Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #161 How To Keep Your Brain Healthy At Any Age

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Today’s episode is a little bit different to usual, it's a special compilation episode, all about how to look after our brains. The brain is our most vital and complex organ and it controls and coordinates all of our actions, thoughts and interactions with the world around us. It’s the source of our personality, our sense of self, and it shapes every aspect of our human experience. Yet most of us don't actually know or think that much about how our brains really work, and what we can do to improve its performance. So, this special episode aims to bring you some of the highlights from previous episodes of my podcast, all themed around the brain. You're going to hear about growing new nerve cells, how learning a new language can impact your brain, the powerful effects of music, as well as the importance of movement and human touch and so much more. My hope is that by the end of this podcast, you will have learned some new fascinating information about the brain, as well as some practical brain boosting strategies that you can adopt immediately. I really hope you enjoy listening. Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/161 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better Live More. Hey guys, how are you doing? As I record this intro to today's podcast, I have to say, it definitely feels like spring is in the air. The last few days here in the UK have been absolutely fantastic. The sun has been shining, the days definitely feel as though they're becoming a little bit longer and there's no doubt that the early shoots of spring are lifting everyone's mood. Now what's interesting to observe is that as the weather gets better, more and more of us feel like getting active, particularly after a long dark winter. And getting more active has so many benefits, not least to one of our most important organs, our brains. This week, my team and I have decided to put out something a little bit different to

usual. It's a special compilation episode all about how to look after our brains. The brain is our most vital and complex organ and it controls and coordinates all of our actions, thoughts and interactions with the world around us. It's the source of our personality, our sense of self and it shapes every aspect of our human experience. Yet most of us don't actually know or think that much about how our brains really work and what we can do to improve its performance. So today's special episode aims to bring you some of the highlights from previous episodes of my podcast, all themed around the brain. You're going to hear about growing new nerve cells, how learning a new

language can impact your brain, the powerful effects of music, as well as the importance of movement and human touch, and so much more. My hope is that by the end of today's podcast, you will have learned some new fascinating information about the brain, as well as some practical brain boosting strategies that you can adopt immediately. I really hope you enjoy listening. Now, on to today's special compilation episode on brain health. And we start off with a clip from episode 44 with the neuroscientist, Dr. Sandrine Touré. We talk about a process called neurogenesis, which is the formation of new brain cells, which until recently, we didn't think was possible in adults.

When I was at medical school, I'm almost certain that we were taught that once the brain has stopped developing, no new nerve cells or neurons can be produced. That was it. It was static. And what you're saying and what your research is showing is this may not be the case. Yeah, that's correct. So neurogenesis, by definition, is a production or the birth of new neurons. And what has been found is that obviously, as we are developing, there is a lot of new neurons that are being generated in the brain of the fetus. And then as we are born, it was thought that this production of new neurons would stop. It was then discovered in the mid-60s by Altman

and Das that in a rat brain, actually, they did detect neurogenesis in the adult brain, but in a very restricted area, which is called the hippocampus. What we know is that what's happening in the hippocampus, that we can make approximately, or it's an estimate, 700 new neurons in the hippocampus, on each hippocampus per day, which you can say is quite little compared to you know the billions we have but they have a specific function so what is the function of the hippocampus so the hippocampus as a whole independent of whether you know you have new neurons produced

as an adult or not it's important for learning and memory the ventral part of the hippocampus is important as well for mood and emotions so does that mean then that if we can engage in practices or we can sort of apply interventions that help neurogenesis in the hippocampus then potentially we might be able to impact our own learning memory mood and emotions yeah that's incredible isn't it my next guest is dr lisa moscon, neuroscientist, professor of neuroscience and neurology, and associate director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College. In episode 129, we talked about how dementia is not a disease of old age

and how we have the power to reduce our risk of getting it. You said that dementia is not a disease of old age. It's so important for people to get that because, you know, I've spent a lot of time with Professor Dale Bredesen in California. I'm sure you've seen some of Dale's work and some of his research. And he's said on many occasions that Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia may be starting even 30 years before it shows up. The idea being that when you get symptoms is not when this starts. This starts a long way before and therefore there's an opportunity if we're aware of that to start taking preemptive and preventive action

