Julie [00:00:07]

Well, John, we had a great conversation today with Dr. Marc Milstein about how to help clients continue to keep their brain sharp even as they age. And it was amazing to me how much control we really have over the process as opposed to resigning ourselves to the fact that it’s all genetic. I don’t know about you, but I’m very energized and positive for my future.

John [00:00:31]

It’s great, Julie, because every time we talk to Dr. Mark, you come away with a couple of really practical tips. So did I share with you the one about if you’re not good with names, kind of an exercise in getting better at name recall?

Julie [00:00:45]

No, you didn’t, but I would love to hear it.

John [00:00:48]

So the deal is, if you’re terrible with names, which I am, he says, it’s usually because you’re not focusing on the name and making the association with the kind of the person’s face and kind of emblazoning that in your short term memory. So he says, next time you meet someone for the first time, imagine yourself writing their name across their forehead in with a sharpie, right? So I always warn people, don’t actually do that or they’ll never forget your name. But in this case, imagine writing the person’s name across their forehead with a sharpie and just the mental process of doing that actually aids in name recall. And I’ve had myself, family and friends test that one out. It’s pretty effective.

Julie [00:01:30]

I can’t wait to try it. Thank you for that tip. That could be life changing in many ways.

John [00:01:36]

Well, and the best part about today’s episode, the conversation we have with Dr. Mark, is that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He had tons of practical advice about how we can maintain brain health as we age and a lot of things I had never thought about before. So, Julie, without further delay, why don’t you introduce our guest today, Dr. Marc Milstein.

Julie [00:01:56]

Well, Dr. Marc Milstein specializes in taking the leading scientific research on health and happiness and presents it in a way that entertains, educates and empowers his audience to live better. His presentations provide science based solutions to keep the brain healthy, lower the risk of dementia, boost productivity, and maximize longevity. Dr. Milstein has researched topics including cancer, biology and neuroscience, and his work has been published in multiple scientific journals. He has been quoted breaking down and analyzing the latest research in popular press such as USA Today, the New York Post and Oprah Daily.

John [00:02:35]

So, Julie, let’s listen in to the conversation we recently had with Dr. Marc Milstein.

John [00:02:42]

Hi, I’m John.

Julie [00:02:43]

And I’m Julie.

John [00:02:45]

We’re the hosts of the Hartford Funds Human-Centric Investing Podcast.

Julie [00:02:49]

Every other week, we’re talking with inspiring thought leaders to hear their best ideas for how you can transform your relationships with your clients.

John [00:02:59]

Let’s go.

Julie [00:03:01]

Dr. Marc Milstein, welcome to the Human-Centric Investing Podcast. We’re so excited to have you here with us today.

Marc [00:03:07]

Oh, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

John [00:03:11]

Well, Marc, I know and I have really been looking forward to this podcast because it’s content that we’ve had a chance to discuss with you. Julie and I have both read your book. We’re big fans of your book, The Age Proof Brain, and I think for our listeners today, Marc, you know, Julie and I talk a lot about not only living longer, but living better. And obviously brain health is one of those things we need to think about because let’s face it, brain health is is key to quality of life. But we know that concerns around dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, they’re some of the most feared diseases that especially as we age, are kind of coming to the forefront of our minds because either we’ve had relatives or friends, many of us who have experienced declining mental capacity as they age.

John [00:04:02]

But I think what I find really interesting about your research is you say that there are things that we can do. Research says there are things that we can do to perhaps minimize, delay, maybe even postpone the development of of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other kind of brain related function. So share with us a little bit from your viewpoint, Marc, Why is it important that financial professionals are thinking about this topic of brain health and maybe stepping out to educate their clients a little bit about it?

Marc [00:04:37]

Yeah, and it’s it’s all very good points that if we want to really enjoy our life, we want to get the best of the days that we have, that we have to take care of our brain. And it’s if we work hard and we want to either enjoy retirement or we want to keep working and stay engaged and really get the best of of of our time, we just have to take care of our brain. And the hopeful news and the really encouraging news is that we now know that there are things that we can do to not only really optimize our brain health each day to improve our memory, our focus and our productivity, but also lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia, anywhere from 30 to 60% based upon what I like to say are little things, not not big things, not major changes, just little things that can add up and can really protect our brain short term and long term. So it’s a field where we have so much more hope and empowerment than we had, you know, just even a couple of years ago. We didn’t really understand the things that we can do now we do. So the important thing is to get the word out that people know that they can they have much more control over their brain than they may have thought.

Marc [00:05:41]

They have much more control over their their their brain health or cognitive destiny. And it’s based upon these little things that we can do.

Julie [00:05:50]

Marc. That’s the exciting part to me, and I know John as well as the the empowerment part. I think I will admit before I read your book, I was probably a bit of the mindset that, well, whatever is predetermined for me via genetics or family history, it’ll be what it’ll be. You know, I’ll do the best I can and make the best life choices. But at a certain point it is what it is. And I think, you know, hearing from you that there are steps, small things, adjustments at the margins that each of us can make in our lives each and every day without drastically changing ourselves can obviously make a big difference in the end. So should we jump right in? Because I’m sure our listeners are very curious to start taking notes as to what some of these small adjustments at the margins are.

