The way the brain ages can shape how well thinking, memory and focus hold up over time. Keeping the mind “younger” biologically than a person’s actual age is linked with sharper cognition and better day-to-day function as the years pass. New research suggests that a few simple lifestyle habits may help slow brain ageing, even in people living with chronic pain.
A study published in Brain Communications followed 128 adults in midlife and older age, most of whom had chronic knee pain from arthritis. Over two years, researchers used MRI scans and a machine learning model to estimate each person’s brain age, compared that figure with their chronological age and calculated a brain age gap–the difference between the two–as a marker of brain health.
After analysing the data, researchers found that certain life hardships, including more severe chronic pain, lower income and limited education, were linked with brains that appeared older than a person’s true age.
“People with more severe chronic pain tend to have more shrinkage of the brain,” says lead study author and research associate professor Jared Tanner. That pattern can show up as an older brain age on scans.
The good news: several everyday behaviours were linked with a younger-seeming brain and slower ageing over time.
Which lifestyle behaviours are linked to a younger brain?
Researchers identified four key lifestyle factors associated with better brain-age scores:
- Lower stress levels
- Higher optimism
- Strong social support
- Healthy sleep patterns
People who reported more of these protective behaviours started the study with brains that appeared around eight years younger than their chronological age. Over the two-year follow-up, their brains also aged more slowly compared with participants who had fewer of these habits.
Why might these behaviours help keep your brain young?
The study did not directly examine mechanisms. “The ‘why’ is hard to answer,” Tanner says. “But all of these factors are associated with general physical and mental health. That means that the body and person is healthier, along with the brain.” In other words, what supports overall health tends to support brain health as well.
Activity, social connection and brain pathways
Being physically active and social on a regular basis helps maintain existing brain pathways and encourages new connections to form, says neurologist Clifford Segil. That ongoing “use” may help preserve brain structure and function and slow the ageing process.
How sleep fits into brain-ageing
The sleep link also makes sense, according to neurologist and sleep medicine physician Dr Christopher Winter. Quality sleep is associated with optimal function of the glymphatic system, the brain’s waste-clearance network. This system helps remove metabolic by-products and protein build-up.
Regularly getting good-quality sleep may help the brain clear waste more efficiently and lower the risk of plaque formation that can contribute to brain-ageing conditions such as Alzheimer disease, Dr Winter explains.
“Good sleep quality has also been paired with memory enhancement in multiple studies, so there is evidence that the brain just works better with good sleep,” he says.
The exercise–sleep loop
Dr Winter notes that movement and rest are closely linked. “People who exercise regularly tend to sleep better and vice versa,” he says. “There is probably a pretty strong connection to exercise here. Exercise leads to better sleep and a healthier brain.”
How to keep your brain young
Overall, Dr Segil recommends staying physically and socially active and deliberately engaging the brain. “Activity and socializing are good for brain health,” he says. “Structure as we age is beneficial. I advise my retired patient to enroll in classes at local community colleges or other academic institutions to encourage learning new things, which I think is healthy for brain health.”
Regular movement, hobbies that require focus and routines that involve other people all add healthy demands on attention, memory and problem solving. That ongoing “use” helps keep brain networks in play.
Tanner suggests taking cues from the positive lifestyle factors identified in his research and building more of them into everyday life. “More is better. You can’t have too much of a good thing for your brain,” he says.
One way to start is to look at each area in turn and choose a realistic next step. “If you’re getting less sleep than the ideal seven to eight hours a night, start to address that,” Tanner says. “If you’re feeling lonely, reach out and get involved in a community organization. Or maybe you need to move more.”
Tanner emphasises that healthy lifestyle behaviours are good for the whole body and the brain, and that it is never too late to begin. Small changes that support sleep, movement, stress levels and social connection can gradually stack up, helping the brain stay younger for longer.
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