in our 30s and our 40s and our 50s, not when we're suddenly getting the diagnosis at the age of 72, let's say. I agree with you. I completely agree on everything you said. Alzheimer's disease is not like you just all of a sudden catch a cold. It's not like tomorrow you go to the doctor and boom, you have Alzheimer's disease. There's something that's been happening in your brain for a really, really long time that eventually leads to the symptoms, which again speaks to how resilient the brain is,

how strong these brains we have are, because they can literally fend off a whole amount of pathology and insults and problems for years and years and years. And your ability and your brain's cognitive reserve of reserve, right, against these insults is really largely based on the way you live your life there is a genetic component our dna is part of whoever we are everything we are it's involved in every bodily neurological function however your medical report heart report card and your lifestyle matter just as much for the vast majority of people. Like even in patients with genetically determined Alzheimer's, even for those very rare patients

who carry genetic mutations that cause Alzheimer's at a young age, there's evidence that things like exercise can really delay the onset of dementia. And for the vast majority of the population, over 98% of people do not carry these genetic mutations. So risk is really more about the interplay of factors like, sure, there are genetic risk factors, Your genes are important, but your lifestyle is just as important. Your environment is just as important. Your medical health is just as important. And those are the things that we need to take care of pretty much as soon as we're aware that they're important. It's not like you're 50 and today you have to take care of your brain. No, this brain health should really be part of overall health. We should really start thinking about our brains as our best friends and the part

of us that needs nurturing and supporting, that is doing so much for us, right? So I think it's really important that we make choices that really support the brain. And I usually like to say that I encourage everyone to think of their brains more like a muscle. There are things that you can do that make your brain stronger. You can exercise it properly. You can feed it properly. You can take care of it properly. And your brain will perform so much better for you. So what are some of the lifestyle changes we can make to

improve our brain health? We've all heard the term use it or lose it and this definitely applies to our brain. In episode 76 the brain surgeon and neuroscientist Dr. Rahul Jandil explained how learning to play music impacts the brain. We talked about what happens in the brain when we're in flow state and the importance of learning and new experiences. Our brain flesh is electric. I think of it as a jellyfish. The tentacles are spraying chemicals and electricity. We can detect it from the surface of the brain, and we can actually put people in machines and look at blood flow. And when you do that for musicians, it's really interesting.

Because it's a physical performance, if you're learning to play music, that seems to be the thing that leads to the most left-right, right-left connections and electrical currents passing through the corpus callosum. Your brain's like a walnut. There's a bridge in the middle. And music, hearing it, playing it, thinking about it, using your fingers to control it, seems to pull from the most corners of our mind. And I can't imagine that not being good for you because, as you know, with the brain, if you don't use it, you lose it. It will down-regulate. It will let wither certain corners of the brain

if they're not actively engaged. So I think music, especially when you're a kid, learning to play music has to be good for the brain. It often puts you into flow states. Very good. You know, and I think for adults as well, you know, when something's that, you know, it's not too difficult, that it's unachievable, it's a little bit harder, that you have to concentrate, you have have to you access that flow state i find those people who get into the flow state and i think some people have uh you know may not know what that means and they may think that's kind of fluffy but there is

a measurement for that so uh when you're awake the and resting and focus those are alpha waves if you look at for example sharpshooters, just the moment before they hit a target, likely athletes, a footballer scoring something, NFL quarterback, ballerina, the release from the constraints of thought that come from your frontal lobe and letting a well-trained behavior exert itself, the brain is actually less active. It lights up less brightly. It's more efficient in its pathways. And that flow state is an alpha wave that's detectable. Similarly with Buddhist monks, likely with deep divers before they do their dive. It's a state of being focused, awake, and calm. And I think our phones and the technology and everything we're

doing is pushing us away from that. So if we can find skills and habits that let us harness that, channel it, know how to get into it, that would be great. I think learning music, that's that alpha wave flow state that I think could be very beneficial for anybody to learn music. How important can learning a new language be? Oh, it's an essential thing. And whether you get it right is actually secondary. It's the process of trying to learn. So language, music, the act of learning makes your brain say, I got to pull from different pathways. I got to get to different corners of my mind it's actually an energy consuming activity and and that's what engages the the greatest corners and recesses of your mind is