Marc [00:06:36]

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. One of the things is our sleep. We now know that we want to think about things that we can have control over and we might not realize we have much more control over our sleep and again than we thought. But we’ve learned so much about how the brain works in the last couple of years where we have these insights into how to optimize things like sleep based upon how our brain works. Instead of turning to, let’s say, a sleeping aid where we’re concerned about how sleeping aids impact our our brain health short term and long term. So, you know, there’s so much we could talk about when it comes to sleep. But I would say that something that really can get our attention and realize why sleep is so important is that when you go to bed at night, certain times during the night, your brain actually essentially shrinks down and it it gets smaller and it squeezes out.

Marc [00:07:21]

It constricts and it squeezes out waste, trash, toxins. And something to be aware of is that as we as we age, our brains, ability to remove this waste in this trash becomes less efficient. And if we think of our brain like a like a house or an apartment, if it fills up with waste or garbage, it’s hard to find things. It’s hard to focus, it’s hard to be productive. Same thing with the brain and this waste and garbage. It’s like leftover chemical reactions, broken down proteins, just part of being alive, just byproducts of of of our brain doing its job. And it builds up and we have to get rid of it. And so when you’re sleeping, not only are you resting, but you’re you’re squeezing out this trash and this waste and these toxins and your brain because it’s getting smaller, it squeezes. Is it out into like empty space that’s now created during certain time, during the night, and then fluid comes up from your spinal cord and washes all this trash away. So every single night, you basically give your brain a brainwash. You squeeze out the trash and you wash it away. And among many other reasons why sleep is so important, we just can see fundamentally that if we want to keep our brain youthful, if we want a lower risk of memory loss, we want to remove this waste because the buildup of this waste can dramatically interfere with our brains ability to function. And so that’s something we can take control of. We can just get the best night’s sleep so we get the best brainwash so we keep our brain clean and youthful and protected and not turn to, you know, certain sleep aids that we’re concerned. Don’t allow our brain to go through this washing process effectively.

John [00:08:51]

So, Marc, is it true then, as I think about, you know, your concept is that the brain can age at a different rate than maybe the rest of our bodies. We all know folks who come back from the doctor and says, Hey, doctor says, I’ve got the lungs of a 40 year old, even though they’re 70. It may be true about our brains as well. But in in many of these steps that you talk about is really the point to kind of minimize the build up of this brain trash, as you call it.

Marc [00:09:16]

It’s one of the pieces of the puzzle. It’s not the only piece. It’s a piece of the puzzle. It’s something that we can really kind of conceptualize as a as a way, the brain ages. And what you’re saying is very true, that you’re the number of years that we’ve been on this planet. You know, that’s part of our brain age, but our brain can be older or younger than our actual age. And so we want to keep our brain younger than our actual age. And so several things that we think about in having a youthful, younger brain are less waste, less trash. Our brain, as I mentioned, becomes less efficient at removing this waste and trash as we get older. So we want to leverage the things that we know are involved in this process so that we can keep our brain clean. And then the other thing is, is that our brain basically loses some of its mass. It can shrink not the shrinking that happens during the nighttime, but the actual volume of our brain. And starting at the age of 40, our brain can shrink about 5% every ten years. And as we can imagine, that shrinking can have a devastating impact on just the brain’s ability to function. But we’re clearly seeing that if we do the things that we’re talking about, optimizing our sleep and the other things we’re going to talk about, we can keep our brain more full, more plump. That’s what we want. We want we want a full, plump brain, want to keep it from from losing its mass. We want to keep it youthful. And one of the things that we do in order to slow down the aging process of the brain is really prioritize our sleep and realize there’s things that we can do to optimize it.

John [00:10:42]

And so, Marc, a follow up to that is, what are some of those sleep optimizations so small tips you would recommend people think about when it comes to our the quality of our sleep?

Marc [00:10:52]

Yeah. So there’s a lot of things we can do. And interestingly, one of the most powerful things that we can do is, is actually something that happens when we first wake up and we tend to think about sleep as something we might prepare for maybe, you know, a half hour before bed or an hour before bed or even just 5 minutes before bed. But really, we’re actually preparing for sleep from the moment we get up. And something really simple that we can do is soon after getting up. Think about getting outside for just about 10 minutes in the natural light. And what’s interesting about this is this discovery actually won the Nobel Prize. Aspects of it is that your brain has this like countdown mechanism. It’s almost like a timer and it counts down in the morning. It starts the countdown in the morning when you get outside in the presence of natural sunlight. And it starts this countdown that helps you fall asleep at night. And so we want to start that countdown, because if we don’t get that countdown going, it can be hard to fall asleep. And what’s so fascinating about this brain clock that we want to start the countdown on is it doesn’t just play a role in how well we fall or how easily I should say we fall asleep. But it plays a role in how well we sleep, but also plays a role in mood metabolism. You know, how we feel, whether or not we’re going to gain or lose weight. So what’s interesting is that things that might not seem connected are very connected. And as we keep identifying these factors that are connected, those are the things that we want to do to leverage and really optimize our brain health as we say, oh, you know, this little thing actually has a profound impact. It seems like we could overlook it, but we often overlook it in our modern world when we spend more time at home or we we spend more time commuting, we don’t get out as much. So something really simple and practical is a little bit more morning light in the morning can help you fall asleep at night. So it’s an area where it might not seem intuitive, but it can be very beneficial too, to help us sleep.

