
I have struggled to get into deep sleep and sleep well throughout the night for years. Recently I started taking Glycine, pure powder, at bedtime and I am sleeping deeper than I have in years! I also take "Sleep 3" at bedtime and that helps me to fall asleep. I've previously tried everything, other than prescription drugs, and nothing helped except for Advil PM and that is not good for my gut.
I’m jealous that glycine works for you, it makes my heart race and I am awake all night if I take any. My doctor recently prescribed Doxepin much does help.
I’ve added magnesium glycinate and L-Theonine to my nighttime routine to help calm my mind. Also recommended by specialists in women's health are magnesium glycinate combined with L-Threonate. As always, check with your pcp before adding supplements. Good brain builder, studying up on post menopausal research and studies😉.
Yes, I take all of those and more.
Thank you! I’m starting to suspect my apartment has mold as that is disrupting many of my health markers.
One word: hormones. Get yourself some quality MHT (menopausal hormone therapy).
Already do 😞
I thought I was too erratic by always starting something new, but it turns out it was for my benefit! Love this article.
Thank you for this excellent article and an important reminder!
I was always a voracious reader. Then internet and working long hours as an older person came along. After we moved to a more rural location I retired and started reading books again. I have a nonfiction and fiction on my table. I started at 20 minutes and am up to about 45. 76 here and no dementia.
Pamela, you're living proof of the article's thesis — and at 76, you've essentially run your own longitudinal study. The 20 → 45 minute ramp is exactly how neuroplasticity works: consistency beats intensity every time.
A longitudinal study from Cambridge followed older adults for 14 years and found that frequent readers had significantly reduced risk of cognitive decline — independent of education level. You didn't need the study, but it's nice to have the science on your side.
Nonfiction + fiction on the same table is an underrated combo, too — each activates different neural networks. Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you
I reread your note today. That’s how “ boring” my life is 😁. I wanted to add some important things. I learned routine and consistency from my parents. I learned from my mom that doctors are not God. I think the most important is that I always listened to myself. I was always an observer. One of those observations I learned as a child, that people are cruel and don’t think much. And sometimes , like “ intellectuals” too much. Judaism is different than any other religion. We are taught to take “ derech tov” the good road and not choose“yetzer harah”, the evil inclination. I
One of the very first things my mother told me explicitly is: "Learn something new every day." I still do that and put a mental check mark on the precise item involved. One thing I do is read items like this one. One related thing I learned a while back is that every time one recalls a complex memory the brain cleans up the pathway. Logically that process and the one described herein, should clear out some space for new ideas. (Something new learned.)
This is a great explanation of why these things matter. Maybe tonight I'll read more than one page of my book!
Excellent suggestions. Easy to incorporate into a daily routine.
This is clickbait.
The central “Harvard study” cannot be verified
The headline says Harvard scientists followed 200 ageing brains for ten years and discovered that one daily habit made the difference. However, the article provides:
no study title;
no researchers’ names;
no journal;
no DOI or direct paper;
no description of how BDNF was measured;
no participant demographics or statistical results.
Most importantly, none of the references at the bottom of the article matches that description. The references are a mixture of separate exercise studies, reviews and popular books published over many years.
To STAY ahead:
USE your head ... or ...
LOSE your head ;)
Appreciate the insight and clarity. Curious as to "post-stroke" application, which I am aware is a more complicated set of conditions but seems to be relevant on the new neuroplasticity building.
This was so informative thank you!
Great article. I will “read” it when I’m not scrolling and skipping my exercise as I am feeling very lazy. I’m kind of kidding - I will return to read over earlier in the evening!