to learn new things particularly music particularly languages social interactions we know these things and now i'm just trying to give you a biological basis. Brain's efficient if it wants to fall into its rut. And breaking the rut in a constructive way is going to be good for your brain globally as your mind, thoughts and emotions, as well as the flesh. That's one strong way to stave off dementia. We know that exercise has many benefits for our body, but it also has benefits for our brain. has many benefits for our body, but it also has benefits for our brain. Up next, Dr. Sandrine Ture explains how studies have observed that running can significantly increase the rate of neurogenesis. Then, from episode 84, the neuroscientist Shane O'Mara reveals why movement is so important for the optimal functioning of our brains. And finally, we'll hear again from Dr. Jandil,

as he describes how an increase in the amount we move can really benefit our brain. We're going to reduce our rate of neurogenesis as we get older, because that's what happens to all of us. So is there anything we can do to slow that down? You can modulate neurogenesis by the environment. So it is something that you can change. And the first experiment we did was actually showing that running in mice will increase neurogenesis. So you have these beautiful studies where you show that if you leave a running wheel in a mouse cage, you know, just free to access, the mice actually love to run. So they will start running and you have your control mice where they, you know,

they will have a cage without a running wheel. And then when you look at their neurogenesis after, you have an increase of 30%. 30%? So yeah, this is quite huge. And then what you see is that you can do that in the young animal, but then as the animal gets older, you know, you can increase it further. So basically, you know, it's more efficient if you have, you know, if you have a lower neurogenesis, running will increase it even more than if you have already a good neurogenesis. When we're sitting as we're doing now, our brain doesn't have to work very hard. It doesn't have

to work to maintain posture. When we stand up, one of the first things't have to work very hard. It doesn't have to work to maintain posture. When we stand up, one of the first things you have to do, or one of the first things you see is our blood pressure changes, our heart rate changes, our breathing changes. And the brain has the particular job of keeping you stable. So there's a lot more activity going on. So I think what's also happening when you're up and about, more of the brain is active and ideas that would be kind of just below the level of consciousness previously are now just being brought above and into consciousness because the brain is a bit more active. Yeah. And you mentioned at one point when we walk, other senses are heightened. Yeah. What happens to all these other senses? Yeah. So, again, you know, I think we've had this kind of view of how the brain works, which is manifestly when you think, again, when you say it out loud, it's wrong. We think about the brain as something that passively takes in information from the outside, does something to it, and then we engage in a motor movement.

But actually, the world is too complex for us to do that. And instead, a better way of looking at the brain is that it's kind of information hungry. It's predicting things continually that are about to happen and searching for information about the world to allow us to predict what we're going to do next. And it's engaged in the generation of possibilities. And it does this all the time when we're moving around. And if you imagine, for example, you're a cat, imagine you're a mouse. As a mouse, you don't want to get eaten. As a cat, you want to eat the mouse.

So you're walking around and your job as the mouse is to detect the presence of the cat. And what you find in the mouse's brain when it's moving like that, And what you find in the mouse's brain when it's moving like that, activity in its visual areas are heightened. Activity in its areas that are concerned with hearing and all of those parts of the brain are heightened. When it's in movement, they're not when it's not moving. And the same is true of the cat. Because when you're moving, that's how you're going to capture your prey. You don't capture your prey passively.

If you're a cat, you're a predator, you hunt. So it makes sense that, and again, think about humans out on the African plains 100,000 years ago carrying a fairly small spear. Is that yellow thing moving over there an antelope? In which case I can go after it quickly. Or is it a tiger? And should I run away? Or can I run away? You need to make these decisions really, really quickly. They have to be really, really fast. So a selection effect in favor of a brain that anticipates what's about to happen makes a lot more sense. I mean, that is incredibly deep on one level, because in many ways, what you've just articulated is saying that maybe if we're sat down all day, or we're certainly not walking, maybe our brain is only in first gear. And maybe to get into second, third, fourth, and fifth gear, maybe we need

movement, we need walking. So if we're living sedentary lives, if we're sat down in our car to get to work, if we're sat at a desk all day and we sit down to eat our lunch at our desk and we come back and we sit on the sofa in the evening, that for many of us, maybe our brains have not got out of first gear. No, no. And the weird thing, of course, is that sitting around all day is tiring. And then you come home after not having done a day digging ditches uh sitting at your computer and you're exhausted and the reason you're exhausted is because our bodies and brains need movement uh in and that movement generates all sorts of wonderful molecules um that feed back on our sense of well-being, that facilitate good things in terms of our musculature, in terms of our heart rate, and in terms of what's going on in the brain. The brain likes exercise because it is flesh. Don't clog the plumbing to your garden,