Julie [00:12:39]

I know we have a lot more steps to get through, but one more sleep follow up question because I feel like, you know, when you get in groups of people and that topic comes up, everyone has a different take. And some people will say, Well, I need 4 hours or I need I’m an eight hour kind of a gal personally. Is there is it a one size fits all? Is there a right number? What is your guidance around how long we sleep versus the quality, etc.? Because I’m very curious.

Marc [00:13:06]

Yeah, it’s interesting that on one hand, it’s not only the number of hours of sleep that we’re getting, it’s how good are those hours, How effective are they? So we’re getting optimal brainwashing. So we’re making there’s certain things happening while we’re sleeping that are critical for memory, while we’re dreaming. So we want to make sure we’re going through the phases of the cycle effectively and efficiently. And that’s important. But the number of hours are also important too. So we have what we call enough cycles of sleep. Um for an adult, really between 7 and 9 hours is where we see the general range of lowering risk for a lot of conditions that are tied to not getting enough sleep. So, you know, we’d say, well, that’s kind of a big range. Well, more than nine, we would say, is actually a red flag. There’s some people that need more than nine. But if someone’s getting more than 9 hours of sleep a night as an adult, want to look into it and say, is there something going on here that’s causing this person to need more than nine, We want to make sure nothing else is going on. Less than seven. It’s possible, but it’s really, really rare and it’s based, we believe, on some genetics that are we call these short sleepers. They have certain genes that allow them to really get by or do, well, I should say, on less than 7 hours of sleep. But it’s probably like less than a % of the 1% of the population. And most people getting less than seven are actually tired or sleep deprived, we should say. And you can catch up with things like naps that can be helpful, too. But some are between seven and nine. And we can talk about ways you can figure out where you are within that range to nail it down a little bit better. But that’s the range where we see a lot of protection benefits for brain health and less and more than that is okay. But but we want to check in and make sure nothing’s going on that’s that’s causing that less or more than 7 to 9.

John [00:14:52]

So, Marc, switching gears, why don’t we go to the polar opposite of sleep and talk about exercise? So exercise, I think everybody knows it’s important as we age to keep moving and exercising. But why specifically and what is the impact on brain health of exercise?

Marc [00:15:08]

Yeah, it’s if we had a magic pill, there would be exercise would be right up there at the top of the list. And if we think about the things that are very much connected to our brain health and lowering risk of memory loss and dementia and Alzheimer’s, it’s very much related to things that exercise helps. So, for example, we know heart health is critically important. Even even small issues with our heart can impact our brain health issues with blood pressure. So we know that exercise is something that helps with that. We know exercise helps with sleep. We know that it helps with our immune system, which is really important for brain health too. So it covers a lot of bases. Also, exercise releases feel good chemicals in the brain. It also releases a factor for memory called BDNF. It’s just a growth factor that keeps your brain cells healthy and youthful. And then one other thing that ties into this as well is that we might not think of our brain in terms of its controlling our balance and our posture but when we see people and we try to assess how old we think they are, our brain unconsciously assesses their posture and their balance. And what we realize is that as we get older, we can forget, you know, to prioritize those things. We don’t we don’t do things as much as when we were kids, you know, just sort of running around, jumping around on playgrounds or going down slides. We don’t do that as much, but we don’t have to do those things. We have to go to a playground. But just thinking about, you know, dancing or yoga, Pilates, playing sports, because our brain, if it’s use it or lose it, if we don’t practice those movements, we we lose our abilities to do them. And our brain is controlling that ability and we want to stay optimized on our balance so we don’t fall. You know, head injuries are a major issue for memory loss so that we can just optimize our movement, stay functional for as long as possible. So it’s just important to realize that exercise is just something that is just so critical for brain health. But some good news is it’s not about marathons or triathlons. It doesn’t have to be those types of things. You can just getting 30 minutes a day of walking lowers the risk of memory loss by about 60 to 65%. So, you know, it doesn’t have to be major, major things. Intense exercise can be good for some people under certain circumstances. We see a lot of protection for brain health with a lot less exercise than we thought. But that amount of 30 minutes most days doesn’t have to all be done at the same time, provides a lot of protection.

Julie [00:17:33]

That’s great news. And I’m glad to hear it’s not just marathons because I would I would have been failing automatically. So. Phew. What else? So we have sleep, we have exercise. What? What’s a third? The stuff on the list that we can really be thinking about and maybe making strides in the right direction to help our brain in the long run.

