Good sleep is essential for the health of your brain. The quality of your sleep is directly related to how well or how poorly your brain functions. During sleep, you consolidate memories and wash away the waste your brain produces during the day while it is hard at work. But the reality is that a lot of people have trouble getting good quality sleep. Specifically, as people get older, they report having a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. Tune in to learn more about sleep, cognition, and aging!

Even short bouts of inactivity can have a surprisingly negative impact on your health. Being physically inactive can accelerate the onset of chronic musculoskeletal conditions, as well as increase your risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. To learn more about the link between sedentary behaviour & disease, and how to boost your physical activity levels in your everyday life, be sure to tune in!

The new year is upon us – but, instead of talking about new year’s resolutions, I want to talk about the importance of “getting out of your comfort zone.” All of the magic happens in the discomfort of trying something new and not knowing the outcome. Discomfort is where you get to grow and expand as an individual. Making the decision to challenge yourself is not easy. It goes against your natural instinct to seek safety and security; but, when you push past discomfort, you will quickly see how capable you are.

Happy New Year's Eve!! The start of a new decade, and the year 2020, is just around the corner. You want to make the most out of the upcoming year, so let's talk about goal setting. To help guide you through planning out and implementing your goals for 2020 and beyond, I'm sharing a FREE TOOL to help you create SMART goals. To learn my personal goal-setting process and to access your FREE Brain Boosting Starter Kit, be sure to tune in!

Laughter is a powerful tool that can have a tremendous impact on your health. Humour and laughter aids in the promotion of cognitive and physical health, helps protect against disease, decreases stress, helps to improve quality of life, and can even boost your immune system. In this episode, we're talking with Lynda Del Grande about an incredible program: "Caring Clown." This program helps to spread laughter and joy to people with moderate to advanced stages of dementia who are living in long-term care homes.

Listen to Dr. Andrea Wilkinson’s talk at the Canadian Federation of University Women’s November Speaker Series on Pathways to Aging Well. In this talk, Dr. Wilkinson highlights the importance of lifestyle modifications for optimizing the health of your brain and cognition as you age. Specifically, she covers the science behind the four key pillars of brain health (physical fitness, food & nutrition, socializing, as well as mental considerations - including sleep, stress management and mental challenges).

You want to live an energized and productive life. Many of you are currently embarked on a path where you are using your skills, interests and passions to make an impact. Retirement can be one of the most fulfilling and exciting phases of a person’s life. “Many adults over the age of 60, 70 and beyond are re-writing the meaning of aging and what modern aging means today and going forward.” Today’s guest, Diana Todd-Banks talks about redefining and mastering the second phase of life.

Grief is a natural response to loss, but it can be overwhelming. Coping with grief – at first – may seem impossible; but, there is a way to live with your grief. In this episode, we’re talking with Dr. Olga Lavalle. She understands grief from two perspectives: as a Clinical Psychologist and also as a widow after the sudden death of her husband in 2014. Dr. Lavalle wrote a book called “The New Normal: A Widow’s Guide to Grief” to share her unique perspective and to help others learn to manage.

Elderhood has been praised as a “monumental book about growing old in America--with powerful arguments and revolutionary conclusions that will challenge your assumptions and open your mind about aging.” In this episode, we’re talking to Dr. Louise Aronson about her New York Times bestselling book - Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life. Dr. Aronson is a leading geriatrician, writer, educator, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The challenge of providing care for a loved one as they progress through dementia has often been overlooked by our healthcare system. Changes in mental functions, physical mobility, and care needs are constantly shifting. The demands on the caregiver are often being juggled along with them trying to manage their own lives, careers, and homes. In this episode, we're talking with Rosemary Laberee, author of "Mondays with Myrtle" – a book about Rosemary's personal experience with her mother's dementia and the lessons learned along the way.

Brain fitness is similar to physical fitness, but instead of exercising your body you are strengthening your mind. In this episode, we’re talking about how engaging in consistent mental effort activates different parts of your brain and how this ultimately affects your cognition (e.g., memory). To help us better understand how an engaging lifestyle can delay cognitive aging and change your brain, I’ll be sharing the research and work of Dr. Denise Park – Director of the Park Aging Mind Laboratory in the Center for Vital Longevity at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Many of us believe that helping others is a virtue. We want to contribute to our communities and give back to society through, for example, volunteering, helping our neighbours, and making charitable donations. This episode covers how prosocial behaviour changes with age and takes a more in-depth look at what motivates these specific types of behaviours. Are older adults more prone to prosocial behaviour than younger adults? Tune in to find out!

Staying independent and living in your home is of utmost importance to you. In line with this goal, you must create a home environment that supports any changes to your physical mobility, flexibility, and balance as you age. Small modifications to your living environment can have a tremendous impact on creating a space that you can safely grow older in for years to come. In this episode, we’re talking with one of the founders of “Aging Evolved.” Their mission is to elevate the concept of aging into something empowering and help older adults live independently at home for as long as possible.

How does that word “SHAME” make you feel? For many of us, “shame” is a bad word, and we would rather avoid it than talk about it. In this episode, Dr. Shawn Horn enlightens us about a different way to approach shame, and teaches us about the differences between healthy and unhealthy shame. Dr. Horn also talks about how a better understanding of our own shame experiences can help us improve our relationship with ourselves, as well as with those around us.

This episode concludes our three-part series on the impact of 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 3 (conclusion) where Dr. Charvat discusses how food and nutrition affect your brain and shares more about her company Savonix and the interesting work they are doing.

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.

This episode covers part 1 of a three-part series on the impact of lifestyle factors (including sleep, exercise, staying socially engaged and diet) on 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 1 of this three-part series. Here you’ll learn about cognition and the first lifestyle factor that impacts the health of your brain: sleep.

Have you ever wanted to explore a new career path post retirement? Do you have interests from when you were younger that you never got to fully realize, and you always wondered “what if”? Do you have passions and goals that you want to explore now that you finally have the time to do so?

In this episode, we’re talking about alternative ageing with Suzi Grant - an author, broadcaster & founder of “Alternative Ageing” - a successful blog for the over 50s.

Part two of this 2-part series on the benefits of weightlifting for seniors will cover cognition, mental health, mortality rates, how your body processes glucose (or sugar) and your sleep. The content covered in this series is from an excellent article titled the “78 Science Backed Benefits of Weightlifting for Seniors” written by Nicholas Rizzo and published on RunRepeat.com.

Part one of this 2-part series on the benefits of weightlifting for seniors will cover reducing age-related muscle loss, increasing your metabolism, reducing your risk of falls, improving your bone health and optimizing your cardiovascular health. The content covered in this series is from an excellent article titled the “78 Science Backed Benefits of Weightlifting for Seniors” written by Nicholas Rizzo and published on RunRepeat.com.