because swaths of your garden will wither. So people have strokes and injuries. It's because blood flow is not getting into their brain. That's the way to hurt the structure of your brain. So what's good for the heart is good for the brain. Then the other thing it does is it bathes itself in these neurotrophic factors. That's what my science is on, BDNF, brain drive. When the brain exercises, it showers itself. It's not like thigh muscles release healthy brain chemicals that swim up there. It's got its own pharmacy. You give it the right behavior and interaction, it'll reward itself. So, exercise keeps the plumbing open to the flesh of the brain, as well as releases molecules that serve as miracle growth for the

brain. A little bit more exercise than you're currently doing is what the brain's going to say, hey, I like this direction. I'm going to shower myself with BDNF. Generally speaking, for most of us, if we just increase how much we move. Get vertical even. Get out of the chair. That's going to help. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also

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backpack, office or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. It might surprise you to find out that being touched is essential for healthy brain development. Yet for the first time in the evolution of human history, many of us are being exposed to less touch than ever before. Back on episode 45 of my podcast, my guest was the world-leading researcher, Professor Francis McGlone.

Research has shown the importance of touch for humans and the devastating consequences of not receiving it. He explained the role of different types of nerve fibers and gentle, nurturing touch in childhood brain development. Why do we have a class of nerve fibres in the skin, touch sensitive, slowly contacting C fibres that respond to gentle stroking touch and that's really been a passionate interest of mine for over 20 years now. These C-fibers that we're talking about today, these touch-sensitive C-fibers, have never been found in the glabrous skin of the hand. So the anatomy is telling us something. The wiring of this system must give

us a clue as to function. Why are these C-tactile fibers, these fibers that respond to pleasant touch, not present in the hand? Well, that's because we think the hand is dealing with the outside world. The only place we've found the C-tactile afferents is in the hairy skin of the body, i.e. if you stroke your forehead or you give yourself a stroke, that's where the C-tactile fibres are, not in the tool that's delivering that touch, which is your hand. Touch as you know it, or as you think you know it, may not be the only component of touch. You know, touch, yes, tells you what's going on with your skin and what's going on around you. But touch has this other quality, this emotional quality. And I guess on a wider level, that's one of your big concerns, isn't it? That as we're becoming a touch-averse society,

what implications is this having? The Romanian orphanage children were discovered in the mid-1990s from Ceausescu's failed regime, where there were thousands of babies kept in orphanages. They were fed and watered, but they weren't touched. And all of of those children or the majority of those children had severe behavioral and psychological problems once touch was re-engaged and they were put back into loving caring families they normalized to some extent what's happening here what is that developing brain basically missed out on a key developmental input neurodevelopmental input which would have been the nurturing touch that would have naturally occurred between the mother and the infant. And my point here is that if that

nerve fiber is not getting stimulated during development, the downstream consequences can be catastrophic throughout the life of that child. All of these children had some cognitive deficits that they will have to bear throughout their lives so this nerve fiber is playing a far more fundamental role than we had initially understood it to be it's now it's playing a role in the developing and shaping your sense of self your identity depends upon that recognition that you have a you and that body that you have we think is imprinted if you like on that developing brain through this gentle touch system of nerves when we think about bringing up our children a lot of us were thinking about you know we're trying to give them the right foods make sure that they're physically active um but potentially as a

society we're not giving touch the importance that it deserves, because what you're saying is that human touch, close, that sort of deep affectionate touch is necessary for the brain to develop optimally. This is a fundamental necessity in that developing brain to have close physical contact with the carer. For all the science, for all the complexity, which is really important, the actual take-home intervention for society, for us as individuals, is we need to touch more.

We need to stroke more. We need to give touch more priority in our lives. And I love that there's a real complexity in the science, but potentially the take-home is rather simple. Eating the right foods is so important for our overall health, including the health of our brain. Dr. Sandrine Ture explains the science, and then Dr. Lisa Mosconi takes us through which brain foods we should be eating. I think people often feel that, oh yeah, good diet, a bit of exercise, sleep. Yeah, you know, these things are important, but you know, where's the hard science?