Marc [00:17:53]

Yeah. One big one is food. We now know that what we eat has a really big impact on not only how our brain works that day. So there’s these interesting studies that show that, you know, what you eat can impact how well you perform on a memory test like an hour later. But it also plays a really powerful role in your ability of your brain to function like years from now. And so we have all this data now that, you know, Mediterranean like mind, like diets, things that are just whole natural foods most of the time provide a lot of protection. So things like the mind diet, which is, you know, Mediterranean like diets, people who’s like sort of follow diets like that, they lower their risk of dementia, Alzheimer’s by about 35%. People who strictly follow those diet diets lower the risk by about like 53%. So the idea is, is that, you know, diets complex, there’s a lot of individualized aspects to it. But we keep seeing over and over again when it comes to brain health, some really simple things that go a long way. And one is just like about 80% of the time. Whole natural foods, I like to say, like some simple things to think about is like, look at your food. If it’s going to spoil someday, that that’s good. Like you don’t want to spoil when you’re eating it, obviously. But you know, I always talk about this Twinkie that they unwrapped in the in a museum in Chicago like 12 years ago. And it’s sitting there and it looks it looks amazing. It looks like you could it would taste just as good as if you ate it like, you know, 12 years ago. That’s what we’re worried about, this ultra processed additives, preservatives, they get into our gut and they can cause inflammation to spread to the brain. That’s this gut brain connection. So we really see that what we’re eating has an impact on our brain health, short term and long term, and with some really simple things that can go a long way in a world with a lot of, you know, complexity and and confusing headlines, diet can have a really big impact on brain health.

John [00:19:44]

Marc, I thought, you know, when we were once talking about this gut brain connection, you had mentioned that we’re just now beginning to understand the body as it holistically works. Like I think you had said to me that medical science is kind of developed in specialties. We have neurologists and cardiologists and gastroenterologists, but now we’re beginning to see, much like financial professionals do when it comes to money, that there’s a bigger picture about how all these systems interact. And if you could just share with our listeners a comment about that and and how it relates to that gut brain connection. Yeah, absolutely. So it’s it’s a good thing that we were so specialized in the we continue to be because we’ve had amazing treatments developed an understanding of how these different systems in the body work the heart, the gut, the immune system in the brain. But the more we learn about them, the more we learn they’re just really connected. And what’s good about that is that we have really good treatments for certain aspects like heart health or gut health that we just want to take advantage of and leverage to protect the brain. So just one quick example of how important gut health is for brain health. Is that what we’re concerned about in terms of brain health is is inflammation. That’s a key part of what ages the brain. So, for example, the immune system is meant to protect us, but it can make mistakes and it can instead of protecting the body or the brain, it can attack it. And just like the immune system can attack the joints and cause inflammation or arthritis, the immune system can attack the brain and by mistake attack it and damage it and damage memory centers in the brain or mood centers and raise the risk for depression or anxiety. So we will say, okay, well, how do we keep the immune system from making this mistake? How do we make it so it just it just protects the brain, but it doesn’t attack it? Well, we realize that the immune system gets signals from the gut that certain foods that we eat can actually send signals through the bloodstream to the brain, confusing parts of the immune system that reside in the brain into attacking the brain. So we realize there’s this powerful connection there that if we want to basically not send these signals, that we want to send signals that are keeping the immune system focused on their job and not overreacting and attacking the brain, aspects of that are related to what’s happening in our gut and thus our diet. And so that goes back to what we were just talking about, that these whole natural foods, they we believe that they send more calming signals to the brain, but the additives, the preservatives, especially those added sugars, sugars, okay. But it’s the added sugars, you know, the high fructose corn syrup, those types of things, they can cause inflammation in the gut that then spreads to the brain, confusing the immune system into attacking the brain. So we realize that if we want to protect our brain, one of the ways we do that is just focusing on some of the things that we’re eating. And it just provides this really important connection between the gut in the brain that we say, Oh, this is an avenue that we can use to protect the brain with some pretty simple steps.

Julie [00:22:43]

I’m curious, Mark, on the topic of stress, because it seems like we hear all the time and I don’t know if this is even made your list, but you know that stress, we know we should avoid it. And obviously that it can cause so many other issues throughout our bodies. Is that a topic that that we should be thinking about? And is it all bad? And I’m curious just personally, and I’m sure all of our listeners as well, especially during volatile markets and times of year when things are just busy, are professionally and or personally, where does stress fall in the spectrum of our brain health and longevity?

Marc [00:23:24]

Well, it’s interesting because stress is it gets a bad rap. It has a as a bad publicist because stress is really good for you. If it’s a burst or a moment of stress, like something you want to get done, a challenge you want to tackle, that’s all really good. It’s that cortisol. It’s actually one of the only things we know of that keeps our brain youthful. It actually causes certain parts of the brain involved with memory to get bigger and stronger. But I like to think of them like a car. Like if you if you don’t drive it and you leave it in the garage, it falls apart. And if you overdrive it, it falls apart. So stress is this double edged sword of it can be really good for you in in in moments and bursts, like we want to be engaged. We want things. We want challenges. But if that cortisol that’s so good in a burst, if it’s happening all the time, we’re constantly releasing it. We’re constantly stressed at high levels without taking a break or just consistently, then that cortisol becomes damaging and it actually can shrink the brain. So really what we’re saying now is stress is good. We want to embrace it. We just want to take a break from it. And that’s another area where we really learned ways to manage stress, to take a break from it and to optimize it. And some of these things come from really simple practices that especially in mainstream science or medicine, we didn’t really take that seriously. We sort of honestly just kind of roll their eyes at. And then, for example, like mindfulness, we now know that people practice mindfulness, which is a stress relieving technique, also improves people’s memory. If you look at a picture of their brain before they practice mindfulness and you look at it after practicing mindfulness for like a few minutes a day, for a few weeks to a few months, their brain changes it. Not only do they say that they feel less stressed and they feel more in control of their, you know, their worries and their stress, their anxiety and other emotions. Their brain looks different. It actually changes and it changes in a way where it’s better able to turn stress off. So that’s really just what we want to do. We want to optimize our brain in ways that we can take a break from stress. We’re going to basically basically apply the brakes to our feelings of stress and take a break from it and then go back to having some stress because moments and bursts of it are actually quite good for us. So it’s a rethinking of stress is not just something that’s all bad. It’s good and bad based on how we handle it and how we process it. And thankfully, we now we have some tools to do that.

