Episode 31: Lifestyle & Brain Health with guest Dr. Mylea Charvat (Part 2)
The last episode (#30) covered part 1 of a three-part series on the impact of lifestyle factors, including sleep, exercise, staying socially engaged and your diet, on the development of dementia and the health of your brain. Our guest, Dr. Mylea Charvat, is the founder and CEO of Savonix - a digital cognitive assessment company. This episode covers part 2 of this three-part series, where Dr. Charvat talks about how exercise and socializing affect the health of your brain.
About Dr. Mylea Charvat
Dr. Mylea Charvat became interested in cognition when she was a teenager and her grandmother started to exhibit signs of dementia. Witnessing her grandmother as she progressed through her disease, Mylea was struck by the cruelty and the loneliness of dementia. Even at the age of 13, Dr. Charvat recognized that we all deserve the right to age with dignity. At this young age, she knew that she wanted to grow up and be a part of solving this problem.
Dr. Charvat ended up studying neuropsychology. What struck her during her time at Stanford University is the realization that, if her grandmother were still alive, it would have taken her months to get an appointment to see Dr. Charvat because there are very few neuropsychologists that practice in the US. What’s more, is that if she did get that appointment - she probably couldn't afford a visit with Dr. Charvat. She realized then that she wanted to make neuropsychologists accessible and affordable to anyone in the world.
She was living in the heart of Silicon Valley at the time and started talking to people in the gaming software industry about how to give everyone access to testing of vital cognitive functions (e.g., working memory, verbal memory, spatial memory, impulse control, etc.). Dr. Charvat left Stanford in 2014 and founded Savonix in 2015.
Savonix
Dr. Mylea Charvat is the founder and CEO of Savonix - a digital cognitive assessment company. Dr. Charvat completed her fellowship in clinical neuroscience at Stanford University. At Savonix, Mylea drives strategy to address dementia globally with business and clinical leaders. She works as a domain expert in digital cognitive assessment with a variety of partners - from Boston University to Fortune 50 CEOs - seeking to detect and prevent cognitive decline and dementias.
Exercise and Brain Health
Neurogenesis
Neurogenesis is when your brain grows new brain cells. Neurogenesis generally occurs in a specific part of the brain (called the hippocampus) linked to memory and learning.
There is now so much science showing us that not only can our brain make new connections and grow new cells, but this can happen well into old age.
There are certain things that you can do that supports your brain in growing these new cells. One predominant activity that leads neurogenesis is exercise. Specifically, getting your heart rate up and improving the delivery of oxygen to all the cells and organs in your body, including your brain.
This is important when thinking about sustaining healthy cognition late into life – you need to move your body every day. It doesn't mean that you have to go and do a big workout at the gym (if you're not into that) - walking is also fantastic for your brain. Walking is cheap and it’s easy to get outside, get on a treadmill, take the stairs (instead of the elevator), or simply park your car further away from the store entrance, so that you must walk to get to the store. There's a lot of simple ways that don’t include going to the gym and doing a workout, where you can actually increase your physical activity levels, elevate your heart rate and support your brain health.
Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is produced by the brain and it is upregulated when you exercise. BDNF is vital in the growth and production of new brain cells. There are literal biochemical changes that happen in your brain when you exercise.
Brain chemicals, Hormones and Exercise
There are several brain chemicals that are impacted by exercise, including norepinephrine (noradrenaline), epinephrine (adrenaline), and serotonin. Hormones are also affected by exercise, including cortisol (stress hormone), estrogen and testosterone. When you exercise, cortisol levels are briefly elevated. But, interestingly, regular exercise makes your stress response steadier; so, you’re less likely to have massive surges of stress response when unexpected things happen in your life, if you do regular cardiovascular exercise. Also, regular exercise is associated with improved mood, positivity bias and just feeling better in general (due to its impact on serotonin – your happy brain chemical).
How much exercise?
The standard recommendation is 150 minutes of exercise a week (about 30-minutes a day on average).
Fundamental rule = move your body every day in some way.
What exercise should you be doing?
There are different benefits that are derived from different exercises. For example, there’s a lot of information that says getting out and walking in nature has benefits beyond walking on a treadmill. But, if you don't have ready access to getting out and walking in nature, getting on a treadmill is a great alternative.
The bottom line is just do something that moves your body every day. For example, if gardening makes you happy and you love it, then do that. If you like swimming, then go for a swim.
Simply pick something that you love and do it!
It is fundamental that you love it, because the key is that you need to do it regularly - so you have to enjoy it.
Socializing and Brain Health
Humans are social animals. We did not evolve to be isolated. We are a very social species. Dr. Charvat reminds us that our socializing should be the face-to-face kind, not the Facebook kind.
People who engage in regular social interaction with other humans show:
Increased performance on cognitive tests
Greater memory
Better attention
Higher levels of empathy
Greater emotion recognition and regulation
Improved impulse control
So many different processes are happening in your brain while socializing, including:
Deciding how the current information under discussion fits into your existing ideas about the world.
Is this consistent with what I believe in or not?
Is this new information that might require me to adapt or think differently or make an exception to my existing rule about this information?
Analyzing the information in terms of the broader context of understanding
The conscious and subconscious interpretations of cues that come from body language, voice inflection and eye contact.
In fact, research studies show that 93% of the meaning we assign to what a person says comes not from the words they say but from their body language and other variables like the amount of eye contact they make and their tone and pace when they speak.
Your working memory is ignited as you try to store the current information being discussed in short-term memory, so that you can appropriately navigate through the conversation, mirror back what is said and have an engaging interaction with the other person.
Your long-term memory might also be ignited as you seek to place new information in the greater context of what we already know or might have learned or seen before.
Impulse control - you also have to monitor yourself, so you don’t talk over each other.
As you practice all of these things in your interactions with other humans, you sustain and grow the neural network connections that support this behaviour. In fact, there is no other stimuli (a thing or event that evokes a specific functional reaction) that causes the brain to light up in the way that reading another person does.
Dr. Lisa Berkman at Harvard found that people who were socially active experienced less decline in memory. In fact, people with large social networks were 26% less likely to develop dementia.
It is incredible that all of these processes are happening while you're having a conversation with someone and that many of them are subconscious. In other words, you are not aware that these multitude of processes are taking place, but your brain is working away and putting all of the pieces of a conversation together.
Of course, you know what socializing entails, but below are a few suggestions for inspiration:
Phone conversations with family and friends
Join a group – e.g., playing cards, book club, etc.
Attend community lectures
Go for walks around your neighbourhood and meet your neighbours.
Get a dog and take it for a walk
Water aerobics classes
Join a gym
Volunteer
Tai Chi
Join a dance class
Etc.. The possibilities are endless!
Conclusion
To learn more about Dr. Mylea Charvat and Savonix you can visit their website by clicking here. Don’t forget to tune in next week, when we’ll be sharing part 2 of this series with Dr. Charvat.
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