It's almost like too obvious, but it really helps show that your research is showing that these things are so important for human beings to maintain health as we get older. I find it remarkable. I think it's important that people are aware that all these lifestyles do not impact just exactly how you look, maybe. A lot of people will do that for that. But actually, how you can preserve your cognition or even your happiness. When you look at epidemiological study where you see that, oh, people who are doing the Mediterranean diet versus another diet are living longer, better, they have a lower onset of Alzheimer's disease, they stay cognitively healthy longer. So we have all this nice data that already should convince the people, right? If you just give, you know, a Mediterranean diet to a mice versus something which is really high fat, they will be, you know,

cognitively sharper if they follow a good diet as opposed to the high fat diet. But then if we look at their brain, you physically see that they have less of these newborn neurons that are made when they eat a high fat diet. These mice are in the same cage. This is super controlled studies. We just change the diet. They even have the same genetic background. We are not even talking about different genetic backgrounds and some people are luckier than others. Here, same genetic background, we just change the diet and then we can modulate the production of these new neurons yeah i mean that's incredible that diet directly will affect neurogenesis are there particular foods that you've found that are really helpful for neurogenesis uh yeah flavonoids which

are contained in uh fruits with dark skin well like blueberries or even strawberries so lots of dark skin fruit you know grapes will have high flavonoid contents and we know that yeah flavonoid will increase neurogenesis and there are studies in human where they gave actually blueberry juice to participants and they show that it improves their memory and it improves the blood flow to the brain and potentially if you have improved blood flow because the hippocampus is nicely vascularized, you have more factors that reach this area that might stimulate the production of neurons. That is incredible, isn't it? You're saying that blueberry juice can increase

blood flow in the brain. I think this just goes to show how much we need to expand out the conversation on food. It's so much more than just energy for the body. If you're a 50 year old woman on a Mediterranean diet, your brain looks at least five years younger as compared to a woman who's also 50 years old but who's been on a Western diet for most of her life. I mean, you can see that. You can see the brain scans. You can see the way the brain doesn't change when you follow a Mediterranean-style diet and the way your brain literally shrinks at age 50 when you are on a Western-style diet.

Is there some general broad principles of what you're talking about when you say the Mediterranean diet? Yes. And I think, again, it's important to say Mediterranean style diet because otherwise it becomes really impractical. Even for me, I can't find the same foods here that I used to eat in Italy growing up. But the point is plant centric. So vegetables and fruit and grains and legumes are really the focus of the diet. When we use condiments, they're more like unrefined vegetable oils,

like extra virgin olive oil, flax oil. Flax oil is incredible for vegans. Fish is a big part of the Mediterranean diet, whereas meat and dairy products are considered more like a treat, like an occasional treat. It's a very flexible diet. It's a very reasonable diet. It's not in any way suggesting deprivation or food restriction, which I find very sensible as a scientist. We always talk about diversity in the diet as being a real key to health.

It's not just the food we eat that's important. When and how much we eat can also have an effect on neurogenesis. In this next clip, Dr. Sandrine Turei talks about how calorie restriction and intermittent fasting might benefit the brain. This sort of work you're doing on humans now is suggesting that intermittent fasting may well promote neurogenesis. Yeah, yeah. So this we had shown already in mice, but now we wanted to show what's happening in humans.

This we had shown already in mice, but now we wanted to show what's happening in humans. In humans, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we wanted to compare, what was interesting is that in our mouse study, we did compare calorie restriction, so decreasing the calorie intake of the mice, let's say of 20%, versus intermittent fasting, where we gave food every other day. What we could see is that either calorie restriction or intermittent fasting had a good effect on certain readout but only intermittent fasting was improving neurogenesis in the mice not the calorie restriction so then we wanted to see in human what was happening so we had a group doing calorie restriction and a group doing

intermittent fasting so and for the human population the intermittent fasting was actually like the 5-2 diet so meaning eating five days normally and only two days they would eat 600 kilocalories and then what we could see is that contrary to our hypothesis because this is science we thought oh yeah surely we will see you know a difference only to the people doing intermittent fasting because that's what we saw in rodent but no in humans the calorie restriction you know of you know every day so basically every day the people ate a little bit less had a similar effect than intermittent fasting so we did see that both improve their pattern separation and then both as well as in their blood an increased level of we call it the longevity hormone cloto so both calorie restriction of like 20 to 30 percent