John [00:25:44]

So, Marc, as you were talking, I was just trying to breathe in real slow. Breathe out real slow, really. But, you know, one of the things I remember you and I spoke about was you said that one of the most frequent questions you get from audiences is when I wake up in the middle of the night because I know sleep is important, how do I fall back asleep? Because it just seems like the engine starts and I just can’t get rid of it. So I guess this is a combination sleep slash stress question but are there any techniques that you recommend people do in order to perhaps help them fall back?

Marc [00:26:20]

Yes. Yes, definitely. So one thing to be aware of is that, you know, we talked about the brainwash. If you wake up tonight and you’re worried about your brainwash, I don’t want that to be the case. Don’t don’t panic that you woke up and you’ve disrupted a brainwash. That’s not the goal of this conversation. So the first thing is to be aware of. It’s okay to wake up. You’re actually your brain. You and your brain wake up every 90 minutes. You might not be aware of it. You might not be conscious through all of these awakenings, but you wake up every 90 minutes cause you sleep in a 90 minute cycle. So if you wake up tonight, remind yourself it’s okay. You just had a brainwash. You want to have a few more washes and rinses throughout the night, and we want to think about what are the things that keep us from getting back to sleep. And one is that we worry and we don’t want to be worrying about, Oh, no, I’m so worried that I’m not getting enough sleep because we want to say it’s okay to wake up. That’s okay. The second thing to be aware of is that, yes, stress and worry are is one of the big factors that keeps us from getting back to sleep or falling asleep. So a couple of things to be aware of is some mindfulness exercises like you just talked about, you know, not checking our phone. Our phone is filled with light. They can keep us from falling back asleep. It’s like that morning light That’s so good. But we don’t want it in the middle of the night because that can keep us from falling back asleep, not worrying about all the things that we have to do tomorrow or the things we didn’t get to. Not that’s not the time to be thinking about those things, even though our brain naturally tends to go there. So mindfulness exercises put us kind of in the present moment of focusing on just relaxing, getting back to sleep, and then something else that’s, you know, really simple. But but surprisingly effective is this tip that’s related to this idea of, you know, how many phone numbers you have memorized today versus like ten or 15 years ago. And if you’re like me, it’s like, you know, a lot back then and none now. I really have a hard time memorizing a phone number nowadays because I put it into my phone and it’s stored somewhere safe. And so they did this really interesting study where they said, okay, an hour before bed, just take anything that you’re worried about, anything you’re stressed about, any anything on your to do list and write it down on a piece of paper and then stare at that piece of paper and tell yourself this information is safe. I’ll deal with it in the morning because when information is safe, when it’s stored like, you know, in your phone or on a piece of paper, your brain lets go of it. Otherwise your brain is afraid that you’re going to forget it. So it sounds silly, but they had people do this in the hour before bed. They had them write down to do lists, worries, stresses, look at the piece of paper. Say, I’m I’m going to let this information go. I’ll deal with it in the morning. People who did this, they fell asleep easier and they had less of what we call these conscious awakenings throughout the night. And there’s something to be said for those middle of the night awakenings that are stress induced or worry induced dealing with it before we go to bed, because our brain is waking up and saying, Oh, don’t forget this and don’t forget that. But if we can let go of it and have some kind of offloading, downloading moments to let go of information can be really helpful for the brain because we tend to just, you know, do one more thing, one more chore, and then try to fall asleep. So if you wake up in the middle the night, you could also have a pen and paper by your bedside. Write it down, tell yourself it’s information is stored safely. I’ll deal with it in the morning. But just this idea that we need some time to let go of information and process and not just try to do things up until the last moment because it can interfere with our wake ups in the middle of the night. So I know that was a very long answer, but hopefully helpful.

John [00:29:41]

No it’s good.

Julie [00:29:45]

Very, very helpful. That’s something that I started personally a couple of years ago as the person that just lives by to do lists and was constantly waking up thinking, Oh, no, I’ve got to add it. But what if I forget to add it and then I’m on my phone and it just it was creating quite a vicious cycle. And it’s amazing how just getting it out of your mind and putting it down really does help. So I again, for those of you that love to do lists and are worried, start getting it down on paper, either electronically or physically. And I truly believe that small adjustment will make a big difference in your night of sleep. What haven’t we talked about yet, Marc? What else is on the list of things that we can consider doing to help our brain and the longevity and some of these implementable, I know it’s not a word, but it’s my favorite word, ideas that that we could just consider tonight or tomorrow making these adjustments to our lifestyle.

Marc [00:30:42]

Yeah, there’s quite a few things, so that gives us a lot of avenues and choices and things that we can do. One thing to just think about is be social. Like learn new things by being social. And it doesn’t mean you have to go out and, you know, and tend to party. You could go to a party if you want to go to a party. But just thinking about how can I interact, be connected with people. We clearly see now that learning new things is critically important for our brain. It doesn’t have to be a brain game or an app. In fact, those don’t seem to be that beneficial. But just learning something by engaging with people, you know, meeting somebody for coffee, having a phone call, a zoom call, any way that we can just talk and interact. We want that because we learn. We now know that that’s that’s a part of learning that’s really important for our brain. It lowers the risk of of memory loss. And also we now know that feelings of isolation and loneliness significantly increase the risk of memory loss. They actually increase the risk by about 50%. And in the times, in these times and what we’ve all been through in the last couple of years, those feelings are understandable. They can be normal. But we just want to be aware that if we’re having those feelings of feeling disconnected, isolated, lonely, there are serious concerns for not only our short term brain health, but our long term brain health. So we just want to take that as a signal to, you know, I need to need to reach out to somebody. I need to, you know, meet some, meet a friend for a walk or for some coffee or or just, you know, have that have that interaction because it seems small, but it can be really, you know, empowering or powerful, I should say, for your brain health in this idea that we want to just get that word out, that that’s an important part of mental and physical and brain health.

John [00:32:28]

You know, Marc, as I think about that, there’s there’s many transitions that our clients go through. It may be a transition of widowhood or a divorce or maybe relocating or maybe the home got too much to take care of and so I’m moving to a different community. And I think as advisors advising clients, just making them aware that if they themselves or a loved one is in that kind of transition, it’s probably time to overdose on the, you know, the outreach to try and get people involved in things. We’ve we’ve done a whole lot of work around what we call the social portfolio about the importance of socializing. And we weren’t even talking about brain health in that situation. But I guess a related question that when you say learning new things, let’s not forget the venerated crossword puzzle. So what about people who O.D. on crossword puzzles or Jumbles who are learning a new song on an instrument or, you know, I guess all those things are okay. It’s just variety is the spice of life, right?

Marc [00:33:32]

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, if somebody likes to do crossword puzzles or Sudoku, keep doing them. That’s good. But we just want to get away from the idea that that’s the only thing we need to do. Or if you don’t do them, you’re in trouble. So it can be a piece of of, I would say, the puzzle, but it’s not the only piece. And the way I like to think about it is cross-train your brain. If you were to go to the gym, you know, you wouldn’t just work out your arms after a while that wouldn’t look right. And it’s the same thing with the brain. The brain needs to be cross-trained. So if you just think of like a week, you know, one day learn something that’s outside of your field of expertise, something new that’s really important for brain health is new things. So you mentioned, you know, learning a song on a musical instrument that’s that’s perfect. Foreign language, a new subject. Take an online class and in-person classes listen to a podcast. Just new information. It just causes our brain to make new connections. And as we get older, we lose connections and we just want to keep making new ones. The other thing is do something that involves physical learning. So as we talked about earlier, you know, play a sport. Pickleball is taking over the world. It doesn’t give you any sport at all, but our brain has to continue learning movement and we want to optimize that. So like one, you know, a couple of days a week have that type of learning that’s across training of the brain. And then the third thing is do something social like, you know, meet a friend, talk on the phone, reach out. It’s so important and think about your week and you can even combine them. You know, you could go going to walk with a friend and talk about a new subject. You’re doing all three at once. So those types of things can be really good. And just, you know, it sounds simple, but we can lose sight of these simple things and just prioritizing them has these, you know, these is really important impacts for for memory and for brain health.

Julie [00:35:16]

Marc, earlier in our podcast, you mentioned that you want your brain to be younger than you are, and I just I love that image. Are there any ways to help clients or even our loved ones start to assess that, you know, if we aren’t going through a formal process with a physician, but are there questions or thoughts or checklist items that we might be able to ask or just to assess and begin that process of understanding? Where might we fall in the spectrum and where might the opportunities be to enhance what we’re doing?

Marc [00:35:55]