and the intermittent fasting so eating two days a week much less so half or maybe a third less what you would eat every day add a positive effect in the human population i think i think it's safe to say we're not designed to eat food all the time from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to sleep, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And it doesn't matter what research you talk to about what function in the body they're looking for, reducing how much we eat and having sort of some set periods of time with either low calorie intake or not eating seems to have multiple benefits on the body. As we've heard before, it's never too late to invest in your future brain health. Professor McGlone explains how the brain can adapt to any stage.

And Dr. Lisa Moscone tells us why we should invest in our brains right now. in our brains right now. You've got this wonderful thing in the human brain called plasticity, and that plasticity is a lifesaver in many ways. You can put back things that did not necessarily happen in the early stages of development. And that's certainly the finding with the Romanian orphanage children. When they were placed in loving, caring foster parents, those children's behaviour began to stabilize and normalize. Now, there can be some long-term consequences,

but all is not lost. I think there is the opportunity to sort of reprime that system, if you like, at any stage. Your healthy midlife is the best predictor of your health for the rest of your life. So this is the time to really start being consistent. And if you're past meat life, then you have to be more consistent. Yeah. But it's the same strategies, the same process. It takes discipline to take care of our brains. But the benefits are for life.

Making small and simple changes to our lifestyle can have a big impact on our brain health, both now and in the future. We finish off with some great tips from some of my guests. I think, yes, rail against the touch police. Have the confidence to use your instinctive and instinctual recognition that touch is valuable and meaningful. And I think people need to demonstrate collectively that they want touch put back where it should be, and that's embedded in normal human behavior. Get vertical. That's the most essential thing when i see our patients who can come out of a bed and stand they they grow you can see a withering flower come back to life if they can get vertical being standing and moving is very important for you whatever you're at just do a little bit more

make subtle but important changes in your diet get rid of the red meat and fried food add in in some more of the Mediterranean diet. You're still going to enjoy what you're eating. You can have a glass of wine, salmon, red wine, yogurt, fruit. It's not a tough thing. It's just changing the direction of what you're eating. Find some puzzles. Find some content. Read a book. Do something unusual. That will also be good. Try to find happiness. It's the most elusive thing. But we also know that people who have mental health issues or people who are depressed, their brains start to change. They are brain injured from the way they are thinking. So if it's within your power to be happier, to pursue relationships and crafts that make you happy, that will probably be the best thing for your brain.

Always have a comfortable pair of shoes close. You know, if you're wearing high-heeled shoes to work, keep a pair of runners under the desk so you can go out for a walk at lunchtime. Set your computer, if you're working at a computer, to have the alarm go off every 25 minutes, which I do, and get up and go for a walk around. If you find that you have to drive your car to somewhere, park as far away as you reasonably can and walk that extra distance. If you're taking the train to work, as I do, get out two stops early and walk.

If you're going out to get lunch at lunchtime, don't go to the closest shop. If you're going out to get lunch at lunchtime, don't go to the closest shop. Try and find somewhere new that's a little bit further away so that you just get in an extra 1,200 steps here, an extra 800 steps there. So that at the end of the day, somehow you've racked up 10 or 12 or 14,000 steps and you haven't thought about it at all. That concludes today's special compilation episode on brain health. I really hope you enjoyed listening. As always, have a think about one thing that you can take away from this episode and apply into your own life. And as always, please do take a moment to share this episode with friends and family who you feel would enjoy and benefit from listening. And before we sign out, I just want to let you

know about Friday Five. It's my brand new weekly newsletter that contains five short doses of positivity. A practical tip for your health, a book or article that I found inspiring, a quote that's caused me to stop and reflect. Basically anything that I feel would be helpful and uplifting. It started at the turn of the year and your feedback has been incredible so far. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive every Friday, you can sign up at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday five.

A big thank you to my wife for producing this week's podcast and to Richard Hughes for audio engineering. Have a wonderful week. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back in one week's time with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architect of your own health.

Making lifestyle changes always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.