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, not everybody needs to run out and get a brain scan that’s appropriate in certain circumstances. Certain people have, you know, certain symptoms or family history. But we’re at the point now where we would not say everyone needs to run out and do that. There’s a lot more marketing there than science. It’s definitely useful in certain situations. But as a first step, as you mentioned, you know, talking to your doctor is really important. Any notices or noticing of changes to to memory or focus. Be on top of right away. You know don’t don’t don’t say oh, that’s just part of aging. We now know that significant changes to memory should not be happening. It’s not normal to lose to lose memory. It’s not just part of the aging process. So asking yourself, I would say five questions and to make it easier to remember, I took the word brain and each letter of of the word brain is something we can ask ourselves just to get a kind of an assessment of where things are and things to think about and prioritize. So for B in the word brain, think about we talk about balance, you know, how’s my balance? Am I doing things to to challenge it? You know, you don’t have to go to extremes, but just be aware that we want to be doing things that improve our balance because it’s so important for brain health. We see that people who have better balance tend to have more youthful looking brains. So it’s something that we can assess in just thinking about it and talking about it. R stands for recall and think about that. You know, everything we’ve ever needed to know now or want to know is in our phone. So it can be easy to forget how to remember things nowadays. So just saying, you know, I’m going to go to Trivia night, I’m going to remember my I’m going to memorize my grocery list or my to do list. I’m going to I’m going to really practice remembering it’s a use it or lose it skill. And we don’t have to memorize everything all day long. But keeping that skill optimized or engaged is really important. So how’s my recall? What can I do to just practice it then? Then A stands for just basically assessing your day. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, it’s okay to to to miss an appointment. It’s okay to forget to pay a bill from time to time. That’s we don’t want to panic about those things. But assess, are these things happening with increasing frequency? Because that’s a warning sign and we want to catch things early. We just want to we want to be aware that there’s things we can do now, so we don’t want to just worry and so there’s nothing we can do. What’s the point? Even looking, there’s things we can do. So we want to identify what’s going on. How do we how do we treat this? How do we get to the bottom of this? I stands for Intensity of walking. So we said walking is so important. But all these studies are coming out that are showing us that if you can have some intensity or a little faster paced, you’re walking for about even 5 to 10 minutes a day. Of that 30 minutes, people tend to have younger looking brains and also perform better on memory tests. So a little bit faster walking is good and then N stands for number. And what I mean by that is just taking a moment and saying, How old do I feel? You know, studies show that people who have a really positive attitude towards aging and that they feel younger tend to have more youthful looking brains. They tend to do things that are more youthful. They tend to sing, dance, play, you know, socialize, learn new things, travel. You don’t have to do all of those things, but just things that are keeping our brain highly engaged and just thinking about that. How you feel plays a part in how your brain ages. There is this mind body connection. It’s not everything, but it’s a part of it, and that’s also something that can be within our control. So using that little, that little trick of B-R-A-I-N can be just a nice place to start to get an assessment of brain age.

John [00:39:35]

That’s really helpful, Marc. And before we before we leave our podcast today, there’s two other topics I wanted to get your thoughts on. And they may be related, but one is the person that says, you know, dementia, Alzheimer’s runs in my family, right? Therefore, I’m just kind of I know I’m going to get it. There’s nothing I can do. Kind of where’s the research on that? And then kind of related to that is that as we age, we know that we take in a lot more television. If we’re not intentional about what we’re doing. It seems like every other commercial is now about a brain supplement or some undiscovered, you know, byproduct of crushed up shellfish or something that is going to help me remember things. What is the thought, What’s the research say about these brain supplements? Are they impactful at all, or at least to the extent of some of the other things that we discussed today?

Marc [00:40:29]

Yeah, no, those are great points. First, with the heritability or the genetic impact of seeing things like Alzheimer’s run in families, we actually now know that 95 to 99% of all cases of Alzheimer’s, we say, are not strictly genetic. So to be really clear, genes can play a role. They can raise or lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease. But in 95 to 99% of all cases, we now see it’s not strictly based on genes. So it means that it’s not determinant, it’s not destiny, that we have studies that show that people who have genetic risk for the genes, we have identified that there’s things they can do to bring that risk back down. And that’s really the big take home message for all of this, is that in almost all cases, there are things that we can do, even with genetics, to bring our risk down. And we want to combine these these these lower risking active, lower risk activities to bring risk down as much as we can. We want to leverage the simple, easy things that we can do. And because we’re clearly seeing in multiple studies that we have more control over this than we ever thought to help bring risk down and try to leverage and lower our odds. It’s a lot of empowering, hopeful information that we’re seeing. And then when it comes to the, you know, the supplements that we see advertised on TV, you know, I wish there was a magic supplement. I pretty much always answer that question by telling a very true story. I actually started my book with this, that somebody came up to me and said, I ordered one of those pills off of the commercial, the memory boosting supplements. And it’s amazing. I have to tell you, it really works. And I said, Oh, that’s interesting. What’s the name of the pill? And the person said, I don’t remember. So it kind of sums up all of those pills that I just I wish there was something, but instead it’s these other things that we’re talking about and not just taking a magic supplement.

Julie [00:42:21]

That’s priceless. All I’m going to chuckle about that all day long. Well, thank you so much for all of these amazing insights and ideas and again, things that we can take, good steps that we can take for ourselves and really encourage our clients to think about. I think it is very empowering, very helpful. And before we wrap up today, because this is the Human-Centric Investing podcast, we would love to get to know a little bit more about you, Dr. Marc Milstein. So if you’re willing, we’ll take you through a quick lightning round of questions. So we’ll just ask you some some personal questions, whatever is top of mind. Obviously, there’s no right or wrong answer, but we’d love to hear what your brain is thinking around some of these things. So I’ll get started here. On a scale of 1 to 10, how good of a driver are you?

Marc [00:43:12]

Oh, that’s a good one. I’ve never had a ticket and never been in an accident. So I would say not to jinx myself. I’ll give myself an eight. I would say I don’t want to be too confident.

John [00:43:23]

Wow, that sounds like a 10 to me.

Julie [00:43:28]

I was going to say that sounds like a 10+.

Marc [00:43:28]

I don’t want to jinx anything. I’ll say I’ll give myself an 8.

Julie [00:43:31]

Okay. Well, knock on wood haha.

John [00:43:33]

Marc, are you a dog person or a cat?

Marc [00:43:35]

Oh, definitely Dog. Definitely dog. Yeah.

Julie [00:43:39]

Are you a morning person or a night owl? And I think I might know the answer to this based upon our conversation, but I’ll. I’ll. I’ll wait until you answer.

Marc [00:43:47]

Yes. I’m actually a night owl that is forced myself to become a morning person because I have to go to work.

John [00:43:56]

How about a paper to do list, Marc? Or do you use digital tools?

Marc [00:44:01]

I use both, but I, I’m a paper person too. I would say that I do send myself emails of to do lists, but I find that I tend to keep going back to paper.

Julie [00:44:14]

What’s the best age?

Marc [00:44:17]

Oh, wow. That I’ve experienced?

Julie [00:44:21]

Or. Or just in your in your opinion, what’s the best age?

Marc [00:44:25]

You know, I’m going to go with I’m going to I’m going to practice what we talked about with. I’m going to say the age I am now, just because it’s it’s what I it’s and I’ll say next year, I’ll say the year I am next year. So I’ll just I’ll just try to I’ll try to practice that philosophy of my age now.

Julie [00:44:41]

I totally agree.

John [00:44:42]

In an informal poll, it’s probably the most popular answer, and sometimes surprise is that it’s so popular.

Marc [00:44:49]

Oh, that’s good to hear.

John [00:44:51]

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How about iPhone or Android?

Marc [00:44:55]

I have an Android. Yeah.

John [00:44:58]

Android.

Marc [00:44:58]

Not as cool. I know.

Julie [00:45:00]

Would you? Yeah. You’re the one who turns the text chains green. So would you rather read a book or listen to an audible?

Marc [00:45:12]

Read a book? Yeah.

John [00:45:17]

I’m not going to ask you East Coast or West Coast, because I know where you live and you live in a beautiful area. So I’m going to go with when you prefer to shop online or in-person in a store, thinking about learning new things.

Marc [00:45:29]

Yeah, probably in person. Honestly? Yeah. I like the convenience of online, but there’s nothing. There’s the fun of in-person.

Julie [00:45:42]

Would you rather travel to the past or into the future?

Marc [00:45:46]

Oh, wow. That’s such a good one. I both. But I would say just for this moment. The future, maybe the future.

John [00:45:58]

What is your favorite holiday?

Marc [00:46:02]

That’s a good one. Probably Halloween, to be honest. Halloween is a big deal in my house, so I would say Halloween.

John [00:46:11]

That’s cool.

Julie [00:46:13]

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Marc [00:46:17]

Wow, that’s a good one. I think first thing was probably a professional baseball player and I learned very quickly that wasn’t going to happen. And then I was always interested in the things I think. I mean, the things I’m doing now. I was I was interested in always. So I feel fortunate about that. But I still if I could live one more life and I would like to be a pro baseball player. If I had the talent.

John [00:46:40]

So as a child, what was your favorite? What was your favorite board game that you played as a child and you’re not allowed to say operation?

Marc [00:46:47]

Oh, probably. Probably chess. Honestly, it was my favorite game. And then other than that, I liked Monopoly Scrabble. Those are probably my favorites.

Julie [00:47:00]

Are you spontaneous or a planner? A mix, I would say honestly, a mix, but I would say a planner, honestly.

John [00:47:12]

Are you a city person or a country person?

Marc [00:47:16]

I hate to I hate to answer everything with I love both. But but I really do love both. And I feel like I need the balance of both. So probably more more leaning towards city, I would say.

Julie [00:47:30]

How about one final question. What is your favorite city in the U.S.?

Marc [00:47:35]

Well, I love a lot of I’ve been I’ve had the. I love traveling. And I and I would and I love a lot of the cities. But I would say to visit. I love Manhattan. I just love I love Manhattan. So that would be it.

John [00:47:50]

Well, Marc, on behalf of all our listeners in the folks at Hartford Funds, I just want to say thanks. I mean, we as I said, we’ve been so excited about your content. We’ve actually put together a lot of material around your content to help educate financial advisors and financial professionals and their clients. And so on behalf of all of us, our funds, I just I love the conversation today, Julie. You know, if there’s a can you recommend to our listeners where they might go to find out more about Marc’s work and how they can connect with other things he’s done as well?

Julie [00:48:23]

Absolutely. So feel free to visit Marc’s website. Doctor Marc Milstein dot com and wherever you buy or download your books, be sure to check out the Age Proof Brain. And as John mentioned, we at Hartford funds dot com have many white papers and other associated content using Dr. Marc Millstein thought leadership to help you engage your clients in really thoughtful conversations about their longevity and their future. So thank you again, Dr. Marc Milstein, for being here with us today.

Marc [00:48:55]

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Great conversation and I really appreciate it.

Julie [00:49:00]

Thanks for listening to the Hartford Funds Human Centric Investing podcast. If you’d like to tune in for more episodes, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

John [00:49:15]

And if you’d like to be a guest and share your best ideas for transforming client relationships, email us. Guest Booking at Hartford Funds dot com. We’d love to hear from you.

Julie [00:49:26]

Talk to you soon.

John [00:49:28]

If you are concerned about your brain health or cognitive function, it’s a good idea to speak with your doctor or a healthcare professional, who can evaluate your cognitive function and provide recommendations for management and treatment, if necessary.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of our featured guests who are not affiliated with Hartford Funds.